Man of the House, Inc.

By J. Stanford

All children need to be encouraged and supported. In that aspect, my son was no different than me as a boy or any other child. He needed both parents, family, extended family, community, and friends to assist in his development. I as a man had failed to cooperate with people to provide all of those things for him for so long, but after that, I knew that I had to do it. I had to get along with everybody, no matter how much it hurt. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to do him like people had done me. When it was clearly known that he was in need, I didn’t turn a blind eye and act liked things would work out. Things don’t work out by themselves. Things, no matter if it’s everything or anything or sometimes nothing, don’t work out until we do whatever it takes to work them out. When life is left to chance, the only result will be disappointment. Even when people are confident in their abilities and extraneous forces influence the outcome of their endeavors, there can and will be something to do that will ensure success. The question is if a person is in trouble, do the people who love him respond? If he calls out for help, will his friends come to his aid in times of need? How many of us watch ourselves and others drown in figurative ways while we stand on the shores and justify it by claiming there is nothing we can do? How sad are we when things that we don’t expect to happen, do happen and then we find out that we could have done or not done something to prevent it? Man of the House, Inc. is a membership in a fraternity of men who have dedicated themselves to empowerment, improvement and success of the black household, from within.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Stanford
• Release date: Oct 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311599513

J. Stanford

After a career in athletics I entered the professional world as an entrepreneur. My first business was Nafasi Fashions Intl. It was an underwear and loungewear design company. My second business was created and run simultaneously. It was a scouting and recruiting firm called Orion Scholar Athlete Resource Network. Orion was designed to provide exposure to the scholar athlete for college recruiters leveraging the advent of internet technology. My introduction to the world of corporate America saw me accept employment as a car salesman and miraculously fast graduation to car sales/finance management. My calling and natural inclination to entreprenuership sequed the information and skills gained in the finance office to my own financial planning and consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia called Dollars & Sense. $&C was more than just traditional financial planning. I combined general solutions that ranged from tax preparation and check cashing to full service investing and high end financial service management tools. As I grew and matured professionally, my personal affinity for arts, writing and motion pictures began to surface. I set aside my personal goals to assist my spouse to obtain an MD. In efforts to support my family financially, I ran an independently owned and operated moving company while starting up and learning the art and science of photgraphy and videography. J. Stanford Studios is my main focus personally. Professionally, I also own and operate Crystal Clear Window Cleaning Service. Now a happily divorced single, I have set my sights on self actualization and accomplishment of my goals to broaden my and the worlds horizons in the arts by producing my own feature films. I have not foregone my goal of publishing and distributing the 23 novels, 2 plays, countless poems and other literature that I have written. I am and will continue to reach for my goals, assisting others to do the same and serving as an example how to overcome and achieve.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Every day parents do dishonest and deceitful things or lie in their children’s presence, but later on argue at the child(ren) and say, Don’t lie to me. The TRUTH of the premise of that whole notion is the parents are dishonest with themselves first, and therefore find it nearly impossible to be truly honest with anyone else. If or how we see ourselves to be, how we see ourselves, and how those two images incorporate into our interaction with others and the world. So many children extrapolate their identity from the lessons their parents offer them as guidance for what they feel would be a functional life. My mama tried her best to help me define who I should be and become. I was almost thirty-four years old by the time I figured out that no matter how much she tried, Mama didn’t have her own definition intact, so even her most well-intended efforts were misdirected.

Like most young brothers, I didn’t have a definition of who I was as a person, so I surely couldn’t have a definition as to whom I was as a man or a man to be. I did what most other similarly situated brothers have done—I attempted to use a system of deductive reasoning and a process of elimination and evaluation of other people’s impressions of me as my guide. Those methods would have been effective if my evaluators would have been fully self-defined people; alas, they weren’t. In turn, I used my perceptions of other people who were undefined and inherently imperfect as models to build my early images of womanhood and manhood to comprise my image of my perfect mate. I bumped my head—and helped a few people get lumps on their heads as well—as I attempted to ‘mature’ and establish my own definition of my manhood. I had been in way too many relationships or involvements before I learned how critical establishing interim definitions, at the very least, were to my life way before I became personally involved and interdependent with others romantically. Without the interim definitions, I couldn’t maintain and update my focus on the progress and development of a mate’s self-image, my self-image, or progress made toward our dreams or the lack thereof.

The first step toward my recovery and establishment of self was to get right with God. My spirit and soul were less of a priority than my ego or libido. I, like everybody else, had to learn to stop displacing blame and responsibility on God for things I refused to take active control of. God’s omnipotence ensures everybody that He has bestowed upon us all the ability to make choices. We can and will be held responsible for those choices, even if we don’t hold ourselves responsible. People always look for easy ways out of situations they build for themselves but later find to be more difficult or challenging than originally expected.

Often, the biggest obstacle toward gathering the necessary resources to make the proper mate selection choices is the ignorance of what is thought to be details of one’s experiences that are thought to be too insignificant to mention when negotiating what people want or need. No time is too long and no experience is too insignificant if it bears any determination on the final success or failure of one’s relationships. More times than not, we like to surmise that one’s progress or success in one aspect of his life is an indicator of his ability to achieve or accomplish fetes in other areas of life. I was a stellar high school athlete due to my natural talent, but I, like so many others, discovered that my athletic performance guaranteed me absolutely nothing in other areas of life. Other people had to learn the same lessons, especially where they pertained to their inheritance of success as a result of mine. I didn’t feel remorseful if riding my coattails didn’t lead people to the promise land like they expected. I excused anybody’s disappointment with my supposed failure to deliver them from evil, because I felt like they needed to be real about who they were and why they had or had not developed financially, emotionally, physically, or even spiritually. In my opinion, they simply hadn’t made whatever sacrifices might be required for them to know what they wanted and what they would do or not do to get it.

It’s so easy for people to lie to each other and even themselves, but I had found that what an older brother from the hood told me a long time ago to be very true. He said that you could tell how smart a person was or was not by the lack of complexity of his lies. He explained to me that people only tell lies that they have rationalized in their mind that the person they are talking to will believe. No matter how small, all lies are founded on some auspice of truth; the key to knowing how much truth lies or doesn’t lie in a false representation is discovery of the intent for making the statement. There was a joke I heard as a teenager that really cracked me up. It asked, ‘Do you know what the three biggest lies in the world are? The answers in ascending order are: 3) Sure, I love you; 2) No, I won’t cum in your mouth; and 1) The check is in the mail.’ That was pretty funny, but later found that the biggest lie most commonly told is when somebody says, I don’t know. ‘I don’t know’ is a cop-out. ‘I don’t know’ is the biggest attempt to straddle the fence as there could ever be. The reality of the insecurity in that response says no to whatever the question is, while maintaining the opportunity to return and say yes upon newer or more comprehensive information. People who claim to be heterosexual will be opposed to an offer of homosexuality that is open-ended. Upon extension of such an offer qualified by some kind of payment, the person would more than likely say they don’t know. That means no, for right now. But, if the offer is great enough, they then would like to reserve the opportunity to say yes and agree. Therefore, they did know, but they just didn’t want to be honest or courageous enough to define what offer would be necessary to attract or persuade them. No is no, plain and simple. When one establishes his own identity, there will be things he will or will not do that are based on a set of values, not priorities. Priorities change and can be rearranged; values, more than likely, won’t. I found that the benefit for giving the inconclusive answer is the intent to impede someone from making a subsequent choice to a primary action. As I matured, I learned that many people acted in ways that influenced my life, but also did or didn’t do things that would hinder me from reacting in ways that could possibly relieve or excuse me from subjugation or cooperation with that person. That’s how people quell the balance of power between parties that are managed by the theory of least interest. I’ll briefly explain. Every relationship is a matter of negotiation of resources. People have to decide what they are willing to give and what they expect to receive in return. No matter how much people want to feel like they have maintained parity, one person always has to provide an unequal amount of resources than the other. That measurement may be so, even if it’s just in the person’s mind. The person who has the least interested or invested usually maintains control because the other more interested party is worried about trying to not lose their investment.

The test of my understanding and working knowledge of the theory of least interest was born from my turbulent interaction with my romantic interests. I was educated by the rigors of my life to know that my life’s experiences are compounding, and the interdependency of personal relationships will ensure that I can’t run away from my past and into a new life without addressing old unresolved issues. No matter how badly I wanted to close my eyes and with that I wasn’t bound to relationships and being manipulated by the theory of least interest, my face was figuratively slapped to snatch me back into reality when I had to explain the complexities of my interaction with other people to my children. My children’s lives are directly affected by everything I do or have done, and so, there I was. I was the larger shareholder of the interest when I examined what was in jeopardy. In addition to having to do everything I could to solve issues for my children, I also needed to sort out information and occurrences to people who think they want to be involved with who they think the new me is, or will be. Prerequisite to giving new people information should have been sorting information for people who were and still wanted to be in touch with who they felt the old me was. The third facet to that trilogy was sorting things out for the newcomers who were dedicated to being involved with the only me they had ever known.

There were things I needed to deal with that were matters of history only—history that had effects on the present, and history that would have an effect on the future. I had to try to keep old stuff from colliding with the new. To do it, I needed to dig up suppressed and ignored information so that I, as well as others, could deal with unknowns from the past and overcome my self-imposed fear to endure hard times and prosper. And for all of my infinite wisdom and maturity, nobody would believe that the catalyst to finally mustering the energy to get over the hump of arrested development was a conversation I had with my oldest son, Anthony. Sometimes no matter how undeserving parents are, children love us unconditionally. My son saved my life from the destruction that my actions and choices seemed to be destined to bring about.

It was possible for me to walk around in a state of operational confusion. I didn’t love myself enough to find solutions to my depression for myself. But before I allowed my innocent children to growing into being held accountable for the sins of their father, I knew I had to clean up my own mess, even if it killed me.

Chapter 2

The first time I ever heard God speak to me, I didn’t even know who or what it was. It was kind of like that signal that brothers give one another with a slight upward lift or nod of the head to say, ‘What’s up?’ Who—well maybe others could have known it—but I had no concept that so much could be communicated by just that little nod. But then again, we are talking about a force that is so much wiser and more powerful than us. I found myself before a group of brothers testifying before I really knew what it was. I said, "I easily admit to myself and to others close to me that if my emotional stability was a big screen television, it would be in the scratch and dent section of the on sale merchandise. I’ve been messed up for a long time. During my early twenties, I was a real mess. I didn’t realize how truly damaged I was until my older son, Anthony, asked the question that forced me to fully undress my present and past self-image so that I could give him the honest and complete answers he deserved.

Anthony is the child most parents dream of having. I’m glad there wasn’t a kid like him in the neighborhood where I grew up, because I wouldn’t have thought I could compete with his natural aptitude, talents, and excellence. The bad part about that is that I didn’t contribute very much to his infant years. I irresponsibly argued the same false, cowardly accusations that my father argued with my mother and so many other men have over the years—saying he was not my son. I accused his mother of being promiscuous, lewd, indiscrete, ho-ish, whatever term I could find to demean her sexuality and womanhood. Anthony always has looked just like me, and when the DNA test proved that he was 100% my son right before he turned three, I had to try to stop conducting myself in the stupid habits that had become a norm of my personality and character. I’ve thought this out so many times, but it’s kind of hard to get it all to come out of my mouth, so umm…Anthony was raised by his mother’s mother initially because she and I…I mean, his mother, Vanessa, and I kept fighting over stupid stuff. We cursed and hassled in private, public, wherever. No offense to anybody living like civilized people in the ghetto, but we had that ghetto love thing going on pretty well. We couldn’t get together without arguing, breaking stuff, and acting complete fools. I was telling her I didn’t want to be with her, but I was constantly going by there and sleeping with her. I was also running around with all sorts of other less than virtuous women and getting high and drunk. I couldn’t keep a job, not like I applied for many…

I could barely believe that I was sitting there telling my innermost secrets to a group of guys who I had never met before that very day. I didn’t know if any of them were related to any of the scores of people I had done bad and harmful things to. One or even more of them could have been an identity thief. Somebody could be there to scope the scene and find ducks or pigeons to mug, jack, or rob. I just agreed to come to the meetings because Beverly spoke so highly of the group. I was rambling and not really making any conclusive statements or admissions. I think that was some kind of psychological block or defense mechanism, but I did try to be tough and grit it out. Reliving some of the things in my mind was torture, but I was already there, and Beverly wasn’t coming back to pick me up for another two hours. So, I tried to suck up the pain, press on, and finish by saying something substantive. I wasn’t sure how well anyone was truly listening or paying attention. They could have all be very skilled and diplomatic enough to come and watch newcomers to the group make fools of themselves—just like I felt I was doing—without being malicious enough to cut me off. I had drifted off on a tangent about Anthony, so some kind of way, I needed to pull that back together with my confession of being an emotional wreck.

I continued, Anthony was maybe five, no…four, the first time he asked me where I got the long scar down the middle of my lower chest and stomach. Back then, I told him a long story about being in the Army and going to war. You all know you can tell little kids stuff like that to satisfy their curiosity, but it gets messed up when they remember it later. When he was eleven, he came to me and told me that my daughter Makayla wanted to know about the scar. She was only two, almost three, but she spoke really well for her age.

Anthony had this funny look on his face. I asked him why he didn’t just tell her I got it in the Army. He was trying to be respectful in his silence. I stupidly asked him again, get this [with authority], ‘Anthony, why didn’t you just tell her I got it in the Army?’ I didn’t know what I was thinking. I mean I do now; actually, I really did then, too. I wanted to hide from my issues and hide my issues from my children so I could continue to portray this false image of the real man they thought they had for a father…"

I’m no stranger to tears. Old people say a good cry cleans the soul. I would be inclined to believe that, if not for the fact that I had cried for days on end and still felt dirty, worthless, and empty from self to soul and back again, plus I didn’t even have a soul to speak of at that point. As I remembered the guilt I felt in asking for and attempting to teach my son, my own child, to lie, the tears fell again. I had always told Anthony that people lie because they are not strong enough to hold themselves accountable or be responsible for the results of their thoughts and deeds. I felt even worse because I had preached to him that ‘you can always tell how smart a person is by the lack of complexity in his lies.’ He didn’t torture me any more than I had tortured myself; he could see that I was embarrassed. He just simply said, Dad, it’s 2004. You’re thirty-two years old. You’re not old enough to be a Vietnam veteran, and if you had gone to Kuwait, I would remember. That is how smart an eleven-year old boy was. Eleven years of maturity in my son’s mind is far more than intelligent enough and able to inductively and deductively reason that I had been completely dishonest with him. I knew he was insulted.

Dishonesty always had a sense of attractiveness to me that challenged the deep receded guilt in my heart, which would compel another person to purge himself and disclose all. I had always feared the day when Anthony would discover or be told that I didn’t claim him for the first three years of his life. I knew I had not come up with an answer that would suffice, or a lie that he couldn’t quickly figure out.

I went on to ‘testify’ and confess, I had to break down and tell Anthony the truth. I told him the scar was from the surgery the doctors had to perform on me to keep me alive. I was forced to admit that I had attempted to take my own life. The look on his face broke my heart. I knew more questions would be forthcoming, and they were. He was confused in a way that I had never seen before. I felt like he was the adult and I was the son. He didn’t cry or shout, but everything about his demeanor said that he demanded to know why I would attempt suicide. He wanted to know how and why I could preach to him about so many things and carry such a dark secret. It was the first time I ever saw my son, the honor roll student and city spelling bee champion for three years straight, have to search his mind for words.

To continue any farther, I had to bow my head so none of the brothers could look me in the eyes. I wiped countless tears from my face, and my nose was running, but I didn’t care. Either what I had to say was interesting or boring, because everybody was perfectly quiet and seemed respectful. I went on to say, Anthony told me with definite resolution in his voice, ‘I’m not going to tell Makayla that. You didn’t cry when Melvin died and she wouldn’t cry if you died, but that’s not the same. She’s just getting ready to be four. She doesn’t know what a person dying is about.’ He was really preparing to get me; I could feel it. The feeling was like when you were a little kid trying to hurry up and go to sleep to avoid that beating your mother promised you. My Mama never used to fall for that, and Anthony wasn’t having it, either. I had to risk it all and tell him, and I knew he would want to know it all.

I thought I must have bored them half to death or run well over my time. I didn’t look at the clock to see what time it actually was. David, the guy who seemed to be in charge, said, Hey, Eric, brother, you don’t have to do this all in one night. I don’t know about everybody else, but you got me on the edge just by the little you’ve said already. This has to be painful for you, but we’re all here for you. Fortunately, the Lord has blessed us to be able to get this space to attend every week. It’s kind of strange, but we’ve gained a member or two, sometimes up to five, in one week. We started out with total strangers and the idea that we could come together and help one another. The six of us—me, Don Jacobs, Rod Manier, Johnnie Stewart, Mike Roland, and our other Eric, Eric Wilson. I think we can all easily agree that we saw the Alcoholics Anonymous and Scared Straight, or other group therapy models and thought something else needed to be done, especially for brothers. Nobody can give anybody a prescribed number of enumerated steps. We don’t believe we are powerless against our issues. So many of us have done harmful things to ourselves and others that we should atone for, but that does not mean that our lives have become unmanageable. We take personal and moral inventories, but when we deliver ourselves to our Creator, whoever we feel that is, we make that delivery with the promise to put forth the effort and work to gain our salvation and restoration, not just make it the Creator’s duty to bestow blessings on those who may not be deserving of them. I think at one point or another, we have all had to get a grip on the confession part. I’ve never seen anybody come in here on the first meeting and have that part down like you do. Usually brothers come and need to scope the joint out first. You rolled in here on us like, ‘Dun-ta-dah, hear ye, hear ye.’ I’m not poking fun at you in your time of relief. I said all that so you know that we have time and you don’t have to divulge all of your stuff in one night.

Chapter 3

I noticed that the first few things routinely done at Man of the House meetings were a quick round of the name game so everybody would be extended the courtesy of being addressed by his name. Then they went over the books (gotta keep the money straight). Next, they recapped last week’s minutes and addressed any outstanding issues or requests. It went so smooth; I was really impressed. I liked David Barr’s whole style and energy since that first time we met, and he and I have been cool as air-conditioning ever since. David is pretty cool. He is a short brother who sounds really big. He has a smooth calmness to his voice like the disc jockey that plays the late night slow jams on ‘The Cool-Out’ show on the radio station. He has a receding hairline, but he has one of those perfectly manicured Frankie Beverly-looking beards that make his words look more profound as they come out of his mouth. Man of the House is a very well-organized collection of brothers from all different walks of life. We are all looking for ways to become better men to ourselves, our families, and our communities at large. There are no applications to fill out or contracts to sign. Members are members as long as they feel like they are members in their hearts and as long as they think there is something they can benefit from the meetings.

When I first started going, I wondered who was in charge or secretly questioned different brothers’ motives for being there. Then, Don eliminated so much of my doubt by declaring, This is not an anti-female, anti-child, anti-anything therapy group. It’s really not a therapy group; it’s a growth assistance group. We don’t lock the doors to keep anybody inside. We lock the doors to ensure that we have the privacy and confidence that’s necessary for us to be able to, uh…put all of our laundry, dirty, clean, or anywhere between the two, on the old fashioned clothes line without worrying about somebody trying to judge us. If we wanted to judge each other, we would hold the meetings in a courtroom. But we are here to learn, so we hold our meetings in a classroom. We appreciate everybody’s input, and to continue to make it a success, we need everybody’s support. We’re not taking up collection like at church. We don’t collect for the building fund every week and don’t put a doorknob on the place in twenty years. What? Oh, don’t laugh. We have all been to a church like that, so let’s keep it real. We are not asking for donations or charity. We are developing responsibility and accountability. Nobody’s getting paid or skimming off the top. For everyone who has ever heard me say this before, ‘we are focused on self-improvement through self-sufficiency to feed our interdependence between ourselves, our families, and our communities.’ Therefore, we all need to make sure we contribute accordingly; give as well as we take. The reservation for this place is not free; the refreshments, either…

Before I could even ask, he stood back up and continued, Oh, I knew I forgot something. Doing this at somebody’s house, public places, restaurants—that’s a no-no—too many distractions. Waitresses, phone ringing, televisions playing, all that? Nope! We are all busy, and we have families to care for and lives to live. That’s mainly why we are all here—so we can be better. So we have these three hours on Tuesday nights. No interference from Monday Night Football, Wednesday choir rehearsal, Thursday happy hour or usher board meetings [he looked up into the air and smirked] that some of us go to; those of us who can’t seem to manage both, but come home with or go home with the same result. First Fridays, which has become First Freakdays now. Or the more casual cock hounds in the group who just go to the club on Saturdays—you know, roll up in the spot to see what or who we can see. Give ourselves a few guaranteed reasons to need to ask for forgiveness in the morning, if we attend church, for those of us confessed heathens and blasphemers. We make sure everybody knows how the money justifies, and that’s why we open up with an adjustment to the books. Now, with all that said, unless new members attend next week, everybody’s fair contribution is $11.64.

Don is cool, too. I knew what he did for a living before I got to that first meeting, but when he was there, he didn’t seem like a brother who was an investment banker. He seemed more like somebody who taught high school physical education in the inner city. I could easily picture him walking around a crowded gym of noisy kids with a whistle around his neck and his stomach hanging over the front and sides of his waistline. It’s funny how uniforms and business clothes seem to tell a lot about what people do for a living, or even who they are as people, but everybody there was dressed in casual clothes—very concealing and elusive. The only way we could really know who we were was to listen and interpret the mental and emotional images we provided for ourselves and each other. Then, what was even more peculiar than that was there was absolutely no conflict. Of, I’d say, thirty or more brothers, about twenty spoke up. Everybody commented and gave their opinions. Even the brother Kuma, who for me, came off like number two-fifty grains per inch and paper being rubbed over scrotum skin, didn’t really rock the boat. Kuma seemed so angry. He stood and read a poem he wrote about being arrested at a theater on the white side of town. He had taken his girlfriend to see ‘Amistad.’ He should have known not to be over in them people’s house dressed like a threat to all frailties of their liberal notions and stereotypes. I kept that opinion to myself because I didn’t know if or how he would receive it coming from me.

We wrapped it all up at the end of the meeting. Brothers stood and embraced. The energy of the whole meeting felt really good. A few of the fellas reminded me and made sure they impressed upon me the fact that a permanent invitation had been extended to me, and that they definitely wanted to see me return. I felt so good, I would have come back even without the invitations, but back then I didn’t know that they worked on a referral system and that I had been invited by Don’s recommendation via Beverly’s graces. I really needed to thank her, and I reminded myself over and over to do so immediately when she came to pick me up.

Don and I stood outside talking sports until Beverly came. He saw her first and said, There she is.

I didn’t see her. I asked, Where?

Coming down the road. See that car light that looks like it’s winking at you? Beverly can’t parallel park to save her life. She keeps hitting stuff on that side of the car, so her headlight and blinker on that side look like they’re flirting.

I’ve seen Beverly drive that car plenty of times, but I never noticed that.

Yeah, well, she’s my baby cousin. Girl’s got a heart of gold and a lead foot.

You ain’t lyin’. And it’s not like she’s always running late for stuff. What’s up with that?

Don’t know. She’s just been like that all her life. Maybe it’s because she learned to drive in a mall parking lot on a Sunday, before they repealed the blue laws and let the stores open on Sundays. I don’t know. But it works for her, and we just love her no matter what. I’m gonna take off. Next Tuesday, right?

I’ll be here. I was feeling silly. In my mind, I imagined myself in one of those bell bottom outfits Michael Jackson used to wear, singing ‘I’ll be therrrre, I’ll be there, just call my name and I’ll be therrrrrre.’

As Don walked to his car, Beverly pulled up beeping the horn and waving. He walked and waved back. We waited for him to get to his car safely before we talked. When he closed his door and the car started and the lights came on, I began to thank her. Hey, Beverly, I just want to thank you so much for inviting me to the meeting. I mean, really. I feel a lot better.

She turned to face me and shined those big, pretty brown eyes and flashed those perfectly white teeth at me and said, Oh, Eric, you don’t have to thank me. I’m just doing what God tells me to.

There had been a few subtle references made to God at the meeting; I kind of disregarded those parts of the discussion. When Don said, ‘If we wanted to judge each other, we would’ve had the meeting in a courtroom,’ I wanted to say, ‘Yeah, if we wanted to hear you Negroes preach, we would hold it at a church.’ Beverly’s comment intimidated me a little because I had not been to church in a long—I mean looooong time! I didn’t know if she was trying to subtly pressure me to attend, so I just said, Well, I thank God for you, Beverly. She blushed and smiled at me and gently caressed my face with her feathery soft hands and wiped the tear that fell from my eye.

Beverly signaled to pull back into the street and pulled back into traffic. She slammed on the brakes as a tractor-trailer zipped and rumbled by us and just barely missed running us over. I didn’t see where it came from. It seemed like it came out of nowhere or maybe I was just caught up in the moment. At first, my heart was beating hard and heavy to a slow tempo, something like a Keith Sweat rhythm. Secretly, Beverly always had that effect on me. I love the way she smells. She dresses so conservatively that it used to seem like she was purposely hiding all that sexy roasted brown/burgundy body. I had never seen any more of her skin than a little legs and arms from shorts and t-shirts when she would mow her lawn or wash her car. Even then, it was a big loose t-shirt if not two, and Bermuda shorts that extended just above the knee; never tight enough to see panty lines or the imprint of a bra. That would seem uncivilized. I, and every other man who lusted after her, was always relegated to fantasizing on the strength of a smile and handshake, or a little view of a calf or forearm enhanced by whatever notions our minds could come up with by staring at her figure that couldn’t be concealed with a steel raincoat. And even then, she would still be so damn sexy.

It wasn’t like I didn’t love my wife, Sheila. I mean, we’d been together for nine years and married for five of those nine years. Overall, I couldn’t see where she had any huge complaints or was dissatisfied to the point where she ever brought up divorce or separation. Especially since before we got married, I had definitely done my fair share of dabbling, and whether she had or had not didn’t matter to me because who would I be to point the finger? I was married and happily so, but when I thought about Beverly, in my mind it would be like, ‘If you were my woman, I would…’ I could think of more than one million ways to end that sentence, but when that truck swished by and barely missed crushing us like an empty pop can, my heart picked up the pace. My eyes bulged and breath quickened. I felt like somebody snatched the needle off the Keith Sweat album and put on rap music. Before, my mind was all cloudy and dreamy; my thoughts played out in romantic slow motion and instant replay. Then, my thoughts zoomed and lights left little streaking comet trails like I was having an acid flashback with Public Enemy’s ‘Rebel Without a Pause’ playing as the theme music. She must have had her own fleeting moment because for a second, we both sat there looking exhausted. She instinctively held her arm out to my chest as to restrain me from hitting my face against the dashboard. Having her touch me anywhere, for anything, felt good. She held her own chest with her left hand. Damn, I wished I could have been driving to have an excuse to reach out and get me a nice protective feel on her chest—those nice, big, pillowy, soft-looking, plump…sssss, damn. She said, I should have been paying closer attention to the road. Are you okay?

I wanted to know, If you weren’t thinking about the road, then what was really on your mind? But I would never be so forward as to ask her that. One of them tricks or hoochie mamas I knew, oh yeah, they could be privy or victim, whichever way they saw it, to all sorts of sordid innuendo. But I didn’t play my cards like that with Beverly and she surely didn’t play her cards like that with me.

She continued, I promise I’ll get you home safely. I’m sure this has been a pretty emotional night for you.

I thought, Yeah, if you could see what’s happening in my pants because of being enclosed in these close quarters with you alone like this, maybe you’d know how emotional. Beverly is a dreamboat to the eyes. I didn’t know back then that she was a shipwreck in a relationship, but I always knew that I needed to keep my distance because if she ever approached me in a seductive way or if I slipped and said or did something inappropriate and she responded favorably, it would be wild and out of control. I wasn’t sure if she knew it, but most women disregard their instincts that we as men say and do stuff to test their willingness or receptiveness to be disrespected. They are the only ones who know or decide if they are going to sleep with us on the first date or at all, in any stage of the relationship. We can assume we have it like that, but booty is like bootleg electricity—the people are subject to come out and disconnect you at any time. And then what can we say if it was never rightfully acquired in the first place? It’s kind of silly for brothers to be upset when they trick a woman out of the drawls in the first place and then get upset if she finds a new sorcerer or wises up and saves herself for someone who genuinely cares about her. I considered that as stately and refined as Beverly seemed; it was conceivable that she was really in touch with her spiritual and emotional selves and that served as a functional foundation for a very poised display of total self-destruction. That, or either a woman that fine and sexy but still so reserved is either a brainwashed Bible thumper, totally oblivious to the fact that she could run the world, or she was a well-hid closet freak with Oscar winning acting skills. I knew I would never be able to peek into a keyhole and see what was in the closet and be satisfied. I’d have to take the damn doors off and get stu-pid. I might consider the challenge of putting something so decent on her that she didn’t want to get up and go to church the next morning, to be one of my greater sexual conquests.

That was one of my problems. The night started off with me trying to get myself right, and there I was plotting on how to snatch the blessings from somebody else’s soul. I had been the wolf dressed up in the bed like Grandma and eaten quite a few Little Red Riding Hoods in my day. The dialogue would be a lot different; the scenes, too. Red Riding Hood would be naked or damn near close. I would be don’ smoked something. They would tell me what pretty big hazel-gray eyes I have and I would say, Yeah, better to see all ‘lat booty and titties wit’. They would tell me what big strong arms and hands I have. I would say, Yeah, the better to put your legs up on my shoulders wit’, and so on. Then, they would tell me what a big tail I had. Yeah, but mine is in the front. Check out these teeth, lips, and tongue. Didn’t know ole Grandma was a freak, did you? Turn around and back that thang up, Red Riding Hood. And when I played Grandma and ate ‘em up, they came back for more the next day.

But, I needed to get my mind to a different place before the devilish look that I knew was on my face gave me away. I pulled something, any old thing, off the top of my head and asked, Why didn’t you tell me Don was your cousin?

She asked, Did it matter?

No, but…

But what?

Well, I guess…I don’t know. Uh, I guess, but nothing…Uh, we talked about a lot of stuff… I was reaching, and I probably sounded like Stevie Wonder accepting the Grammy. Eddie Murphy made jokes about that, but I thought about it a few times. ‘Other people write acceptance speeches. It’s hard to read regular with all the people taking your picture, the crowd losing their minds, and everybody at home watching you on television. Most of those people would have gotten totally demolished with alcohol at the party before, and forgot to go pee before the go on stage. Being about ready to piss on yourself is hell on the nerves, especially in front of a gang of people and on tape. People need to get up off Stevie. He be wanting to drink and party, too. So when he get up there and can’t hold his fingers still enough to read the Braille, it feels different. Jittery hands make a person trying to read Braille seem dyslexic as hell. Then he would have to memorize all those people’s names and stuff. It’s not like he can put names and faces together. Awe man, Stevie, I feel you brother. Anyway, it was my turn on the stage and I was flubbing it just like that.’ I tried to recover and say, A lot of the brothers had really good insight.

She saved me from putting my foot in my mouth and said, Hold on Eric. Don’t do that.

Do what?

"That group is for you and the rest of those men. I care about you, and I see tears in your eyes that are days or even years away from falling. You were invited so you could have the chance to heal—for you—not for me or anyone else. You don’t need my approval,