John took one last glance at his reflection in the mirror hanging in the foyer and then opened his front door. Standing there, leaning against the inside wall stood a boy with an odd arrangement of bags gathered at his feet. The boy’s eyes looked magnified behind his coke bottle glasses and his tiny head looked like a pea compared to the size of the frames. The boy looked down, dejected. John’s head cocked to the side before searching beyond the boy to see if there might be something about this picture that would give a clue to why the kid was standing outside his door.
“What’s up?” John asked the boy.
The boy adjusted his glasses with a push in the middle with his right index finger then said, “My mom said you’re my dad.”
John smiled; certain there had to be a practical joke coming. A second passed. John’s smile disappeared.
“Your mom said I’m your dad?” John replied in awe. “Who’s your mom?”
“Stacy Green.”
“Who?” John flipped through an imaginary rolodex above his head.
“Stacy Green.” The boy squeaked.
Oops, John thought. Stacy Green was a ying yang he used to hang out with when he was stationed in Texas, during those few fateful army years. Most of it was a blur of cheap beer, bad haircuts and hangovers but the boy standing there looking like he might be contemplating suicide brought the memory of at least the mother back to mind.
“Stacy Green.” John recited as he moved against the door to open it for the boy’s entrance. “Well, where is she?”
The boy hunched his shoulders.
“What cha mean you don’t know?”
John stepped out to the hall and looked from one end to the other, then put his hands on his hips and looked down at the boy. Shaking his head he said, “Well, come on in.”
The boy sprang away from the wall. “Really?” He asked with an almost comical timing.
“Well, I don’t know what she’s talking about but I’m going to find out real quick. You might as well come in while I do.”
John held the door open with his foot and grabbed the bags off of the floor.
The boy moved from outside the door to just inside, leaning on the wall as he had been before. “Don’t lean on the wall, man,” John said. “I just had them painted. Go on in the living room. Make yourself at home.”
The boy walked ahead of John to the living room. John stashed the bags near the entrance. “What did you say your name was?”
The boy sat at the edge of the sofa as if he didn’t want to take up more space than was required. “John Michael Drake, Junior but everybody calls me Tiny.” He pushed his hands between his clasped knees.
John’s response to the new realization that he could now stamp ‘senior’ at the end of his name left his legs without feeling. He fell into the chair across from the couch.
“Hold, up… Start over. Where did you say your mom went? Where do you live? I mean, where did you come from?”
The boy stared at John wondering whether or not the man’s suddenly ashy lips meant he’d overstayed his welcome.
“Go, on.” John goaded him.
“Um, my mom said that she had to go and that she couldn’t take care of us any more and that our dad’s should take care of us. We came from, um, Texas and drove to Tennessee to my sister’s dad’s house and then we came here. Now, my mom’s gone to Philadelphia to take my other sister to her um dad’s house.”
“She dropped you off just like that? How did she get my address? How does she know I’m even at home?” John threw his hands in the air and quickly crossed over to the bar.
“Um, we found your address on the internet. And, we got here this morning and we waited across the street at McDonald’s for you to come home. I like your car.” Tiny flashed his grin.
John couldn’t believe it. He turned away from the boy because he didn’t know whether he was about to laugh out loud at this pitifully funny joke, or cry because he knew he wasn’t dreaming. He heard the boy sigh heavily.
“How old are you? Eight or nine… something like that?” John counted in his head, thinking that no – if the boy was that young then his mama was a liar because he’d been out of the Army for twelve years.
“I’m twelve.” Tiny answered.
‘Naturally,’ John thought to himself.
John looked up from the bar and stared at the boy. After a few seconds he saw a hint of something but just as quickly discounted it. There was no way a boy that looked like this kid did could be related to him. For a twelve year old he was… well tiny. Plus, the kid looked weak. No way. When Drake was a boy he was always the biggest and toughest kid on the block. He played varsity football when he was still a freshman in high school. No. These women were always lying about these crumb snatchers. Stacy was nice and everything and while he was in the army, it was cool but as soon as he moved back to the city, he never wasted a minute ignoring her calls and letters. When they stopped coming, he probably wasn’t even cognizant of it.
John’s cell phone rang and he glanced at the screen to see who was calling. The boy looked over but just as quickly returned his stare to the floor. It was Lawrence. John flipped the phone open and put it to his ear.
“Hey, man. Something’s come up. No, it ain’t anything like that. Yeah, man. Sure. You can come on by if you want to.”
John flipped the phone off and walked back to the chair. He pulled it closer to the couch. “So, your mom says I’m your dad, uh?”
The boy sighed but kept his attention on the Berber carpet that John had put in a few months before. Genuine Berber, not the cheap imitation most people bought from peddlers on Belmont.
“My mom said that she couldn’t take care of us any more and that our dad’s should take care of us. We came from Texas and she drove my sister to her dad in Tennessee then we came here. Now, she’s gone to Philadelphia to take my other sister to her dad’s house except he’s in jail so she’s really taking her to her dad’s mom’s house.”
“That’s a lot of traveling.” John remarked. The boy looked up for a second then looked back at the floor.
“Hey, man. Don’t worry about it. We’ll find your mother. She couldn’t have gone too far. I mean she doesn’t even know me. I mean… she knows me but I got things to do. You know. I… This is a one bedroom. There isn’t room for another person. You know how it is? Don’t you?”
The boy remained focused on the floor. John scooted the chair back and got up. Using the towel from his duffel bag he ran it across the top of the plasma TV to catch the day’s layer of dust that had formed there. He stepped out onto the patio, the street below was bustling with energy, one of the reasons he’d chosen this particular building. It was in the heart of the newly reconstructed City Scape, just north of the downtown zone. Everything was new and shiny, designed to accommodate the movers and the shakers, of which he considered himself one. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Yep, he could handle this.
