Tapestry 04: “How Daddies Were Invented”
That plea for beauty in a weeded field….
It was delivered by my daddy. Now, it’s confirmed that God is an artist and I am the art. He’s for sure sensitive about his shit.
Gather children because I’m about to tell you how daddies are invented. It started in the projects on Ft. Lauderdale FL under a few palms in 1994.
I’d approached the chanteuse in her chambers. I waited as I intuitively learned it took about 2 hours and 37 minutes after she came home from work and removed her bra before she could be approached safely for non-templated requests that she hadn’t prepared for.
“Body and Soul” was playing and that generally meant you could enter. I’d already level-set my expectations. While those girls didn’t know how this riddle unfolded, I did. I didn’t anticipate sitting on her lap while she told me fairytale. I came direct as knew she appreciated as I knew she'd be direct right back to me. No small talk.
“Do I have a dad?”
Pursed lips pursued.
My face you’ve since learned about reappears.
This wasn’t our first or last showdown.
One thing about the chanteuse though… she stays ready.
She reached into her nightstand to grab her black book, proceeded to write a number on piece of paper along with 1-800-COLLECT. “He lives in Alabama. Here’s his number”
Ok! Pause. Gather. Post-It Note. We’ll come back to this.
You need some more context because this shit is about to spin out of control and you’ve got to keep up. I’m giving it to you slow. You may want to bullet note some key findings because you’re going to think “now..how that..wait..when…she said what now....” is all coming forth for you shortly.
A helpful backstory.
I knew my paternal grandmother, well! From the BEGINNING. She was my grandma-ma. They called her Bess. A lovely blessing that the lord handmade for me. Dorothy Zbornakesque..light-skinned, regal, the jerryest of curls. She lived 5 minutes from me and adored me. She was the place I felt my fullest, where I could indulge in my own senses without considering others. She asked me questions. My opinion. And honored my perspective. My grandma-ma carried my soul for very fragile and tender years.
Now Bess came from “the other side of the tracks”. She worked by choice and was married to her esteemed pastor husband, George, for 43 years before he died, living in a custom home they purchased in the 60s and produced 4 sons they raised with good sense, morals and pedigree.
Bess and George, produced, George II, the third of the bunch. A statuesque, athletic man of smoked cocoa and mahogany. Regality that he wasn’t aware of because his humility wouldn’t allow, charisma that charmed, and a laugh that came from the depths of his belly with no effort.
Now you know just reading by that paragraph George has no business messing around with a young girl from around the way that already has a child. He was on his way to college the next year, by way of a track scholarship and connections which his father had already arranged for him. But, oh that chanteuse.
From the reports I’ve gathered through the credible sources I’ve poked, George and Veronica were a real deal. Intense love that escalated quickly. I’ve concluded that they both underestimated what this was going to be and neither of them anticipated not being able to manage their feelings during these summer months.
Well, a couple of months before it’s time for George to drive his new car to Alabama to go to the private college his father arranged… the chanteuse effortlessly drops a bomb.
Ya girl is unflinching. She’s in the second trimester and demanding college be canceled to stay and raise a family. If you recall that Grandaddy-Shadow situation I mentioned earlier you’d know there is already too much friction going on. George really didn’t have any pretty options here and he eventually tried to manage driving back and forth from Birmingham to Ft. Lauderdale every weekend to be with his baby mamma his parents didn’t know about. Needless to say, you know this comes to a hot mess of a fork-in-the-road. You ready? Ok…
George attempts to talk some sense into Veronica about how he needs to get his education and support his growing family. Veronica, “Nah.”… this baby belongs to my ex anyway. Let that sit for a minute before continuing.
Breakup Ensues. Silence. Distance. 11 months, 364 days later.
Readjust your posture, we’re about to nosedive.
George has since been shot in the spine, near death and in the ICU in Birmingham. Details on that in the memoir.
Veronica pulls up to the UPS Corporate Office downtown to bring an infant in a car seat to Bess’s office, unannounced of course.
Grandaddy is in the study writing his latest prolific sermon to move the people on Sunday and blithely unaware of my existence.
Me. Annoyed. Bothered. Something is off and I know it.
Now… Veronica walks into this lady’s office and puts this child on her desk as she’s literally on a phone call. What’s magical at this intersection is that my grandmother instantly recognizes who I am and immediately collapses her defenses. There’s no resistance. No friction. Just recognition and acceptance. She engulfed me as any first-time grandmother would and immediately began to explain the condition of George and conspire a plan with my mother to make this all make sense.
You’re asking what the plan is?! Oh, well what would you do if your stoic pastor-husband who did everything to the most integral of detail had provided beautifully for you and all of your children while letting you live, discovered that today you became a grandmother who also has a child on and off life support in another state?
You tell the baby momma to stay in the car, while you drop the baby off in the study without saying anything. Then, go to the Olive Garden where you can’t be contacted, and let the dust settle without being scathed is what you do apparently. So, they did!
Don’t get stuck here because the story hasn’t started.
Eat slowly, children. These amuse-bouche are complimentary before the house actually serves.
Christopher.
