So Much Better
Robert C. Price
My father was a saint and a sinner. A contradiction of identities he did not fully understand. I blame that on my Grandmother. The only child she ever had, led her to spoil him rotten; a feat unheard of in those days of strict discipline and “children should be seen and not heard” mantras. That did not sit too well with Raymond James. He said what he thought and did not suffer anyone’s feelings.
It was probably why he never held down a legitimate job. He once told me, “I make good money out here on these streets and I don’t want nobody telling me what I can do and when to do it. I’m my own man.”
He met my mother when she was 17. Fresh out of high school and as beautiful as a morning sunrise.
Miss Earlene Washington walked into the neighborhood pool hall where my father was hustling and snatched the breath out of him. From that day until I was born, they were inseparable. He even tried getting a regular “gig”, as he called it and a little apartment over my Grandmother’s hair salon, much to her delight.
It lasted for a while. Longer than what most people gave him credit. He just could not shake his one true love. Something my mother and I would lose to every time; the streets.
This macadam of degradation and misery hooked my father better than any drug or alcohol. He immersed himself in every facet of street life. Money and action was his high. Guns he kept close to his heart. And ankle. And in the small of his back.
As faithful as he was in his criminal activities, he was as single-minded in his efforts to instruct me in the ways of life. He always told me, “Ray Jr., I may not live with you and your mother, but boy, I know what you doing all the time. I’m like God. I know all and see all.”
When I turned ten, my father decided that he was taking over in my development. “The only way a boy is going to learn how to be a man is from another man,” he said to my mother. She laughed in his face.
“Do you know one I can send him to,” she chuckled.
He was not amused.
After much deliberation from my father, Earlene folded like a house of cards. She concluded that it was better not to argue with Ray Sr. He was making an effort to be a part of my life. Most of my friends did not know their fathers. She was not about to discourage his intentions.
I hung out with Ray every weekend at a brothel he lived and worked in. He would do some security and bartending in exchange for room and board. It is where I first learned sex or the idea.
The first time he brought me there; he snuck me in through the back door and hurried me up the stairs. In his haste, we nearly knocked down a tall, skinny, black woman coming out of one of the rooms.
She wore heavy makeup that clung to her like a mask and red underwear that left nothing to the imagination. They argued and exchanged epithets until he finally waved her off. As we headed to the room, I asked him, “Why was she dressed like that?” He paused at his door, turned and looked me straight in the eye and said, “She sells sex, boy,” paused again and asked, “Do you know what sex is?” I did not have to answer his question because he sat me at the foot of his bed and began to explain his version of the “birds and the bees.”
He sat there in his oak wood chair, thick chested and muscular, surveying my face for any sign of disinterest. For the first time, I felt tiny in his presence as he hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees. He looked as huge as a Rhinoceros on the African plains, but he spoke to me as if I was his equal.
“All these women living here are called prostitutes. We call ‘em in the streets ho’s or hookas. Now, Ray Jr., they sell sex to men and sex is when a man and a woman get together and have fun. I want to be as truthful with you as possible, so I’m going to show you a picture of what they do here in this house,” said Ray Sr.
He pulled a magazine from under his mattress, which the name escapes me, and flipped the pages to a picture of a man and a woman having “fun.” My eyes grew big as golf balls and I turned away, feeling flushed, with my eyes locked on the hardwood floor.
“It’s natural, boy. That’s what men and women do, but don’t mistake these pictures and what these hookas do as love. Do you know what love is?” he asked as he grabbed my chin to lift my head. I understood the word like any ten year old could. I knew I loved my mother and grandmother with all my heart because they were family. The opposite sex, however, wasn’t on the radar.
“Let me explain it the best way I know how. These women here sell a little piece of themselves each time they lay down with these men. Both of them don’t want to know each other. Its just business. But when you love someone, you give yourself freely. No strings attached. Now, sometimes love is good and sometimes bad. Your mother and I had good love. Enough to make you,” said Ray Sr. He was cut short by a banging on the door.
“Ray, we need you downstairs,” said a lanky man in a white t-shirt and gray dress slacks with suspenders. He spoke as if out of breath from running up the two flights of stairs.
“What is it,” said Ray gruffly.
“Some crazy lady downstairs waving a knife, looking for her husband. She screaming about calling the cops and it’s scaring the customers.”
“I’m not on right now. I got my son. You suppose to handle it.”
“Come on, brotha. You know how to handle these crazy chicks.”
He looked back at me, gave me a don’t–you-move glare, and grudgingly left with the lanky man. I waited a few minutes until I knew he was downstairs and snuck out to see what was happening. All of the prostitutes stayed in their rooms. Some did peek through their doors to see the commotion, but none dared to appear.
I sat at the top of the stairs, listening to it all. The woman held a young prostitute by knifepoint and demanded that her husband come down and face what was coming to him. Through her yelling, I heard people running out the backdoor. I could see my father, just a little, from the top step. He held his hands up and asked who her husband was.
“Joe Thomas!” she screamed. “I know he’s here. I see the car outside. That old, raggedy Lincoln. I hate that car just like I hate you.”
“Girl, I know Joe. He ain’t here, baby.
“Don’t you lie for him. That no good negro is here. Using our money for these ho’s.” She pushed the knife harder on the neck of the young girl, until it drew blood.
“Listen, baby. I’m telling you he ain’t here. That car out there is mine,” said Ray.
“You think I’m a fool!”
“No, suga. I think you love your husband enough to kill anyone who would try to take him, but I bought that car off him. He ain’t want you to know he got laid off. He needed money. I needed a car. Now, where he’s at, I don’t know, but he ain’t here.”
I peeked from the top step and saw Mrs. Thomas stare at my father for a long time. She was searching for a glimmer of deceit in his statement. After a while, she released the young prostitute and stormed out the house.
I saw my father turn to head upstairs and I rushed to his room. When he appeared, I tried to look as if I didn’t move from the bed. He chuckled and said, “I saw you when you ran, boy. You can’t fool me.”
He sat back in his chair as if nothing happened and continued the conversation.
“That you just saw downstairs was bad love,” he said, “She was willing to kill someone over what she thought was the truth. That’s not love, son. That’s possessiveness. She don’t love that man. She just wants to possess him. Own him. Remember, boy, nobody owns you and you don’t own them. A true man don’t do that.”
Later on that day, we got into that raggedy Lincoln and headed to one of his favorite restaurants. He bought two hoagies and two Frank’s orange sodas. We rode out to the park and sat there, eating our food and talking about nothing in particular. It was late into the evening when he brought me home and I could see Earlene peering through the window wondering what I was doing all day with my Pop. Before I left the car, he told me not to tell my mother about what happened with Mrs. Thomas. Then, he put his arm around my neck, pulled me close, and kissed the top of my head.
“I love you, son,” he said “And everything I’ve told you today is to get you ready for this world. You can be so much better than me. So much better.”
He told me that line every time I saw him until the day he passed away. My father lived, breathed the streets, and never apologized for it. Ironically, in the end, Cancer took him. He’s been stabbed, shot at, and had his jaw wired shut from a beating he took on a two-year prison stint, but he survived all of that only to be attacked from the inside. I was not surprised when he told me he was sick. I told him, “Pop, the only other man that was gonna knock you down would be God himself.” He laughed and said, “That would be the only other man I would respect other than you.”
Ray Sr. never hid anything from me. He told me straight and for that, I am truly grateful. The love he poured into me now flows through his grandchildren.
I’m reminded each day as I patrol the streets as a police officer that love works both ways. Some is good. Some is bad. My father and I had the good. No strings attached.
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