The Story of My Encounter with My Angel

When I was seven or eight, I sat at the top of a flight of steps, looking over into the next-door neighbor’s yard. The door behind me opened: and when I turned round, I saw a tall dark-skinned Black man in a three-piece suit. 

“Carole,” the tall dark-skinned Black man said. “Where’s your mother?” 

“At work.” 

“Do you remember me?” 

“No.” 

“I’m your father.” 

“Hello, Daddy.” 

“What’re you doing?” 

“Sitting.” 

“You don’t have any work to do?”

“No, Daddy.” 

“No cleaning? No reading? No homework?” 

“I’m finished, Daddy.” 

“When you’re finished with one thing, you must find something else to do,” the tall dark-skinned Black man who said he was my Daddy said. 

“But I am doing something. Mama said to sit here and watch the people next-door; I have to tell her everything I see or hear.” 

“That’s gossiping, Carole, and gossiping is wrong,” he said. And this man whom I’d only just met, slowly slipped his belt out of the loop and raised it high, laying it quickly and powerfully across my leg. That’s how I knew this man was my Father. He was so like my grandfather. 

When Mama got home, the tall dark-skinned Black man argued with her about the way she was bringing me up. She picked up the nearest thing handy - a glass Home Sweet Home lamp - and smashed it across his face. This is my first memory of my father. 

The last time I saw Daddy –twelve years later - my sister and I were 17 and 15 respectively. We were in the United States by then. And Daddy had deigned to visit my mother, sister and I out of the blue. 

Daddy came into the bedroom my mother sister and I shared. He had $4000 dollars in small bills in his hand which he offered to us. But we refused.