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“How many grounders do I have to hit you, girl? I’m an old man!” Jamal reached for the softball lying next to his feet in the grass.
“Six more, dad! You promised a hundred!”
Jamal shook his head. Although JJ broke his heart when she decided she loved softball more than the sport he made a career playing, he had to give her credit. She was dedicated. And showed a ton of potential, if he believed the coach he was paying big bucks to teach his daughter how to pitch.
“Alright. Six more. But then I have to go to practice so I can afford to buy you all that fancy gear you need. You know, all you need to be successful in basketball is a forty dollar Spaulding, kiddo.”
JJ rolled her eyes. “And all I need to be successful in softball is six more grounders.”
Jamal laughed. “At least you are determined to be the best, short stuff.”
“I learned that from my daddy-o. I always want to be the best. But call me short stuff one more time, dad, and I will throw the next ball at your head.”
Fifteen minutes later, his promised practice with his daughter at an end, Jamal grabbed an apple and his keys off the island separating his kitchen from his living room and headed to the door that led to the garage. His housekeeper and JJ’s nanny, Irma, was shutting the door to the laundry room, a basket of clothes in her arms.
“Hey, Irma! Gotta jet. Practice. Take care of my kiddo!”
Irma shifted the basket of clothes to her right hip, put her left arm on her other substantial hip, pushed her cat eye glasses down to the end of her nose, and glared at him. Her hair, more gray than chestnut now, was coming down from the bun she insisted was ‘professional.’ Even though Irma turned sixty-five the month before, she didn’t look a day over fifty. She claimed it was her Puerto Rican heritage; Jamal secretly thought it was the Botox she had been saving for since he gave her the first big paycheck after he signed his contract with the Thunder, but there was no way he was letting on that he knew.
“Oh, sonny, you cannot just eat a single apple for lunch! You don’t eat right, mister. You’re gonna waste away. Then where would the Thunder be, hmmmm? I’ll tell you where they’ll be. The off season. In May.”
“Ouch, Irma. That’s mean.”
“I only speak the truth.”
Jamal laughed at how true that statement was. He had met Irma in the grocery store, of all things. He had been toting a screaming baby JJ in his arms, trying to find the correct baby formula the local health department told him to get for her colic. He was a seventeen year old kid who had grown up in the ghetto, trying to survive with a baby whose mom had taken off for parts unknown after JJ was born. With half a year of high school left, Jamal’s only hope to support his daughter was to keep playing basketball and hope some college would give him a chance. How that was going to happen with a baby on his hip was beyond him. But he had to try.
“Mister, you are holding that babyallwrong.” Irma, five foot two on a good day, had pushed her cart up to him and taken JJ from his arms. “She ain’t a football like you’re used to holding. She’s a baby. You have to hold her gently.”
“I don’t play football, ma’am. I’m a basketball player.”
“I don’t care what kind of player you are, son. You ain’t holding that baby the right way, and she’s gonna keep crying until you act like she’s a tiny human instead of a ball.”
Irma then started cooing at JJ, making sweet sounds and rocking his kid in her arms. And wouldn’t you know it, JJ shut right up and stared in wonder at Irma’s face.
“Where’s this baby’s momma, son?”
“Who knows? She took off as soon as JJ was born. It’s just me and her against the world.” Jamal said with a small smile. The words surprised him. Why he would tell that to a stranger? It made no sense.
“Well, then I’m guessing you’re this baby’s daddy?”
Jamal nodded.
“I guess I’m wondering whereyourfamily is then. Why are you caring for this baby all by yourself? That’s a lot to handle for a young man. Even a young man as big as yourself.”
Jamal looked at Irma with a sad smile. “I don’t have any family. It was just me and my momma. Then she got sick and well…she didn’t make it. Stephanie got pregnant, I moved in with her and then…well, then JJ was born and Steph took off. Said she was too young to be a mom. So it’s just us. What you see. A skinny basketball player with a baby and no home.”
Irma looked at him with a sad smile. “Well now, sonny, my James went to be with the Man upstairs and it’s been just me and an old cat for seven years. My house gets pretty lonely. I could never have kids, but I sure was good with ‘em. How about you come stay with me awhile, so you have a safe place to stay with this beautiful baby and I can make sure you finish high school.”
“Oh, ma’am, that would be…I couldn’t do…why would you do that?” Jamal asked, baffled. “What if I robbed you blind or something? You don’t know me.”
“Well, now, sonny. You’ve got a baby on your hip when most boys your age runnin’ round toting guns or Lord knows what else. You’re trying to finish high school and you also called me ma’am. That’s good enough for me. Now, come on and let’s get some formula for that baby.”
The rest was history. Jamal and JJ moved into Irma’s small apartment in the Bronx, he graduated from high school and got a scholarship at a small two year college in New York. The numbers he put up in those two years were enough to get him a scholarship at Syracuse. The rest, as they say, is history. His amazing ball handling skills caught the eye of what was then the owner of the Seattle Supersonics, which was later bought by the Oklahoma City Thunder. He’d been offered several million dollars more to go to other franchises, but the Thunder had given him his first shot. They’d believed in him and he would never go anywhere else, no matter how much he was offered. Besides, he, JJ and Irma had made a home in Oklahoma City. He’d bought a beautiful renovated Tudor in Nichols Hills, where they had happily settled down. JJ was in the best private school in Oklahoma City and Irma happily played the role of doting nanny and homemaker.
Jamal knew what his image in the media was – the quintessential playboy. That’s what he wanted them to think about him. He didn’t want his little family in the media spotlight, so he kept them carefully hidden from everyone but his closest friends. He tried to make sure the media didn’t find out he had a daughter who like to sit on the front row at all of his home games, cheering the loudest of all. He didn’t want to expose her to everything that his celebrity status brought along.
