American River Review 2022 - copy - Flipbook - Page 54
Ma Says
By Dalene Sissac
“Invalidate, invalidate that is what you are so good at doing, Ma!” Jonny
yelled into the phone and tapped the end call button. I am so pissed at her,
he thought. Some nerve the Ma is mad because I never visit, but she does not
understand I am busy, I am the Pastor of a Major local church, I have a wife and
two children responsibilities she does not seem to understand, Jonny thinks to
himself. She is the one that went out and married this guy and moved to some
old farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere, Illinois. If she had moved to California when she had the chance, things would have been different, but now she
had stayed for this guy. Jonny could not understand his mom’s loyalty to these
seemingly abusive men, including his father. While he does not blame her for
everything that went wrong in his life, there were some moments, he felt let
down by her utterly and completely and will never forget it.
Jonny heads out into the garage to jump in the car and head out to
preach his Saturday night sermon. He is carrying his baby girl Milan and
4-year-old son JD walking alongside, says,” bye, daddy! Can you bring me ice
cream when you come home,” “Sure, pumpkin, I will stop on the way back
home. What kind?” “Cookies and Cream!” JD shouts with delight as Jonny bends
down to plant a kiss on his sons’ forehead, hands the 6-month-old Milan to
wife Tina; here, babe, I think she is wet!” Thanks a lot! “Tina says, placing baby
Milan on her hip and then a slight peck on Jonny’s lips. “Have a good sermon,
honey, try not to be too late! “as she turns on a heel back toward the house with
JD in tow.
Turning from his driveway, Jonny turns down his neighborhood street
with all the perfect suburban American-looking houses and ponders how far he
has come. Coming from the inner city of Chicago, he lived through some dangerous times of domestic violence portrayed by his father, who had hopelessly
been addicted to alcohol and drugs, strained home life along with the threat of
gang violence, or being killed by police as a young black man.
He recalls an incident in high school where he was working as a parking valet in downtown Chicago, and one of the downtown museums was having
an event. His employer told him to drive cars on the sidewalk to park them in
a specific location. Skeptical but believing he was okay to do this while parking
a car, a Chicago police squad car followed and pulled him over. The policeman
got out of the squad car behind him, came to the window of the Jaguar he was
driving on the sidewalk to park, started shouting at Jonny, “What are you doing
driving on the sidewalk! Are you crazy? Step out of the car!”
Johnny stepped out of the car, hands up, explaining to the officer why
he was driving the car on the sidewalk. Jonny said,” my employer told me to
drive the cars this way on the part of the sidewalk to park them!.” Shut up and
turn around. The officer shouted, quite annoyed that he could have something
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