A Heavy Taboo: Part2 - A Sad Affirmation

Click HERE for Part 1

I got out of prison in August of 1996 on a Friday, released early from my sentence to community based supervision in a halfway house. I was initially housed at the County Jail, awaiting bed space, and was given the opportunity the following Monday to hit the streets after 7 years. I made a bee-line to my wife’s apartment on the Eastside. I had just missed her leaving to work but the kid's were home. A bunch of hugs and high-fives later, everyone was off doing homework and chores and I stood in the living room soaking my freedom in and basking in the glow of my new castle.

The responsibility didn’t escape me, though. I was a full-fledged stepdad, and my wife was also my baby mama, being a couple months pregnant at the time.

“You need to protect those girls.”

That edict from my Sister rung over and over again in my ears. I not only had to provide for my step-kids as head of household, I had to keep them safe from a predator (allegedly) who was my wife’s ex. After making my concerns clear to my wife, dude of course denied any wrongdoing. I attempted to chat with the father of my youngest stepdaughter – initially because he had been throwing some real sharp shade at my wife. 

Their divorce had been initiated by her and seen as a betrayal by him, especially after she really attacked his manhood in a way that became an embarrassingly public spectacle – all to justify leaving him and reuniting with her prior boyfriend/baby daddy.  I had invited (we’ll call him) "Harold" to come see me for a talk – his response was that he would wait…to see if I would actually stick around. Apparently, once I saw things (about my marriage) for what they were, I would go running for the hills…

A knock came on the door breaking my reverie. It was Ronnie, my wife’s ex, stopping in at the request of the youngest girl to drop off some eggs.

I politely told dude he no longer needed to be doing stuff like that – ultimately he never got the hint and for years strove to circumvent me and my spot.

He had help and encouragement – coming from, of all people, my own wife. Little did I know, that day with the eggs was the first peal of the death-knell of our marriage.  I’d go up to my youngest stepdaughter’s school for parent/teacher meetings and hear about the mailman-guy (Ronnie worked for the postal service) who was always up there to see her. I’d pick up the phone and constantly get the dialtone – one day I waited until the kids picked up and then I picked to hear “Is Taj there…?” More than once I fought the urge to simply confront this dude because I knew it would result in me kicking his ass – and since I was on parole and he was a coward, it was not such a good idea. So, over and over, I expressed my concerns to the wife, ordering her to make sure this dude didn’t come around.

My efforts were, in a word, futile.

The antagonism wasn’t one-sided. Ronnie was incensed at my stance regarding him, which I cared less about. But I stoked his fire with an incident with his son, who had moved in with him due mostly to he and I not getting along, especially with my being a Stalin-esque parent. To be honest, I was an unnecessary asshole of a father/stepfather. At the core of my thoughts, I was scared as hell that I would screw up and wake up one day to a dead infant, or that my stepkids would somehow ban together to rob banks and sacrifice chickens to Zeus and that it would all happen because, this being my first marriage and first kid and marrying into a step-parent situation, after having served time starting at the green age of 19, I was too much of a rookie to do anything but fail. But I covered this core message (or “core value” as psychologists calls it) with behavior to cover this up. I had to be the dictator, the authoritarian – the asshole, so that my fear and anxiety didn’t show. 

When my oldest stepson was 17, his visit to the house set up the typical father/son showdown that occurs due to testosterone and hormones. All it took was a “you’re a bitch-ass nigga” from him for me to do to him exactly what my father did to me when I was that exact same age and thought it was a good idea to exert my manhood and challenge him. Like me, my stepson saw his life flash before his eyes and surely wondered how a human being could move so fast and apply a sleeper hold about his neck in nano-seconds. I squeezed him just enough to make him fart and start babbling a prayer before I let him go… to run to his father.

Needless to say, the imp was not pleased.

But I am getting a little ahead in the story. Before my jiujitsu demonstration, the “Day of The Journal” came…

First, a PSA: Parents are nosy. This is not a judgement; it is a fact. A maxim. A standard. A responsibility. A rule. So, one day I read thru Shwayyah my oldest kid’s journal. There, in the darkest ink and in the starkest language she recounted the day Ronnie molested her. And her sister. She recounted the feelings she kept hidden. She recounted the difficulty with assuming she’d forgiven him when he did not and would not admit to what he did to them. She recounted feeling like no one saved, believed or loved her. She recounted feeling betrayed, most of all, by her own self – or her lack of self…

I don’t know how I felt – I still cannot describe it to this day. But I heard my sister’s adjuration again. 

And again. I went to the wife, this time telling her what I read. Got the blank stare. I didn’t envy her. Now she had to reconcile dude’s denials with Shway’s pen. She had to reconcile how the father of the middle daughter (again, we’ll call him “Harold”) felt about her and his own daughter, who he deliberately shunned because during the investigation by Social Services, his own kid pointed an accusing-although-confused finger at him, and now had to swallow not only betrayal from his baby-mama but by his baby also.

It took me a minute – after all, ours began as an antagonistic interaction, but over the coming years I slowly came to respect and sympathize with H. Getting dragged by both your wife and daughter is no small thing, especially when the things you are vilified for are not true and there is not so much as a “my bad” for any of the humiliation heaped on him. For his part, he is and has been pretty stoic/zen about it all – he’s a better man than me, that’s for certain.

I wasn’t truthful above – I know how if felt. I felt like David Banner right before he Hulks out. 

Everything red rushed through me because with all the denials and nonchalance, Shway and her sister were made out to be liars, and Ronnie a holier than thou martyr who was really a devoted father figure.  This was even a commentary on the local Black Muslim community who, while they volleyed the scandal around in whispers, was much more interested in coming out untainted, pristine, and angelic. So, they swept this situation under the rug.

We’ve all seen it before – Exhibit A: the Catholic Church.

We all see it now: Exhibit B: Afrika Bambaataa – and the fact that so many people for so many years knew this dude was a child-molesting deviant. And did nothing. Except for coming to his defense.

Annnnnd. Exhibit C: Robert Kelly.  Many people saw him pee on a little girl. Many of those witnesses didn’t care and bought his next CD and vilified anyone who dragged Robert. Many of them do this presently.

Ultimately, the Black community has repeatedly scored the mantra that Black girls and/or Black women have little to no worth. That we will sacrifice them to the most cannibalistic of evils in order to gain some sense of narcissistic pleasure or distraction.

Needless to say, I was angry - my girls needed retribution. They needed someone who would stand up for them. I needed this dude off my stoop, off my block.

I left the wife to her own thoughts, assuming I would not have to see this predator at my doorstep or hear him on my phone again; that she would finally, actually step up and put her foot down and draw a line of protection around her kids.

I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t any of that.

Actually, what happened next was an incident where I ended up with a gun to my head – held by a child molester...

To be continued…