Houston
Someone once said that the bumps in the road wouldn’t last long.
But the more I traveled down the road of life shit wasn’t adding up.
It was a bold face fucking lie, if I could be honest. For the last three years, the bumps were endless, monumental, and damn near torture for me.
Some large, some small, all fucking bumps in the road preventing me from getting my life and emotions in check.
It was hard trying to smooth them out without hurting innocent people. But people got hurt anyway.
Here I was, a thirty-three-year-old widow left to raise my son all by myself without a manual or a guide to assist. If raising a son wasn’t already hard, it became ten times harder when I lost my wife, Leslie.
The hardest part was raising him in a world that wasn’t so kind to the black male.
Between proving ourselves and worth, it was a struggle in itself.
I was struggling to be a businessman, a father, and keep my own head above the line of depression.
Just one of those days seemed to be my type of day, every day.
When I woke up this morning the universe gave no indication that today would be a trying day.
I made breakfast for my son Malone, checked the work schedule, dropped my son off at school and started the day’s work.
Like every other day, I prayed to God that it would run smoothly.
With no hiccups or unpredicted issues, it would be a decent day; a better day than what I was used to experiencing.
It wasn’t until the infamous call of the week from Ms. Norwood came flashing on my phone.
Malone was showing his ass in school again.
Before I even answered I knew what the context would be.
“Mr. McGraw, I hate to inform you that this is not a business call.”
“I figured that,” I commented, not here for the cat-and-mouse game we normally played when she called to ruin my mood.
“Malone has become a problem. I hope you are on your way, so we can discuss this once and for all.” This was my fourth time visiting my son's school for his wild behavior this month.
As silly as it sounded, I was starting to feel like Malone was being targeted by the people that were supposed to protect him.
None of the calls were positive, never giving good feedback.
It was always Ms. Norwood with the negativity.
Me being a man that possessed few words was probably the hardest part of all this.
I knew how to discipline, but that wasn’t the problem.
I didn’t know how to handle my own situation without feeling like a bitch.
So showing love and understanding to Malone was what made this problematic.
Malone didn’t need an iron fist; he needed someone who was comfortable discussing those feelings that I couldn’t.
I was the man you would see and not be able to figure out.
Never saying too much, never showing emotions or wearing my feelings on my sleeve.
I was a man that had shut myself off from the world after death came and wrecked my home.
The world didn’t look so beautiful once the light of my life left.
Dark and gloomy no matter what the heat index was for the day.
The forecast could say clear skies and my vision would see it in reverse.
It was killing me as I progressed. I was aware of the damage but figuring out how to change it would take time I didn’t have
“Ms. Norwood, trust me, I understand. I’m doing my best,” I replied with my head hanging low like a chariot.
The phone was in my hands and clenched tightly.
At any second I felt ready to crush it with my bare hands.
She continued to go on and on about the trouble Malone had caused.
My mind checked out, I was barely listening to her rant and rave about what he did this time.
I had grown tired of hearing the same shit over and over.
“I don’t think you do, sir. If Malone wants to cut up in class he won’t be able to do it here.”
I sighed into the phone because now it seemed as if she was scolding me for the behavior of a growing nine-year-old.
I wasn’t standing for that shit. In a few short seconds, I would forget who I was and what I had on the line.
The southside was always in me and still holding on tight.
It would be in her best interest to chill the fuck out.
“I do, you just called the other day. I get it, he fucking up.” This was the second time this week that Malone had found himself in some sort of trouble.
Today it was him running around the classroom telling the teacher to ‘count her fucking days,’ and I couldn’t help but laugh silently.
Her nasally, too deep of a voice for a woman sounded and broke my laughter and she was offended.
It served her right, after all, she was always offending me.
“I assure you it’s more than that. Day in and day out Malone is hindering the environment for other students. There is nothing funny or humorous about that.”
“What did the teacher do?” I inquired. Malone was nine going on ninety-five.
I wasn’t making excuses for my son, but something had to set him off.
Malone wasn’t able to freely cuss at home and I made sure to choose my words carefully when he was around me.
This stunt and his language was news to me.
She went on record that he said it over twenty times.
I was caught off guard. Malone was a lot of things but disrespectful to adults wasn’t one of them. That wasn’t how I was raising him.
“That’s not important,” she commented. I really wanted to understand where it came from.
I felt like I would be able to address it better if I was in the mind of my son.
Either way, right now I was ready to lay the smackdown on his young ass.
Malone didn’t understand how life worked and it would get him in shit later on down the line.
Lacking understanding of how the world operated was the only thing I despised about him being so damn smart.
He had all the book sense but hadn’t grasped common sense.
Trouble would find him if I couldn’t channel his energy into shit that was more positive.
“Ms. Norwood, with the way you call me multiple times a week, I would say it’s very important for you to share both sides of the story. I can’t reprimand him without having a conversation
that’s fair. That’s not how I rock.” It seemed like, since his mother passed away, something snapped within his tiny brain.
I was now bombarded daily with notes of Malone being less than an exemplary student.
It didn’t help that he went to one of the most prestigious elementary schools in Coupeville.
The students were expected to be the best in the state, groomed for greatness.
Malone didn’t know how to act but he was a child prodigy.
It was those smarts that even allowed him the opportunity to attend such a school.
If his attitude didn’t change, they would be kicking him out. I just knew it was coming.
Speeding and running all the lights along the way was me giving my best attempt to stop it from happening.
Malone couldn’t be removed from the school his mother worked so hard to prepare him for, this was what she wanted.
Leslie wanted him to attend a school that would set him up for life.
I wanted that for my son also, but I knew Mal would thrive anywhere.
“Mr. McGraw, listen I know it’s hard raising him by yourself, but, Malone, is only a few strikes away from getting kicked out the program.
That would be devastating because he’s a brilliant boy,” my hazel orbs rolled to the top of my head and I exhaled.
I was on my way even though traffic was on the level of Atlanta.
Cars were all over and it was lunchtime rush and people filled the streets at every intersection.
It seemed like the small city had turned into a new metropolis overnight.
“We are growing every day and we have a long waiting list. It’s time for him to take his blessing seriously. ”
I disconnected the line before she pissed me off further. True, it was a blessing that he was in the program. But he earned that spot fair and square. My son wasn’t some fucking charity case. Malone could read on a sixth-grade level, he could write in
cursive before he was enrolled, and his math skills were off the charts.
My son was a damn beast with his education.
He paid his dues, and he earned that spot.
The blessing was on Coupeville Prep for having the ability to teach him and be around such greatness.
It wasn’t the other way around. Fuck what Ms. Norwood was talking.
“Lord, I need just a little patience,” I mumbled as I continued to drive and ponder. I was doing something wrong, but I just couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I was doing at the moment. I wanted to do better for Malone, but it was like swimming in tar, attempting to migrate through the mess I created.
Leslie was gone, and it was just Malone and me with a few friends and family members scattered between us.
Malone was six years old when she passed away from a brain aneurysm.
We had no indication that there was a problem or that she would be gone in the blink of an eye.
I drove, and that painful memory came to my mind like a movie on the big screen.
The pasta was boiling rapidly as I watched my wife grab her head in pain, “Babe something is wrong. I haven’t had a migraine like this in years.”