A Woman And Her Bag

The Dark Side of Commitment.

Back in my day, being born a virgin was cool but choosing to remain that way brought a measure of scorn and rebuke not seen this side of The Scarlett Letter. A sex life at thirteen was more important that A’s and B’s; it was the hip manner of things. I was sheltered as a lad. Didn’t too much bother me any because all I really wanted to do was watch The A-Team and eat Chips Ahoy. The tight ship my dad ran didn’t allow for much else. There was a long list of infractions that I dare not breach for fear of reprimand, so the snug leash of a draconian father constrained me to a bubble and the onslaught of insensitvity lauded at me by classmates — and family — for saving myself did nothing to break me out of it. School came to be the bane of my adolescence. But it didn’t kill me. I lived. I grew up. And I eventually started dating.

A Mom’s Heart

After high school, I opted to take my talents to a historically black college of reputable standing but not too far away from home. College was great; the best four years of my life in fact but the bubble didn’t burst. Not quite yet. From my less than stellar foray as a student in high school, I was all too acquainted with the wiles of saucy chicks, so it was my doing to keep my guard at attention. My time in college didn’t wait for me however. Before I knew it, I was a rising senior. Full, unadulterated accountability for my own actions were on the horizon.

Upon graduating — degree in hand nothwithstanding — I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I couldn’t sit and ponder on it forever. Bills had to be paid. The writing was on the wall. I took a job at the local textile factory not too far from my house. It was there that I met a gal. A cute ol’ long-legged thang she was. The reclusive introvert that I am, one day I stepped outside my comfort zone and broke the proverbial ice.

“Hey excuse me…is your name Dee Dee?” I’d been doing my own digging and found out that her formal name was Vanessa but Dee Dee was short for her middle name: Dione.

Smiling, she retorted, “Yes it is. How’d you know that?”

“Let’s just say that I’ve got friends everywhere,” I said matter-of-factly with a look that spelled cunning radiating across my face.

In short order over the next few days, we exchanged pleasantries and we ultimately grew close. I finally had my first girlfriend at twenty-three years old. Mom and pop didn’t know for awhile. They raised me an introvert and that’s what I was determined to stay. But feasibly at some point, I had to lift the veil and let it be known. When I did, it was met with a layer of critique.

“Son I don’t want you getting involved with no woman with kids. Readymade…readymade! I don’t want no son of mine getting mixed up with no readymade family,” my mother said to me one day when she could no longer inhibit her misgivings that I was no longer her little boy.” A woman with kids just did something to her. Guess she felt that now was the time to obstruct me from the kind of duress that had embittered her for so long as a child.

She was the product of dysfunction while growing up and she had always made fleeting comments about her distaste for stepfathers and broken families but nothing so overtly visceral like this. Now that I was too big to go across her knee, in concert with having a roving eye, her stance on the matter was in full bloom. For years her aversion to a disjointed home life was pretty much her secret. She didn’t really make it our business. She became defensive in the fact that she was losing her baby boy, and now it was our secret.

But I honestly didn’t know where this was coming from. Vanessa didn’t have kids, so I couldn’t understand what prefaced the outburst.

“Ma…will you chill out? That girl aint got no youngans; don’t worry. I don’t want kids of my own and I darn sure don’t want to raise anyone else’s,” I asserted. “She doesn’t have kids. I’ve been to her spot and it’s just her and her grandmother.”

Through my digging, I learned that she had lost her home in a fire and she was hanging out at her grandmother’s pad ’til she regained her stability. The few times I was able to visit: no kids! No pictures of kids. No mention of kids. I was home-free and I was beginning to embrace the kinship that we were forging.

I’m cut from my mother’s cloth; inexorable and uncompromising. I am her child. So I was way ahead of her where talk on raising another man’s kids were concerned. I wasn’t into kids. If there were any to be had, then by all means, he or she would have to come from my loins. Raising a stranger just didn’t do it for me. You’d have better luck drowning a fish than gaining my approval on that one. But I had come out of my shell just a bit. I had girlfriend now, so the bubble was buckling but hadn’t all the way burst and I wasn’t too keen on engaging more parties that I had to.

Darkness And The Bag

Vanessa and I worked opposite shifts. She was on first and I was on second. Between the graveyard shift and second, the 3–11 shift was the shift for me. Even though it was late when I got off, if I didn’t see her for a few minutes after quitting time at eleven, then the extent of our interaction was in passing on the job as I was clocking in and she was clocking out every afternoon, and I was growing wearing of that. So every now and again despite the late hour, I’d scurry to her house just to play host to whatever quality time we could muster. I didn’t particularly care for this arrangement but the current state of affairs didn’t offer the luxury of choices. So one night after work, I paid her a quick visit. I always told her when I planned to come. I wasn’t planning on staying long because I was a little beat and was looking forward to sprawling out on my own couch. But I hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to be alone with her as of late as we were working seven days straight at the plant for the last few weeks. It had been awhile since we had an off day so swinging by for a few minutes, I figured would serve us right. I arrived at the house and to my surprise she was up. Normally even when she knows I’m coming, she’d be sleep when I got there. This was rare. She said she hadn’t been resting well lately and had become restless. Even offered to whip up some groceries before I left; something quick. It was common knowledge that I never really ate at work due to the sucky cafeteria food and it was my custom to cook full-course meals at midnight after working a full shift without eating.

“I know you’re hungry. You have a taste for anything in particular?” she asked. By this point, we had been together for a couple of months or more and I figured that by now she was accustomed to what I liked and disliked. My penchant for impressive food is legendary but it doesn’t too much deviate. She had for all intents and purposes cooked everything I liked up to that point.

“Sheesh, you have to ask? You’ve been with me long enough now gal. You know what I’m down for. Of course I’m not gonna be long no way,” I said. “If you must, just cook me up a burger; that should be quick enough.”

“You want something to drink?” she asked.

“Nah I’m good.”

She went in the kitchen to make it happen. Hell I love a good burger and the temptation was growing mightier by the second to have her cook me two by the way it was smelling. But I digressed and didn’t want to push the envelope. While she was in the kitchen, I lunged to grab the remote at the end of the couch. When I did, I chanced upon the sight of a bag. The sight of the bag wasn’t out of context. The contents thereof were however. There was enough candy in the bag to quench the liking of an entire kindergarten class.

And I’m thinking, “Vanessa doesn’t have a sweet tooth. This woman drinks coffee…BLACK! What the heck is going on here?”

I didn’t let on that my curiosity had gained the edge over me so I played it cool until she came back in the living room. It was about ten minutes or so after she had first gone in the kitchen when she returned.

“Vanessa…”

“Yes?”

At this point, the solemnity of body language was in order. I point with my index to the bag full of confections, then probed her with an inquisitive gaze.

Her very own body language gave her away. Whatever was going on, the agenda didn’t include my knowing about it.

THEN I spoke. “Why do you have all this candy? Jesus Christ, it’s enough for ALL God’s Children!”

“I have something to tell you,” she said sheepishly.

“What is it Vanessa?”

“That candy…”

“Yea…”

“It was given to me by my friend Sheila at work. She went to the carnival last week and she got it for me.”

“That doesn’t explain why YOU would have it, Vanessa. You don’t eat like that. You don’t even dig sweets.”

“Androne,” she said, “…it’s my daughters.”

I became legally blind, temporarily insane, and schizophrenic all at once. Now THIS, cannot be! I know it ain’t!

I stood up. I wanted to ensure that she felt the conviction of my words at eye level.

“Vanessa, what did you just tell me again? KIDS?????? Where they been for the last two months???”

“Androne the words that it would have taken to tell you — a man who doesn’t want kids — that I had children would have never done the pain of losing you any justice. I felt that your knowing from the outset that I was with children, you’d never given me the time of day and I was really feelin’ you. I am so sorry and I know that this was carried out under false pretenses but please don’t leave me because of this. I do believe that I love you, Androne. Please don’t leave me this way…Please.”

I drew closer to her, almost to the point of our garments touching. “How poetic Vanessa and oh how so ironic given the fact that you may end up losing me anyway behind this mess. Why in the world would you choose to handle it this way? You say you felt that I would have never given you the time of day if I knew, but by all means I’m sure you understand the sense of betrayal I’m feeling right now. By withholding need-to-know info like that, I feel like you inversely lied to me.”

She drearily sits down at the opposite end of the sofa where the TV remote once laid. She withers into herself and cries.

Meanwhile, I grab my hat on my way out the door. My appetite is old news. “You leaving me?” she asked.

“I’ll just holla at ya later,” I said void of emotion. If she’s lucky, we will indeed talk again. If my unease about this awakening persists, the next hamburger she cooks will be for another guy. But for now, I’m just ready to go.

“I’m not hungry, Sorry. You kind of took the wind out of my sails with that one. I better get going. We may discuss this later; we may not. It’s late…I’m out of here.”

From that point on, I never made eye contact with her again before I left. I start my Toyota 4Runner, pull out of her driveway, and make a beeline to Highway 11.

As I’m driving home, I’m rummaging thru my thoughts and Lord only knows I don’t want to come across as shallow in my disinterest of being the presence of reason that her girls just may be yearning for. But the character in which this situation was executed left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s really not hard to tell the truth you know…or is it?

I have my mother now and her qualms about the matter to contend with. As far as she knew, her son was against readymade unions. Her son would never date a woman with kids. I swore to it. As far as I knew, I wasn’t! Now I have to double back and tell her that the last two months of her son’s life were a lie.

There is no hard and fast fix here because THE TRUTH is, I think I love Vanessa too. Once we begin to mesh in the way smitten lovers do, this thing of ours became something metaphysical. Something that I frankly didn’t want to do without. To that end, being sold out to her seemed like the right thing to do. My eye didn’t rove anymore. I didn’t want anybody else. The one time I played favorites with commitment, it came with a caveat. If I chose to continue to love her, then I would have to love ALL of her. Her kids weren’t sold separately. Package deal non-negotiable.

This will be tough. I’ve crossed over into the threshold of The Darkside….