“Hey, baby,” he says. “How you doing?”
Just once, why couldn't I get called baby by someone I want to hear it from?
“Hey, Terrell,” I say. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah, no doubt,” he says. “Damn, girl, your face takes me back. You miss me or somethin'?”
“Not hardly,” I say.
“What are you doing here? I ain't seen you in years.”
“It's about Dre,” I say. “Our son.”
Terrell looks confused for a moment. Like he doesn't even remember Dre exists. Then he nods.
“You got any cigarettes?” he asks.
I was ready for this. I remembered a friend of mine telling me that in prison cigarettes are like cash. She had a brother in the slammer, and he was always bugging her for smokes. So I brought Terrell a couple of packs. I didn't think it was a great idea to put that poison in his body if he was going to give my son a kidney, but then I figured he'd been smoking right along anyway. A couple more packs wasn't going to change anything.
I give Terrell the cigarettes. He nods in appreciation and lights one up.
“Dre in trouble?”
“You could say that.”
“Just like his old man.”
“No, he ain't.” I say that a little too fast. I don't want to make him mad. But old hurts die hard.
“What's up?”
I don't beat around the bush. I tell him straight out. Terrell listens without changing his expression. Then he's quiet for a minute while he thinks.
“I got this rare blood type?” he asks.
“Yeah, you do,” I say. “I remember these things.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I'll do it.”
I'm so amazed I nearly fall off my seat.
“Just like that?” I say. “No bargaining? No excuses? No trying to get out of it?”
“Hell, no. I ain't like that no more,” says Terrell. “This my boy we're talking about. Right?”
“Well, it's about time you thought of him as your son,” I say.
“Besides,” Terrell goes on, “I heard about something like this. This one dude, he gave his brother a kidney. It got him out of the joint early. You score a lotta points with the parole board for somethin' like that.”
“You meanâ?”
“I got another ten years in here,” says Terrell. “I'm buggin'. I can't deal with it. My whole life is passin' me by. Next month we all have to quit smoking. I'd give someone my head if it would get me out early. You tell my boy he can have my kidney. He can have both kidneys and my liver too. Just as long as it gets my ass outta here.”
A
fter my visit to Terrell, I feel two different ways. I'm happy Dre is going to get a kidney. But I can't believe Terrell's main concern is for himself. He really feels nothing for his own son. How can that be?
I guess it must be different for men. Dre didn't come out of his body. And he didn't watch him grow up. If he did, he would see him as a person. Not just a way of getting out of prison early.
I decide to call the parole board and ask if it's really true he can get out early for donating a kidney. They tell me there are no guarantees, but it would help Terrell's case a lot. It would show he's ready to start giving back to the world, instead of stealing from it. The way Terrell's mind works has me spinning. He had this whole angle figured in two seconds. Dre is just a means to an end.
It doesn't matter. It's not like we will owe him anything. We'll both be getting something out of the deal.
So I decide not to think about it anymore. And I also decide I'm not going to say anything to Dre about Terrell's real reason for wanting to help. He doesn't need to know. Let him think he has a father who cares. Let him feel for once like the world isn't a completely cold and hard place.
Dr. Wendell warned me that donating a kidney was complicated. Once we found a potential donor, he would have to do more tests to make sure it really was a good match. So I don't tell Dre yet that we might have a kidney for him. He doesn't even know I went to see his father. I let the doctor's office know Terrell said yes. They say they will start the process, whatever that means. We have to sit tight and wait. It shouldn't take too long.
In the meantime I take Dre every other day for dialysis. It helps him feel a lot better. There's no way he can go to school, so I get his homework for him. Last thing I want is for him to fall behind.
We have a lot of time to sit and talk while he's getting his treatments.
“You still thinking about college?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I'm still thinking about it.”
“You keep those grades up, maybe you'll get a scholarship,” I say.
“Yeah, well, we both know that's the only way I'm getting an education,” he says.
“There's always the community college. You could start there. Learn some kind of a trade. Then move on up the ladder. Nothing wrong with that.”
But Dre shakes his head. His dreadlocks whip back and forth.
“University,” he says. “That's where I belong.”
Dre sees himself as a professor. I don't know where he gets this from. I never liked school much. I certainly never thought about getting a higher education. I was happy just to finally get my GED when I was twenty-six, after almost ten years of being a single mom.
That was also the year I met Ernest and we got married. For a while, things were looking up. Ernest had a good job managing an electronics store. We lived in my little house. Soon Marco came along. We were a real family.
But Ernest had a little problem staying faithful. I don't know for sure how long his affair with that salesgirl was going on. I know one thing: I couldn't ever trust him again, not after she started calling our house. He swore up and down it would never happen again, but by then it was too late.
I can be a very understanding person⦠sometimes. If you break your promise to have your pizza at my house in thirty minutes or less, I'll give you a second chance. But if you break your marriage vows to me, you're out the door.
“I'm proud of you,” I say to Dre.
“Why?”
“For going to university.”
“Mama,” he says, “what are you talking about? I haven't even finished high school yet.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I'm just proud of you for even wanting to do it. You don't know how much that means to me. All a mother wants is for her kids to do well. And you will.”
“If I make it through this, you mean,” he says, nodding at the machine.
“You will,” I say again. “I just know it.”
Then the bad news comes. A few days later, I get a message on my cell to call Dr. Wendell's office.
“I'm afraid I have bad news,” he says. “Terrell can't be a donor. There's no way.”
My heart falls into my feet. I should have known this would happen.
“Why not?” I ask.
“We ask our potentials a list of questions,” he says. “And one of those questions is, Have you ever done intravenous drugs?”
“Let me guess,” I say. “He answered yes.”
“I suppose we should be grateful he told the truth,” says Dr. Wendell. “If he had any diseases, we would have caught them in the screening. But maybe something else would have popped up down the line, after it was too late. We can't take that chance.”
“Does Terrell know?” I ask. I wonder how upset he is, now that he's not getting out of prison early.
“He knows. The nurse stopped the interview right there.”
I go quiet. I'm just thinking.
“Linda,” says Dr. Wendell. “Are you there?”
“I'm here.”
“I realize this isn't good news. But there's another possibility. Terrell told me he has another son.”
I can hardly believe my ears. But I don't know why I'm surprised either. Terrell probably has a whole tribe of kids out there, all from different mothers.
“And this person is listed as a potential donor for Terrell in case he ever needs blood,” Dr. Wendell goes on.
“So he's the same blood type?”
“Yes. AB negative. And he'd be a close enough relative of Dre's. It could work.”
“How do I find this person?”
“Terrell doesn't know where he is. I gather he hasn't had much contact with him. But he told me the name of his mother. She would know.”
“Did he give you a phone number?”
“He doesn't have it,” says Dr. Wendell. “It sounds like she's moved around a lot. And she and Terrell are not exactly on good terms.”
I can certainly understand that.
“Well, how am I going to find her then?” I say, disappointed.
“Her last known address was here in the city,” says Dr. Wendell. “And these days, with the Internet, you can find almost anyone pretty quickly.”
“So if I get ahold of this woman, she could tell me where Terrell's other son is?”
“Possibly. It's worth a shot, don't you think?”
I
have exactly two facts to go on: Terrell's other son is named LeVon, and his mother's name is Angelique Johnson. That's it. Armed with this tiny bit of information, I go to the library to use one of their computers. I don't have one of my own yet. That's top of the list of things to buy, if and when I ever get a full-time job.
Bringing up Google is easy. But then I'm stuck. Is it really just as simple as typing in their names? I try that, but nothing comes up that makes any sense. I take away LeVon's name and just use Angelique Johnson. Again, a whole bunch of returns. But I'm getting closer. Some of them are directory listings. A lot of phone numbers and addresses. I just have to find the right one.
Then I realize I know more than I think I did. I know roughly how old she is. And I know she lives here in the city. Using this information, I get a directory listing. It turns out there is only one person named Angelique Johnson in this whole city. That doesn't mean it's her for sure. But it will be easy to find out.
I decide to go visit her in person. It would be too easy for her to hang up on me. I want to talk mother to mother. I have no idea what I'm going to say. I haven't got any kind of speech planned. I'm hoping it will just come out somehow.
Angelique Johnson lives not far from me, in the same part of the city. The poor part. The east side. She even lives in a house instead of an apartment.
But I can tell she doesn't own it. Her place is a lot more run-down than mine. There's trash in the yard. The weeds are taking over. The place needs a paint job. Empty bottles on the porch. I even see broken crack pipes in the street outside. This does not bode well. Angelique Johnson is the kind of person who gives the rest of us poor people a bad name.
It's about three o'clock in the afternoon. I knock on the door. It's locked tight, although around here that doesn't mean a person is away. People barricade themselves against crackheads and stray bullets.
I knock several times, but there's no answer at first. I was ready for that too. She probably thinks I'm a cop.
“Who is it?” a voice finally says from inside.
“Miz Johnson, my name is Linda Gonzalez. Can I talk to you?”
“What you want?”
“I need to talk to you about Terrell Jones.”
“Terrell? The hell with Terrell!”
“I agree,” I say. “Miz Johnson, I need your help bad. Can I please talk to you a minute? I have to ask you something about your boy LeVon.”
For a while I don't hear anything. Then the door opens. She stands before me, a tiny black woman with frazzled hair. She doesn't look too good. She's some kind of user, I think. Maybe not the hard stuff. Maybe just booze. But she's not holding down a nine-to-five, that's for sure. She's blinking like she hasn't seen daylight in a while.
“What you wanna know about LeVon?” she demands.
“I need to find him,” I say. “Terrell and I had a child together sixteen years ago. His name is Dre.”
“If you woulda come to me first, I woulda told you stay away from Terrell Jones,” Angelique announces. She puts one hand on her hip, and her head starts bopping side to side. “That fool ain't nothin' but trouble.”
“I know that,” I say. “Here's the thing. My son needs blood. And he has a rare blood type. Same kind your son has.” I just told my first lie in years. It doesn't feel great. But it's only a little one. And Angelique isn't really listening to me anyway. She's the kind of person who only cares about her own problems.
“Yeah? You need to find LeVon? Good luck. Only time I ever see that boy is when he wants money. He ain't been around lately 'cause I got none to give him. As you can see.” She spreads her arms out, as if to show me her entire life. I look past her into the house. It's a mess. There's hardly any furniture. Just a bunch of trash. And lots more empty bottles.
“How old is your son?” I ask.
“He's eighteen. No, wait, he's nineteen now.”
That means Terrell already had a son when he met me. I never knew that, of course. He didn't say a word.
“Terrell never told me about you,” I say.
“Where he at? He owes me child support.”
I tell her where Terrell is at. “Good luck getting it,” I add. “He never paid me a dime either.”
Angelique stares me up and down. For a moment I think she's going to get hostile. I'm her rival in getting child support from Terrell. But then her expression changes.
“What do I care? Ain't neither of us ever gonna see a dime from that deadbeat,” she says.
“Yeah, you're right there,” I say. “Some guys oughta just be kept away from women.”
“I'll tell you where LeVon hangs,”she says. “Go down to the projects here. The one with the big fountain out in front that don't run anymore. You see a bunch of punks hanging around, one of them is LeVon. That's where he is every day.”