My dad hung his head and accepted his fate. He walked apologetically into the bedroom, and got cussed out royally. Usually, he could say “I love you” to calm her down. Whether he meant it or just used it as a strategy to appease her, no one knew. But this time, it didn’t do him any good, and he went to sleep that night with her still going off on him, saying how this pregnancy was going to destroy her life. She’d just gone back to school and completed a computer programming class, so she was focused on a fresh start, not fresh diapers.
When my dad woke up the day after finding out I was on the way, Mom wouldn’t speak to him. She didn’t say another word to him for the next three weeks.
* * *
And that’s how I came into this world: My life began as a lie. I was unwanted. My mother cried when she found out I existed. And I sat there stewing in her anger for months in the womb.
At least, that’s one way to look at it. Here’s another way.
My life began with passion, with my father’s unrelenting desire for my mother. Even though I was unplanned, my mother made the commitment to having me and raising me right. And I inherited her commitment to hard work, and my father’s unique sense of humor, bottomless optimism, and ability to get his way.
Life is a story. It’s full of chapters. And the beauty of life is that not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter. It determines whether it’s comedy or tragedy, fairy tale or horror story, rags-to-riches or riches-to-rags.
You can’t control the events that happen to you, but you can control your interpretation of them. So why not choose the story that serves your life the best?
2
* * *
BLESSED LIFE OF A GENIUS
Though no one spoke about it, I always knew I was an accident. It would have been obvious to anyone who looked at my mom’s photo albums.
Me: Mom, where was y’all at here?
Mom: I think that’s when we went to some island in Florida.
Me: Huh? How’d y’all get island money?
Mom: That was before you were born. We took a family trip to Key West.
Me: What’s Key West? (Turns page.) Mom, what’s that tree Kenneth is swinging on?
Mom: Oh, that was our poplar tree. Your father built a swing on that tree.
Me: A swing? Okay.
I kept turning pages, asking where they were in different photos since I’d never had the luxury of traveling. I asked about the sharp suit Dad was wearing and about Mom’s fancy hairdo. I saw my brother eating cake and holding ice cream in pictures, sitting next to Dad, who looked healthy, with firm muscles and good hair. They looked so happy and well-off.
Then I came along.
As soon as I was born, the pictures in the photo album changed. There were no tree houses or wooden swings or new bicycles. Dad didn’t have sharp clothes. Mom’s hair wasn’t done. There were no more trips. Everything got a little more . . . poor.
Me: How come the furniture went away when I came around?
Mom: We had to cut back, son.
The only nice thing I ever got back then was a dog.
We lived on Fifteenth Street and Erie Avenue, in the heart of North Philadelphia. It was a tough area where shit happened consistently. One afternoon, my dad came home with a huge Labrador. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy, I couldn’t stop screaming. I fell in love with that dog instantly.
“What’s this, Spoon?” my mom asked when she saw it. There was a note of skepticism in her voice. “You got a dog?”
“I bought a dog for the boys,” my dad said with forced nonchalance. “They been talking about a dog.”
This dog wasn’t a puppy. It was full-grown, with a tongue as big as my arm and fur that looked like old paper that had been left in the sun too long. It was probably seven. But it didn’t matter to my brother and me. We’d been wanting a pet for so long.
We named him Tramp and brought him into our room to play. He was on the bed, licking our faces, when the doorbell rang.
I walked over to take a look. There was a man and a woman I hadn’t seen before.
“You took our dog,” they said.
“Your what?” my dad asked, as if he’d never heard anything so preposterous.
“You took our dog,” they repeated. “She got loose and was running down the street, and the neighbors saw you take her and bring her here.”
“What’s going on?” My mom jumped in. “I thought you said you bought this dog.”
“I did,” my dad protested. I could see his wheels spinning as he quickly thought of a lie. “A friend of mine had it. I gave him money for it.”
“Coco,” the woman called.
The dog came bounding out of my room, stopped at her feet, and nuzzled against her leg.
They walked out of the house with their pet, and that was one of my earliest memories: getting and losing my first dog, all within fifteen minutes.
I suppose that was also my first life lesson: What’s here today may be gone later today. Nothing is permanent.
Especially my father.
On a day I was too young to remember, he disappeared for four years.
My dad happens to be here with me as I’m writing this, and he wants to explain for the first time why he went away. So I’m going to slide over and let him onto the keyboard.
Here are a few words from Henry Witherspoon on what he feels happened at that time. Buckle up and prepare to enter the mind that shaped and molded me.
Go ahead, Dad.
3
* * *
FOUR YEARS GONE
by Henry “Spoon” Witherspoon
All right, all right, all right!
I guess I gotta tell this story. For my son Kevin—I’d do anything in the world for him.
Because he’s my son. Who I’d do anything in the world for.
First of all, you ever deal with a public defender? I don’t recommend it. I was this motherfucker’s first case.
Kev, is it okay to use motherfucker in your book?
Kev?
Fuck it.
Here’s what happened:
Now, I come up on my bike to this house, and they shootin’ dice. So I shot dice. I’m gambling, but I got short.
I said, “Let me go home and grab some more money. I’ll be right back.”
When I come back, it’s dark. I get up there, I don’t pay this place no mind. I’m in a game. I know where we ain’t, but I ain’t really paying attention to where we at.
All I know is that the windows are boarded up. Shit, I knew people that lived in houses with windows boarded up, so that don’t mean nothing to me.
I knock on the door. Ain’t nobody answering. Makes sense: They got a game going on.
I go in. I think, Hey, the lights are out. I’m half-high. Actually, I’m whole high.
The whole of me is high.
I take a few steps and I trip over something. I feel around and it’s a body. I don’t know if it’s alive or dead or sleeping or high. I pull it to the door to see what the situation is cause there ain’t no light in there.
Suddenly, a cop opens the door. I ask him to help me. Next thing I know, I’m handcuffed.
That’s what happened. This is God’s honest truth, Kev.
I figure the cop had seen me walk into the building. Now, this cop gave a statement that he looked through the window and saw me having sex with this body I was dragging.
Mind you, the body was alive, and he told me it was a woman.