Shango Son

By Dian Frankson

Shango Son is not your traditional Love story. It is a sense tingling depiction of the love between a mother and son, as the pair tries to find themselves in the midst of ancestral misperception. Athena the main character is an African American woman born in the era of revolutionary hip hop to a multi-cultural afro-Caribbean family. Athenas Caribbean blood line runs deeply in her veins however growing up in Brooklyn NY USA has made her foreign to her roots. Her addiction to her teenage love gave life to a son, the realities of parenthood and the consequences of lust in addition to the formation of another cultural identity. As life forces Athena to address her roots she finds that the story of the slave brings her Caribbean and American cultures together causing her to realize that her lack of knowledge about her history has disturbing consequences. Athena struggles with her sons needs as Tim stumbles blindly through a lack of self-affirmation into his own manhood. In the end the love between the two has made them spiritually connected in a way that supersedes death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496923455

Dian Frankson

Dian Frankson is an urban fiction author from Brooklyn NY. Ms. Frankson was born to an Afro-Caribbean family and lived in Brooklyn through a number of its racial and economic transformations. MS Frankson has had a long standing love affair with books and the art of writing. Involved in community activism from her childhood a history of domestic violence forced MS Frankson to put her literary dreams, and community activist exploits aside for the needs of her family. As a young mother she moved into NYC housing projects to raise her children where she continued to witness the social constructs that as she would say " Kept man from living up to its full potential. MS Frankson earned an associate degree in education, but when the demands of family, work, and the student teaching requirements of a bachelors in Education conflicted she went on to earn a bachelors and then masters degree in health care administration to support her more than twelve year work experience in the health care industry. However Ms Frankson has now returned to her roots sharing her experiences and giving voice to the stories of her America both on her blog, www.redbrickstories.wordpress.com and in her books. Her stories are true life fictions, written about the socio-political topics that have impacted the lives of the people around her.

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© 2014 Dian Frankson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/08/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2346-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2345-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

School Dazed

Crying

Build me a son

Individualized Education Plan

Xango

I am not giving up on you but I am Saying goodbye

Consequences & sacrifice

Today

Shango son

Works Cited

About the Author

Tim where is the remote that King’s father bought for him. I don’t f* * * know, you can search my room go ahead. Is it really necessary to speak with me that way Tim? I turned and retreated to my room in hopes that I would be wrong and find the remote. I was truly tiered of having to hide everything because whenever my son felt left out or just wicked he would take or destroy everyone’s things. I had carried the remote in my purse for over a month. I hid the remote because since Tim came home King has lost one thing after the other and although King would give up anything for his big brother, it bothered me. So I began to hide things so that King would have something to play with. The remote disappeared from my purse. I may have misplaced it but instinct led me to ask. Tim is 18 and King is 7 they do not have the same interest and I can’t even say that its sibling rivalry because Tim has done this to everyone in this apartment. Everyone has lost something valuable to Tim’s lawlessness and outburst. The most frustrating part of this trouble is that it does not make sense. I had such an opposite Idea of what my relationship with my son would be like. I had built up hopes and dreams about his future like most mothers do.

Eighteen years ago I gave birth to a little boy and though his father’s love was strong it was conditioned by worldly distraction. Papa was a rolling stone and my son and I a notch on his belt. But for me Tim was the caulking that filled the empty space inside me; an empty space that was a palpable void existing in me every moment of every day that I lived since childhood. It is hard to be a little girl. Little girls are so tender and precious. The artlessness of a little girl brands her a temptress to the many predators waiting patiently to devour the tender meat of her bosom; and like so many young women the little girl in me was torn. Over time my tear had grown creating an empty space. I have tried to fill the space with relationships but as each interaction lead to disappointment the tear only became larger. Tim filled the void in me. He caulked the drain which was leaking confidence, unconditional love, hope & faith from my bosom. I would dare say this is a familiar experience for young mothers. Girls who are rushed into womanhood through pregnancy if given the chance may admit that the reckless choices that led to pregnancy were a mistake. However I counter that these girls often secretly contemplate wanting a child. The independence from home that a child creates, and the unconditional love that parenting creates are a seductive proposition for a broken little girl. In submission I would wager that young mothers would admit that they wanted someone to love. But in reality what the young mother wants is someone who loves them and cannot leave. Focusing all your energy and time on loving someone who needs you and can’t leave on their own can cast, or cork that emptiness. In the best case scenario a young mother gives up her childhood and becomes devoted to her Child’s development. In the worst case scenario, a young mother will grow to resent the neediness in her child because her own needs have not been addressed. Her unmet needs direct her every interaction with her child creating a generational wound, creating a perpetual emptiness. Life is not forgiving and the child will move through each stage as if there is no defect in its upbringing. The mother will also move through the stages of life without any thought of the inadequacy of brokenness. A broken bone that is not set properly will not heal even if it is wrapped in a cast. If during the period between need and self-assertion a parent has hidden from their brokenness, used their baby to hide from the pain of the past, and has not filled their emptiness with their own gifts, that parent is doomed to relive all the burden of their past as raw and as painful as a bandage torn off an unhealed scab. This pain is amplified when you raise a child alone with no one to lean on during the separation stage of parenting.

Being a single Mom has been a challenge. In my dreams my family would work and I would grow old with my husband. I married Tim’s father shortly after the birth of our second child. I was determined not to be a statistic probably the worst motivation for marriage. It was a poor reason and came in second to my desire to prove my family wrong about a husband that I did not really know as well as I convinced myself. In a City Hall make shift chapel I rushed in with much to prove and little reference to base my decisions on. The original plan was to get married in the Catholic Church in which we both grew up. That plan blew up because our marriage counselor was a woman who I had known most of my life. Her children went to Catholic school with my brothers and I as children, and I had volunteered under her as a catechist. She did not feel I should marry Caesar and she made that clear. She kept asking us if there were secrets that we needed to share with each other. I took offense to this, and each time we both answered no. When she continued to express that I should wait I not only stopped going to church but I stopped volunteering for her. In hindsight her reservations were warranted. Caesar’s parents lived on the same block as the Church and she probably knew I did not know as much as I thought I did about his family. My arrogance towards her reserve separated me from the only connection I could rely on, which was my relationship with God. I threw away the notion that this union needed a blessing and on Tim’s first birthday We set out for City Hall. I wore go-go boots and a sky blue short skirt suit. He wore a sky blue colored shirt and dress pants. On the train we joked and smiled playing with our son. On the walk to the chapel I quietly whispered in his ear, are you sure you want to do this. My best friend and her boyfriend stood in witness and our son stood between us.

Without God, our parents, or extended families, we were married by the justice of the piece with the wedding rings I purchased because my husband was unemployed. We stood in the hall way taking pictures as if we had just graduated. I turned to him and said Gotcha, and he turned and laughed saying NO I GOT YOU. I had joined names, generational curses and families with a boy who was ill prepared to assume the responsibility necessary to control his own reality, much less be the head of household for a wife and two children. If there is any advice I could give to a married couple it would be to spend as much time getting to know the beliefs and values of their future in-laws as they do their fiancé’s position on his or her family’s beliefs. We relied greatly on our parents for guidance but he was a son of Shango and I was a daughter of the Catholic Christ. One was the darkened side of the other. I did not yet understand what that would mean for the children I birthed into such a complex world.

School Dazed

It was just before the summer of 1992. School was still in session. My guidance counselor signed me up at Sheep head bay night school to make up credits. I was trying to earn enough credits to graduate on time; however my poor choices had made that effort futile. It’s funny how urgent your future becomes when you wake up and see everyone speeding ahead of you. As life would have it I was not alone in this quest. Some of my closest friends at the time shared my fate and were in night school with me. My experiences with boys up until this point all ended badly including the first boy I ever loved (my father). In self-preservation I always seemed to anger boys. There was something about the assertion of my individuality that did not sit well with them. They liked me broken and needy. I was broken alright but a fire inside of me prevented me from ever being needy. I had English with him. He smelled like Egyptian musk and had tiny box braids in his hair. Rocking his de la soul swag in his fatigues and timberland boots; He sat in the front of the class room commanding a lot of female attention. Even our teacher was taken with him. He was not tall; he was not a wavy haired light skinned cat. He was husky and boy was he was charming. If I never noticed him by sight I would have been drawn in by his scent. At first I kept my addiction for him to myself. Luckily English was easy for me so his distraction did not affect my grade. I did not think he would ever notice a girl like me. The girls he associated with did not like me. It’s ironic that I chose this school to avoid beef with girls from my school only to find girls who did not like me here. I was ok though I knew a lot of guys from the neighborhood that would not let me get jumped. The end of the night always made me nervous although I knew my home boys would protect me; I was honestly scared of being surrounded by a group of girls. Girls never liked me and my friendship with their boyfriends did not make it any better. I had a select crew of girls who knew me and would stand up for me but if you know anything about high-school you know that the group mind rules. I would meet my Girls in the hall and we would walk out together. I think they secretly knew my fear or they just worried about me. They were true friends most girls like them would not hang out with a girl that was labeled a hoe. But they did and they rode out for me. All it took was for someone’s boyfriend to like you for the mission to destroy your reputation to be deployed, and boy did I have ammunition for them to deploy. Yet I had the most horrible relationship with sex, I dreaded it. The touch of a man made me jump. A man’s touch meant restraint, punishment and rape to me. I did not even like my little brother who I adored sleeping next to me. I was barely 17 and had been done with intimacy for about three years already. So the idea of me being a hoe was laughable to most who really knew me. My close friends called me a stone cold bitch. You are mean , they constantly declared and had no idea why any boy wanted to date me. Lana, Marsha and I attended Sheepshead bay night school together, Rhonda went to private school and she would meet us after school. Annie was my best friend and a cheerleader at Sheepshead, which was part of the reason we all chose Sheepshead for Night school. She would wait for us after Cheerleading practice and sometimes sneak into my classes. On our way home we would gossip about everything that happened in school and I would fill them with stories of my crush and how good he smelled. Once my girls new about my secret crush they began plotting to get us together. Lana had gym with him and started to pick his brain to find out if she even wanted him dating me. Lana brought the results of her investigation to Annie only to discover that he lived across the street from her. I was at the Combs House almost daily but I had never seen him before. More investigation uncovered that he was a super senior. He too was playing catch up but more so than the rest of us. He was 20 years old. If I was not a hormonal teenage girl I would have asked myself, why was a 20 year old man who lived at home with both of his parents still in high school? However, His age did not deter me it enticed me. That day came and Lana decided to tell him about my crush. I was waiting outside of the gym for her completely unaware of her investigation and the resulting scheme. He left class before her. He walked past me, paused a moment to look into my eyes and smiled. I warmed up inside and every part of my body had a pulse. I knew that with this boy I would make Love. I did not know when but I knew I wanted to. Apparently he told Lana he thought I was pretty but I was too young for him. This should have crushed me but all I heard was, he said you are pretty. Lana introduced him as Caesar and we became friends. He treated me as if I were his little sister. I did not want him to see me like a little sister. I wanted him to look at me like a woman, but no matter how I hinted that I wanted more he stayed on the big brother/friendship path and became another guardian of my innocence. Once the weather warmed up I began to wear tanks that would complement my perky teenage breast and my thigh tight bell bottom guess jeans. He did not seem to notice the change and this began to annoy me. He would hang out from time to time in Padegate Park with his friends and I would be there with my girls and as the school year came to a close he came to class less and less. As the night school session was coming to an end our English teacher pulled him aside at the end of class and made a deal with him. She told him that if he completed her homework she would pass him. That is when he asked for my help. I would sneak out of class early and go to his house to help him with Homework. After we did homework we would watch Martin until I had to go home. When school was done I thought I would not see him anymore.

I was walking to Annie’s house with my friend Richard one hot summer afternoon when I saw Caesar across the street. I waved at him and he nodded his head with his hands crossed. Wearing a white wife beater he leaned his husky physique against his friend’s car. He made his fingers into the shape of a telephone put it to his ears and mouthed call me. I mouthed OK sarcastically, because I thought he was being funny. When I got into Annie’s room I thought about it and told her. Her assessments of his actions were that he was jealous of Richard. He probably thinks you guys are together She said laughing. I dismissed this Idea, rolling my eyes as I explained to her the lengths I went to trying to get his attention all school year and most of the summer. That evening I went home early and called him. He asked when he would be able to see me. It felt weird he never spoke to me so seriously but I made plans to see him the following evening. I told my grandmother I was going to Annie’s house and I went to see him. I do not remember what I was wearing but when He opened the door he was wearing a towel. I had been in his home several times before but this time felt different. His upper torso was still wet from the shower and as he led me through the darkened house I nearly knocked over the glass of water by the door. I apologized he did not say a word he just led me through the dark up the stair case to his room. His room was dimly lit by a candle on top of his radio. The radio was tuned to 98.7 kiss fm. I sat on the edge of the bed. I knew what was coming and I was nervous, but I wanted it to happen. He asked me what I was doing with Richard. I explained that he was like a big brother to me. We have never been interested in each other. I began to worry that he had heard some rumor and just had me here to give me a big brother lecture. He turned from facing me and looked into his long view mirror and said I did not like that. I did not know how to respond so I let him talk. You are a good girl Athena so I held back for a long time. I did not want you to know how I feel, but I can’t let you be with anyone else. I know you wanted to be with me but I wanted you to finish school. I just can’t risk someone else taking you from me. The sense of ownership and responsibility in his voice were drawn over me like a blanket. He stood me up and kissed me until he reached the shallows of my throat. His touch was so soft it smoothed all my rough edges. Forever people told me I was too rough but in his hands I was a silk thread delicate and tiny. He undressed me and kissed every part of my body from head to foot. It was erotic and sensual and every sexual feeling I could imagine. I did not jump I did not flinch. I wanted him. I wanted him inside more than anything I could think of but he took his time and it began to drive me crazy. Writhed with energy, yet obedient to his touch I laid there. Then he positioned me on the head of his bed and slid below me. He gently kissed my curly hair. He reached up and petted it. If I was not wet before I was then. Flooded with sexual secretion my body was overcome with sexual exertion. He took his tongue and parted my wet hair and kissed me and then he began to lick places I did not know existed. His Lust was all over me. My lust was all over him. He taught me things about my body as we tussled in that bed for the next four years. I wanted to be with him always. Our feelings were intense and our interactions always extreme. He was as ruff as he was gentle and I felt like I belonged to him. Whenever we made love I would lie on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. We would break up to make up, obsessed with the lust between us. It was interesting how he filled up all my thoughts and everything else began to fade into the background. None of my problems with my parents mattered. I began to all but ignore my Grandmother and with my father gone and my brother away at college I met little resistance as I pulled further and further away from my family.

I would eventually marry this boy and he would marry me but first we would have a son. I graduated in January and Tim was born in April of the following year. My family was disappointed. My elder brother moved home. He did not want me to feel like I had to rely on Tim’s father. He was an awesome uncle. I think Caesar was jealous of the bond between his son and another man. I knew he was jealous of the bond my brother and I shared at the time. Caesar really did not have to be jealous because Tim adored his father.

Eighteen months after Tim’s birth Caesar and I had our second child and my family’s acceptance turned into annoyance. However, the little girl that was born into our family was undeniable in her innocence and their disappointment in me was replaced by their love for her. My brother had a niece and a nephew to fuss over and protect. He gave Mary the nick name her Baby Girl. The name stuck and she was rarely called by her Birth name of Mary. My eldest brother was an important family figure. Held in high esteem by many of our family members his acceptance was important to the relationship that my children would have with my family. What took me by surprise was when my older brother, a man who claimed he would never get married, met a woman he could not do without. She was his most intense distraction and he loved her with all his heart. I know this because he came to the store where I worked and asked me to accept her and not chase her away. I gave all of my brother’s girlfriends a hard time. He was my hero, my confidant and my best friend. I never felt threatened by his girlfriend’s when it came to our relationship it had been tested numerous times. Despite the obvious resentment and disappointment that he expressed at times, our love for each other superseded every judgment and mistake that our relationship endured. He left Virginia and came back to Brooklyn to keep my head to the iron. He knew that my mom could not keep an eye on me and run the household. He knew that his absence made it easier for me to slip through the cracks. So he came home to enforce the law, but now he was in love. At first I was jealous but soon I was glad that he would have something to focus