Work and travel

I rarely saw my father simply sitting and resting. I always saw him sleeping on the couch, resting between the two or more jobs he always and proudly held--shoes off, knees slightly bent, his large back to the rest of the world. There was never a time in my lifetime when my father did not work. It was common for my father to come home after 3pm and be on his way out the door before 5pm. In the few moments we had him, my siblings and I would bother him for attention, money, or both. He generally complied.  Daddy's main lesson to me was that I could always work--if I were willing. I came from him.

He came from and was the namesake of two Stevens before him, his father and his grandfather. A 1940's Southern boy, young Steve lived on a farm in Arkansas. He was accustomed to getting up early to work long hours in the fields under the watchful gaze of his father, a stern man who later in his life became a fiery minister who was known for taking no mess.

Farm life was no joke. Daddy and his siblings spent a great deal of their formative years helping to plant and raise tobacco, corn and whatever else the family needed. After graduating high school, the 17-year-old hopped a train to Ohio, where he met a woman named Elaine, married her, and the couple settled down to raise three girls and two boys--one of which was me.

As a child I didn't like him, and I didn't think he liked me. I always thought my father wanted a more masculine son than I turned out to be. This painful fact was confirmed many times over. One Sunday I came home after church to find my father waiting for me. I remember him taking me by the shoulder, pointing me toward a window leading to our backyard.

"Stevie, do you know that your so-called friends sat on our back porch and talked about you like a dog?" he asked. Like them, he accused me of being anti-social, and claimed that I thought that I was better than them. Well, he was half right. I was anti-social because I simply didn't know how to connect with boys my age besides playing sports. More importantly, I was too busy trying to hide my erection.  

But it was the disappointment on his face that tore me up. He wasn't upset with them--he was upset with me. I wasn't social. I wasn't hanging out with my friends. I had the problem. So instead of defending me, he sided with some silly boys who he wouldn't give a second thought to except as barometers to his flaming son's behavior. By sixteen, I was having a hard time adopting the "hang out on the corner and wait for what" paradigm that had ensnared so many of my peers. I knew I was going somewhere, but where?

In 1996 I left Ohio to attend graduate school in Georgia. A year before that I came out to my father. He was the last person I told because I was terrified that he would reject me. He didn't. In fact, his main concern was that I could be hurt for going public with my sexual preference. He told me not to tell anyone, concerned that I could be fired for being out. The very next day my father came to see me at the library where I was working. The tightness in my throat dissolved the moment I saw his face.

In 2005, almost a decade later, I call my father. It was a warm Saturday morning in October, and I was at work. My father and his siblings often caught up with one another early in the morning on weekends, and so I too look forward to catching him during these times.

"I got your postcard," he said.

Two months prior I was vacationing in the Dominican Republic, splashing about in ocean with my now ex-fiancé. Dad brings up the postcard inscribed with the words "Dominican Republic" and, more importantly, "fiancé."

... "So," I said, "I want you to meet my partner."

Silence.

Then, in a pleading tone, he said, "Man, do I have to?"

..."Stevie, listen. I will always be in your corner, always, till they put me in the ground. I will always respect you and what you choose, but I gotta tell you, that ain't my way of life."

"Okay, I know that, Daddy. I'm not saying it has to be," I said.

[This is an excerpt from Steven G. Fullwood's essay in Be a Father to Your Child: Black Men on Family, Love, and Fatherhood. For more information, read the full essay in the book available here.]