Fri-yay with Daddy, I coo to Bubba, my 3-year-old, as we feast on our fast food. I’ve inhaled my fried chicken and am bogartin’ his fries something awful and he’s side-eyeing me. I slurp cherry coke and congratulate us on learning to be happy in all circumstances.
His in-home therapist canceled. No productive end to the work week for me, I bitched to my wife. My turn to babysit. I’m glad now. Though as the fizzy grenadine goes down,
I wish I was a smoker. I crave some bitter tar and smoke to balance the sweet.
His eyes are drooping, nothing of the fries left but salted crumbs. Time to go home and take naps.
2.
I jog-push Bubba in his stroller in a half-ass attempt to catch the C-line while working off my fried chicken food baby.
The bus zooms past and Bubba laughs. I do too, no hurry today—all meetings canceled, to-do lists scrapped. I round the corner walking, only to see the bus has stopped to let on a Black lady in a wheelchair, in a painfully long lifting process a younger passenger version of me might have wrapped my fingers and rolled my eyes while muttering about being late. But because the bus driver has time for her, she has time for us as we stroll up late.
Eventually, we’re all going to get there together.
3.
The bus driver, a young Sista with long braids shimmering like velveteen chestnut-hued chainmail, smiles and waves us on.
What do you say? I ask
Bubba’s shy ‘hi’ is rewarded with a Well, hello there cutie! that doesn’t register until about five minutes later when he smiles like she deposited a gold coin into his head. Cutie! he echoes.
The driver and the lady in the wheelchair get to talking about chicken. Please, no more bird! They laugh about the Popeyes kept in the freezer in case of a what’s-for-dinner pinch.
They bemoan the dearth of good fish fry here.
At the mention of hush puppies my tummy rumbles and I tell them they better quit making me hungry. They laugh and laugh some more when I say what I just ate.
She lets us off at our stop and coos at Bubba’s blue eyes and covers for him when he doesn’t say ‘bye-bye’. So much to see. I know it, baby!
With a toot toot of the horn, she departs while Bubba watches with a small smile spreading across his beautiful face that I am starting to understand is the face of the world as it should be.
She’s right, you know. There is so much to see, so much to taste and share if we could take a day to stop for someone else: stop the eyerolling, stop smirking, stop our reckless sportscar cavalcade towards the top where nobody can live or work cuz the air’s too thin and there’s not enough food.
Don’t believe me? Ride a bus sometime. Getchyou a sandwich with a cherry coke and a cigarette and tell me you don’t feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven or wherever’s closest to home for you. For me, it can always be here when it’s Friyay in my heart.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please support our mission and join us as a Premium Member.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
—
Shutterstock image