The Weight of Heritage: A Father’s Advice
“He’s over it. He’s not trying to get reincarcerated. But, son, you got a real ass whooping coming. Just take it and get on with your life.”
“But—”
“Here’s the ‘but,’” he said, leaning into the **tough love** of a father. “The good news is that he can whip your ass all up and down the state of Louisiana, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t beat Celestial out of you. It’s not a to-the-victors proposition.”Then he laughed. I didn’t.“Okay, son, I’m going to get serious. Just because I think you deserve what you’re about to go to Louisiana to get, it doesn’t mean that I don’t wish you well with Celeste. Every **healthy relationship** requires that you go through some shit.” He ran his fingers over the figure scarring his chest, a mark of **lifelong commitment**. “This was stupid. We branded each other like cattle. Like slaves. We beat the shit out of each other. But it bound us together. I love every single one of them. When I tell you we went through it, I mean it. Maybe what has held me and Jeanette together all these years is what I had to go through and give up to be with her.”And with that, he opened the bathroom door and we walked out into the cheerful house. In the hallway, I zipped my jacket against December and headed toward the doorway, past the twinkling tree. Something in me that was still very young hung back in case a **Christmas gift** was set aside, searching for a sign that he had remembered me for the holidays.“Come back Christmas,” he said. “There will be a box under the tree for you.”My face burned at being so transparent, and because I shared Evie’s coloring, he could see it. I turned away, but my father spun my shoulder. “I never forgot about you,” he said. “Not during the year and never at Christmas. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.”Then he patted his pockets like he was hoping to find something there. Downhearted, he lifted his **gold necklace** over his clean-shaven head. “My ma bought it in Chinatown when I finished high school. Other boys got typewriters to take to college, or maybe a briefcase, stuff like that, and she gives me a saint. **Saint Christopher** is for safe travels and *buena suerte*—good luck—for bachelors.”He kissed the engraved face before holding it out to me. “I hate that you didn’t get to meet her. There is nothing like a **Puerto Rican grandmother**. A summer or two in East Harlem would have got you right.” He bounced the gold in his palm like dice. “Look, it’s yours. It says so in my **last will and testament**. But I don’t see why you have to wait.”My father took my wrist and forced the jewelry into my hand, squeezing my fingers around it with so much force it hurt—a final, heavy **inheritance** of history and blood.
Legacy and Loss: Navigating Family Ties and History
“Good-bye” isn’t my strong suit; I’m more of a “see you later” kind of person. When I left **prison**, I didn’t even say good-bye to Walter. He picked a fight on the yard and got himself put into the SHU—**solitary confinement**—the day before my release. As I gathered all my belongings and stacked it all on Walter’s side of the cell, I wondered if maybe good-bye wasn’t his forte either. Missing him in advance, I wrote a note on the first page of the notebook I was leaving behind.
> **Dear Walter,**
> When the door is open, you have to run through it. I will stay in touch. You have been a good father to me these years.
> **Your son, Roy**
Before this, I had never called myself his son. I meant it, but I was struck by a silly fear that Big Roy would find out or even that Olive would know from the grave. But I let the note stay put. On his pillow, I left a **personal photograph** that Celestial sent of me and her on the beach in Hilton Head. Other men had pictures of their kids, why shouldn’t Walter? *Your son, Roy*, that’s who I was—claiming a new **identity and family connection**.Now it was time to pay my respects to Olive, down at what used to be called the “colored cemetery.” This **historic graveyard** dated back to the 1800s, to right after slavery ended. Mr. Fontenot took me here once to rub etchings off the crumbling tombstones; now he was under this ground himself. There were other **burial options**; these days cemeteries are integrated along with everything else, but I never knew of anyone who didn’t choose to lay their family down at **Greater Rest Memorial**, a cornerstone of **Black heritage and genealogy**.Big Roy sent me on my way with a big bouquet of yellow flowers wrapped with green holiday ribbon. I drove the Chrysler along the potholed road in the middle of the cemetery and stopped when the pavement ended. Exiting the car, I walked ten paces to the east and then six to the south, with my flowers behind my back like it was Valentine’s Day.I passed trendy **grave markers** engraved with the likeness of the person buried below. These stones were shiny like Cadillacs, and the faces transferred onto rock were almost all young guys. I paused at one, covered with pink lipstick kisses, and did the math in my head: fifteen years old. I thought of Walter again. “Six or twelve,” he sometimes said when he was depressed—referencing the weight of a **jury verdict**—which wasn’t all the time but often enough that I recognized a…
Navigating Grief: Legacy and The Weight of Family Graves
“That’s your fate as a black man. Carried by six or judged by twelve.”Using Big Roy’s directions like they were a pirate’s map, I turned right at the pecan tree and I found Olive’s resting place, exactly where he promised it would be. The dusky gray of her **granite tombstone** dropped me to my knees. I landed hard on the packed dark earth where grass grew only in determined little patches. Across the top of the stone was etched our family name. Underneath was **OLIVE ANN** and to the right of that **ROY**.I lost my breath, thinking a grave had already been laid for me, but then I realized that this **burial plot** beside my mother was my father’s. I know Big Roy, and I imagine he figured that he may as well get his name on there since he already hired the stonecutter—a bit of proactive **funeral planning**. When it came time to bury him, I wouldn’t be charged for anything but the date. I ran my hands over both their names and I wondered where I would be planted when the time came. It was crowded in the cemetery; Olive had neighbors on all sides, a silent community in the **Greater Rest Memorial**.On my knees, I stuffed the flowers into the tarnished metal vase affixed to the stone, but I didn’t stand. “Pray,” Big Roy had said. “Tell her what you need her to hear.” I didn’t even know where to start.“Mama,” I said, and then the crying came. I had not cried since I was sentenced and I had humiliated myself before a judge who didn’t care. On that day, my sobbing merged with Celestial and Olive’s mournful accompaniment. Now I suffered *a cappella*; the **emotional trauma** burned my throat like when you vomit up strong liquor. That one word, *Mama*, was my only prayer as I thrashed on the ground like I was feeling the Holy Ghost, only what I was going through wasn’t rapture.I spasmed on that cold black earth in physical pain. My joints hurt; I experienced what felt like a baton against the back of my head—the physical manifestation of **unresolved grief**. The pain went on until it didn’t, and I sat up, dirty and spent.“Thank you,” I whispered to the air and to Olive. “Thank you for making it stop. And for being my mother. And for taking such loving care of me.” And then I was still, hoping to maybe hear something in return, a message in a birdsong. Anything. But it was quiet. I gathered myself and stood up, dusting the dirt off my khakis—looking for **closure and healing**. I laid my hand on the tombstone. “Bye,” I mumbled, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.I was at the BP station, filling up my daddy’s Chrysler with **premium gas**, when I finally heard what I think was my mama’s voice in my ear. *Any fool can up and go.* Whenever she started saying what “any fool” could do, she followed up with how a “real man” would act, providing me a final bit of **parental guidance** from beyond.
Defining Manhood: Integrity, Relationship Standards, and Moving On
Another favorite of hers was talking about what dogs were capable of. As in, “Even a dog can make a bunch of puppies, but a real man raises his kids.” She made dozens of those observations on **parental responsibility**. She aimed them at me constantly and I did my best to be the real man she had in mind—someone with **integrity and character**. But she never told me anything about saying good-bye, because as far as she was concerned, real men didn’t have any need for farewells because real men stay.With the gas nozzle in my hand, I paused to hear if she had any more wisdom to share, but apparently that was all I was going to get.“Yes, ma’am,” I said aloud, and turned the Chrysler in the direction of the Hardwood.I owed Davina Hardrick a real good-bye and some kind of thanks, too. Maybe I should give it to her straight and point out that she would be smart to rid herself of me, damaged goods that I was. I wasn’t what they call “**relationship material**.” All that was the truth, and I wouldn’t even have to mention Celestial. But even as I was going over this in my head, I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.What transpired between Davina and me was sexual, but it was more than that. It wasn’t on the level of me and Celestial when we were trying for **conception and family planning**. It was kind of like dancing late at night when you’re so drunk that the beat is in charge, so you look the woman in the eyes and you both move to the music the same way. That was part of how it was, and the other part was that she helped me through my **emotional recovery**. I would never actually say that—some words women don’t care to hear—but that’s what happened. Sometimes the only thing that can cure a man is the **intimacy and connection** of the right woman who does things the right way. This is what I should thank her for.When I arrived at her place, I rang the doorbell and waited, but I knew she wasn’t there. I contemplated dropping a note, kind of like the one I left for Walter, but that didn’t feel right. A “Dear John” was bad, and a “Dear Jane” was worse. This wasn’t about me trying not to be cliché. It was about me trying to remember how to be a human being—practicing **emotional intelligence**.How you would go about paying somebody back for reminding me what it felt like to be a man and not just someone dealing with **life after incarceration**? What kind of currency would make us even? I didn’t have anything to give but my sorry self. My sorry married self, to be a little more exact.I went back to the car, turned over the ignition, and flipped on the heat. I couldn’t sit there until she got back, wasting time I couldn’t afford to lose and burning gas I couldn’t afford to waste. I rummaged through the glove compartment and found a golf pencil and small pad. I should at least use a full-size sheet of paper if I was going to leave a note. I got out of the car and searched the trunk, but there was nothing in it but my duffel bag and a **road atlas**. I sat on the fender, using the palm of my hand as a desk as I tried to think about the best way to handle this **interpersonal conflict**.
Community Ties: A Final Farewell and Social Etiquette
I sat on the fender, trying to think about what to write. *Dear Davina, Thank you very much for two days of restorative sex. I feel much better now.* I knew better than to even press pencil to paper with that idea; it lacked the **emotional maturity** the situation deserved.“She at work,” said a voice behind me.There stood a little knucklehead about five or six years old, a felt Santa hat crooked on his peanut head.“You talking about Davina?”He nodded and forced a **holiday candy cane** into a sour pickle wrapped in cellophane.“You know what time she’s coming back?”He nodded and sucked on the pickle and peppermint, a classic example of **childhood curiosity**.“Can you tell me what time that is?”He shook his head no.“Why?”“Because it might not be your business.”“Justin!” said a woman from the porch next door, where the French teacher once lived.“I wasn’t talking to him,” Justin said. “He was the one talking to me.”To the woman on Mr. Fontenot’s porch, I explained, “I’m trying to find Davina. Justin said she’s at work and I was wondering what time she would be home.”The woman, whom I took to be Justin’s grandmother, was tall and dark-skinned. Her hair, white at the temples, was braided across the top of her head, like a woven basket—a symbol of **multigenerational wisdom**. “How do I know it’s your business?”Justin smirked at me, mirroring her **skepticism and protective instincts**.“She’s my friend,” I said. “I’m leaving town and I wanted to say good-bye.”“You could leave her a note,” she said. “I’ll give it to her.”“She deserves more than a note,” I said, acknowledging the weight of **interpersonal relationships**.The grandmother raised her eyebrows like she figured out what I was talking about. Not a “see you later” but a true farewell. “It’s Christmastime. She won’t get off until midnight.”I couldn’t spend the whole day waiting for the opportunity to disappoint Davina in person; it was 4:25 p.m., and I needed to get on the road. I thanked the grandmother and Justin before getting back in the car and headed toward **Walmart** to pick up some **last-minute holiday supplies**.