The Family Man

It’s hard to know what to do when you gots a fambly. It’s even hard to know when it’s good to get yourself shot. I was fixen to kill myself a month ago, but everythin’ I wanted, I got it right now ’cause I got me a fambly.

I got a woman and eight chirdren. They weren’t mine to start with. They belonged to another man, but he got took off to jail and a second man come and took his place. He made a few more chirdren ’til the first man come back and let himself in through the front door. The second man say, “what you doin’ in my house?” The first man say, “This ain’t your house, it’s mine, and that woman you’re layin’ up with is my woman.” The second man say, “you’re wrong, they’re all mine now,” and he made some holes in him. So the first man go in the grave, the second man go to the prison the first man just come from, and the women is left alone with all her chirdren. That’s when I come along and got me a fambly.

There’s four boys and four girls. I can’t remember all their names, but there’s the boys and the girls. I got all the girls in one room and all the boys in th’other. I got a TV for each of their rooms, but I only run cable into the girls’ room. The boys got so mad they rush into the girls’ room and kick them out. I say, “OK, I’ll get you cable for you boys, too. You wait a minute, now.” So I got a splicer and put cable in the boys’ room for them to look at, too.

I keep the chirdren in the house all day long, I don’t let them go out in no street ’cause there’s bad shit goin’ on out there. You know there is ’cause the day I met them I was walkin’ back from the bridge, all hepped up ’cause I’m out of prison with no place to stay, no woman to stay with, and no chirdren to holler at. I had all that there before I went away, but my woman weren’t one to go visitin’ her man in prison. She go back down south to stay with her Momma. When I get out, she gone, and I can’t get to her ’cause the parole man would be lookin’ for me. I went to the bridge to jump off, but I got scairt. I start thinkin’ I’m gunna walk around a bit and go back to that bridge when I ain’t scairt no more.

Then, when I’m walkin’ around, I get to this corner and a bullet flew up and killed a man dead in front of me. I got scairt that another bullet might fly up and kill me, before I got me a fambly. Then I got mad, sayin’ to myself, you fool, you were fixen to jump off that bridge for a minute. Then a woman comes out of her house with her chirdren to stare at the body. I get to talkin’ with her and I ain’t mad or scairt about nothin’ no more.

The next mornin’ I’m layin’ up with the woman and I’m sayin’ I’m gunna hustle up some money and get TV’s and cable and that there, to keep the chirdren in the house where they’re not fixen to get shot. It been a long time since I lay up with a woman and it feel nice. The kids is makin’ noise in the house and that sound nice, too. I went to the bridge wantin’ all that there, but now I guess I don’t need to jump offen it no more.

I’m layin’ up with the woman and listenin’ to her chirdren and there’s a knock on the door. I go see who it is. His name is Chief and he’s fixen to sell drugs from out my house. Chief’s got a big ol’ scar that go from the corner of his mouth back to his ear, like a smirk. Behind him, on the sidewalk there’s three boys laughin’ around the white chalk mark where the man got shot last night. I take some reefer from time to time, that and a forty; but I won’t have nothin’ to do with no drugs ’cause I gots me a fambly here.

“Lookee here, I’m carryin’ paper on me right now,” I say, “I gots a parole man that keeps stoppin’ by.”

He say, a’right, he’ll have his boys stand on the corner outside my window and they won’t be comin’ in.

I keeps the radio on in the front room all day and all night long and I keeps the window open next to the radio. I never lock the door just like I never locked the door back home. The boys like listenin’ to the radio when they’re standin’ there, so they watch the house for me when I’m gone. When I’m home they watch it, too. Just in case that second man come home from prison one day.

Then one day my woman is pickin’ up the clothes from off the floor. She gunna wash the oldest boy’s pants. She go in the pockets and there’s a bag in there.

“What you got here in your pants, boy?” my woman say to him. She call him Jamel, I think.

“I don’t know,” he say back.

“Don’t say you don’t know when you know. What you doin’ with a bag of crack cocaine in your pants, boy?”

“I got it from Chief.”

My woman comes to me and say, “You gots to whoop that chile’s ass.”

“I ain’t whoopin’ no chile’s ass,” I say. “If that boy go to school and tells his teacher I done whooped his ass, I’ll be back in prison. You gots to do your own ass whoopin’.”

She whoops his ass and she whoops it good, ’cause she won’t have him bringing drugs in the house. Then she say to him, “you ain’t goin’ to school for the rest of the week.” Then she go out the door with the bag to smoke it up and get some mo’.

I’m sittin’ up in the house with the kids for the rest of the week. Their Momma hasn’t come home yet. No one want to go to school ’cause Jamel ain’t goin’. We’re runnin’ out of food ’cause I can’t get out to do a little hustle. I see Chief out the door and he look serious on one side of his face. I call his name and he turn around so I can see his smile.

“These chirdren’s Momma went up country,” I say. “Watch ’em a bit, so I can do a little hustle.”

I get back to the house that night and I’m carryin’ a bag of food. I see a man come steppin’ off the porch with a gun in his hand when I turn the corner. My woman’s back and she’s passed on the couch. The middle girl is cryin’ real bad, like to wake up her Momma.

I say, “Hush, chile. You wake up your Momma.” But she woke up anyway.

“I’m scairt,” the chile say.

“Where’s Chief?” I say.

“He left when Momma come home. After she go to sleep, a man come in and point a gun at me. He be wantin’ me to give him a bag.”

Crazy geeker, come in the door lookin’ for a bag, but Chief’s not there.

“I’m gunna go talk to him,” I say.

I wasn’t goin’ to fight the geeker or that there, I was just goin’ to talk to him and say that I got somethin’ to do with that chile. Just so he know that if he go disrespectin’ a girl, she gots a man who cares.

I’m fixen to run out the door and go find him, but the Momma is woke all the way now. These two females, the girl and her Momma, are pullin’ at me tellin’ me not to run off and get myself shot. I say, no, I ain’t gunna get shot, I’m just gunna go talk with that geeker. I got loose and just as I run off the porch all these cop cars come up from everywhere. I don’t know who called ’em, but someone did. All the cops jump out of their car and go chasin’ the geeker. I step back in the door so they don’t go after me. They all run up and down the street. This one cop with a big belly chases him till he’s out of breath and then he stands in the middle of the street with his hands on his knees.

The other cops run up on the geeker and he gets caught. We all watch when they put him in the police car. His eyes is all red and his mouth gone wild.

My woman say, “I’m glad you didn’t go talk to him like you was gunna cause you was fixen to get shot.”

“I don’t care if I do get shot,” I say to her. It weren’t a month ago a man got shot in front of me and I was scairt that a bullet might fly up and kill me dead. I was scairt then ’cause I didn’t have me a fambly. But I weren’t scairt a bit when I was fixen to go talk to the geeker with the gun. I figure if I got shot and lived, I’d feel good ’cause I got shot for a reason. If I got shot and dead, I don’t know how I’d feel ’cause I don’t know how you feel when you’re dead.

“You godamn fool,” she say. “If you get shot and dead I’d be mad as hell with you ’cause you gotsta stay and help me with these chirdren.”

That’s why I say it’s hard to know what to do when you gots a fambly. It’s even hard to know when it’s good to get yourself shot.