Mr. Ford,” the youthful-looking secretary said from behind her desk, “Dr. James will see you now.”
Freddy lifted himself from the chair in the reception area and walked toward the hallway leading to the attorneys’ offices. He wore a white shirt, a blue tie, and black slacks and shoes, all bought from Target yesterday and packed and carried with him today to work. For the past two days he had been calling Kia’s father at work, unable to get him. He decided there would be no other way but to go down there and see him face to face.
Freddy stopped at the office door, read what was before him: Alexander James, J.D., Ph.D., Attorney-at-Law. “Whatever,” Freddy said to himself, and then knocked.
“Come in,” a voice instructed from behind the dark, wooden door.
Freddy entered the huge office, paneled in the same dark wood as the door. In the center of the room was a desk. A large man was standing behind it, wearing a pin-striped suit and glasses.
“Have a seat,” Dr. James said. “I have five minutes for you. Next time you’ll call and make an appointment.”
Freddy took the seat before the desk. “I tried to make an—”
“What is it you want?” Dr. James said, sitting, pulling his glasses off, and devoting all of his attention to Freddy.
“You can’t stop paying Kia’s tuition.”
“I can do whatever I want. And as long as she’s seeing you, I will.”
“You’d stop her from getting her education just because you don’t like me?”
“That’s correct.”
“She’s having my baby.”
“She hasn’t given birth to it yet.”
Freddy looked intently at the man, understanding that he had not given up on the hope of Kia aborting Freddy’s child. Freddy clenched his teeth, trying to stop himself from voicing just what he thought of the man before him. “Mr. James, I love your daughter.”
“It’s Dr. James, and I don’t care how you feel about her.”
“I’m doing right by Kia, Dr. James,” Freddy said, trying to appeal to the man. “I’m working every day. I’ve taken classes. I plan on opening up my own real-estate company. I’m going to be a success. I’m going to make your daughter proud of me. I don’t know why you won’t just give me a chance. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Dr. James put his glasses back on, reached into a bottom desk drawer, pulled out some papers, and set them on his desk. “I’ll tell you what you’ve done. Close to twenty years ago, you killed your own father. You were sent to a mental institution for the next six years, and after that term, you were wrongly proclaimed cured. You went to high school, graduated with straight D’s, then started and either left, or was fired from—” Dr. James silently went down the list, counting to himself “—sixteen jobs, before working for your uncle. Now let me tell you what you haven’t done,” Dr. James said, looking Freddy squarely in the face. “You have not gotten an education. You have not worked a job requiring intelligence beyond the eighth-grade level. You have not secured your own housing. You have not distinguished yourself as being anything other than the average, do-nothing, learn nothing, hand-out nigga on the street that plagues not only the black community, but the black race. And you definitely have not earned the right even to stand in the same neighborhood as my little girl, let alone impregnate her, fool her into believing there is a future with you, which will ultimately ruin her life. Now you have the nerve to come down here, sit before me, and tell me who you are, what you’re going to do, when I’ve known since I first laid eyes on you, you aren’t capable of accomplishing anything,” Dr. James said, removing his glasses and standing again. “Get out of my sight before I’m forced to do something I may regret.”
Freddy did not move from his seat, did not flinch, and just stared up at the big man. Dr. James had just made a threat. Freddy did not have his gun, but upon walking in, he had noticed the huge, brick-like paperweight that sat on Dr. James’s desk.
A split-second image of himself, straddling the big man behind his desk, bashing his head in with the blood-covered paperweight, flashed through Freddy’s mind.
“Are you getting up, or do I need to help you?” Dr. James said, starting to move from around the desk.
Freddy slowly rose from the chair, turned, and headed quietly for the door. He opened it, but did not leave before saying, “I came here trying to earn your respect. You don’t want to give it to me. That’s cool. Everything I need, Kia gives to me. But I’m just telling you, things gonna be kind of crazy at the family reunions, cause I’m gonna ask Kia to marry me one day, and something tells me she’s gonna say yes.”
Freddy smiled at the look of shock on Dr. James’s face, then gently closed the door.