Twice as Hard - 1st Excerpt
TWICE AS HARD - (1st)Early September, 1977
Rochester, NY
Sunlight streamed through the wide window of the fast food restaurant, bathing patrons in the year’s last significantly warm rays. But as far as AJ was concerned, it could be raining buckets outside. A faint smile lifted the corners of his lips as he thought about the irony of how two little words could change a man’s life forever.
“Did you hear me?” Lois asked, with growing irritation. “I said I’m pregnant.”
AJ’s response was mere look. However, it was a hard look, a look that spoke volumes. It was a look that said: Yeah, I heard you loud and clear, but I need to wrap my brain around this before I open my mouth, so please be quiet. The nonverbal communication was effective enough that Lois said nothing further, but instead resumed biting her fingernails, a habit that drove AJ absolutely nuts.
This can’t be happening to me, he thought. I’m only 16 years old… Amos Jerome Williams (known as “AJ”) had big plans for his life, and becoming a teenaged father was not on the agenda. Amos was a highly regarded honor student and he dreamed of practicing law one day. However, because he came from a family that lived well below the poverty level, he knew that just paying his way through college would be a huge challenge. If he had to support a child at the same time, getting through college would be nearly impossible.
AJ stood nearly six feet tall and he weighed 155 pounds. Copper-brown skin and long, wavy hair contributed to the ‘Pretty Boy’ label he endured from some contemporaries, but this young man was no shrinking violet. His interests included football, wrestling and track and he also was an occasional martial arts student. AJ’s was an enormous ego and he considered himself a ‘chick magnet’ but he had never been made to contemplate the consequences of unprotected sex. That is, until now.
Finally, AJ turned to Lois. When he knew he had her attention, he asked: “So how do you know this isn’t a false alarm - like last time?” The two youngsters had just dealt with a scare a few months before, right after the first time they had intercourse together. Lois was late on her cycle and declared AJ had better prepare for fatherhood. When the delinquent menses was finally announced, the young man’s relief was indescribable. She’s probably scaring her own damn period away – didn’t I read somewhere that menstrual cycles could be affected by stress? Lois seemed to read his mind.
“Amos, I’m a woman; and a woman knows her body!” Lois retorted. AJ fell silent. He didn’t know enough about female anatomy to argue the point.
“So what do you think we should do?” He finally asked.
“Well, I sure as hell can’t let my Daddy find out,” said Lois. “He would kill me!”
Lois Jones was a ‘cutie’ by almost any standards. She stood 5’2” tall and her nubile frame carried just over a hundred pounds. Big, warm brown eyes were perhaps her most attractive feature, and a magnificent Afro surrounded her head. Lois was a few months younger than AJ and she came from a family just as economically disadvantaged as his, but her folks were rural, in contrast to AJ’s ghetto origins. Lois’ mother, Ella Jones, died from cancer when Lois was only 10 years old. She left Lois’ father, Charles Jones, with eight children to raise on his own. Lois was third youngest.
One of the people who attended Ella’s funeral was an old friend of the deceased, Honora Smith. Honora, who traveled up from the south to pay her respects, found her heart pierced when she became aware of the plight of widower Jones and his brood. Shortly after the funeral, she moved in with the family, assuming all the responsibilities of motherhood, although Honora never had children of her own. Over time she and Jones developed a romantic interest and then lived together as husband and wife, if oddly paired. The adaptable children had little difficulty switching from “Aunt Honora” to simple “Honora”. But she would never earn the title ‘mother,’ no matter how Honora dedicated herself to the Jones family. Nor would Charles Jones ever wed her.
For his part, Jones was but a shadow of his former self after his wife’s death. He started drinking more and more. He often would call his children by the wrong name; Candy for Lois and Tina for Penny. Jones more often than not called Honora by his late wife’s appellation – ‘Ella Mae’ – when he was in his cups. Occasionally, and without clear reason, Jones would physically beat Lois and her siblings. When Honora tried to intercede for the children, she’d get a beating as well. Her father’s drunken aggression was the reason Lois feared him finding out about her pregnancy.
“Lois, I love you and I’ll always take care of you,” said AJ. “But I’m still in school, I don’t have any money or a job – how will we support ourselves?”
There was never a question in AJ’s mind that it would be the two of them – like Bonnie and Clyde – not just Lois trying to be a single young mother. AJ’s own father, Amos Senior, had been missing in action as long as the young man could remember. AJ could vaguely recall a time during his preschool years when his dad had been around, but it was so long ago AJ couldn’t even trust his own dim recollection. His mother, Angela Williams, was the father AJ never had during his early years and her common-law husband Felix Crenshaw was all the dad a fellow needed, as far as AJ was concerned. Nevertheless, the young man was determined that no child of his would endure the same fatherless environment AJ had experienced.
“You don’t have to worry about it, Amos – I’ll find a way to take care of my baby!” The brave words Lois spoke were a thin veil over the layers of fear and anxiety AJ knew lurked right under the surface. “I ain’t getting no abortion – that’s for sure!”
AJ ignored the last, because the possibility of abortion had never crossed his mind. For one thing, his conservative Christian upbringing didn’t allow him to seriously consider the option, and for another the thought of being a father, even at his young age, gave the young man a stirring of pride that he had never really felt before. His cousin, Sly, was only two years older than AJ and his second child was expected during the coming spring.
“No, we’re in this together,” he said to Lois. “I won’t leave you; not now or ever. Finish your drink; we need to get out of here.”
With those words, he set his life on a course that would take him farther away from his dream the he could ever imagine.
(to be continued)
posted by JahStorm @ 11:15 AM
Your Thoughts?: 0
