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“That’s good to hear. The last thing I want is for some man to use my daughter as a masturbation toy. She is a woman. A brilliant, intelligent, sophisticated, woman. If you are coming to enhance her then good. If you are with her to try and tame the wild stallion, you are sorely mistaken. She won’t be tamed.”
“Mr. Patterson, Averie is all of those things you named and more. I’m fascinated by her. She can be or do anything that she puts her mind to and honestly, I want to be the guy in the back to throw the cape over her shoulders when she’s done.”
“I hear you. I like you. You seem to care for her, and that’s all a father can ask for.”
“Welcome to the wild world of being with a Patterson woman,” Kerem chuckled.
I’d never had a conversation like that with a woman’s father, but I was impressed that we had. A lot of men would see a guy with money and prestige who dated their daughter, and they would disregard the man’s character because he had money. Not Mr. Patterson, he laid it down to me. I appreciated that.
We chatted about sports and the news until Mrs. Patterson called us up for dinner. I followed Kerem to the guest bathroom and washed my hands then found my seat next to Averie.
Mr. Patterson said a quick prayer over the food then we all began eating.
“This roast is delicious, Mrs. Patterson.”
“Thank you, Samuel. I was going to shorten your name to Sam, but Averie told me you don’t like that nickname,” she replied.
“No, ma’am. I don’t. My mother gave me the nickname El because it was the end of my name, but I later found out my biological father’s last name is Elkanah. My mother was actually calling me my father’s last name.”
“I didn’t know that,” Averie smiled. “I thought Sam was a buster name and you didn’t want people calling you a buster.”
The table laughed.
“Is your father still alive?” Mrs. Patterson asked.
“Yes, ma’am. He is currently incarcerated. You may have heard his story, Reggie Elkanah?”
“I remember. He was part of a group of black men who were protesting police brutality and the over-policing of the black neighborhoods down in the Ville. Man, I wanted to be one of them so bad, but my father threatened my life, so I never went down to join up. They say he murdered a cop, but they know he didn’t pull the trigger,” Mr. Patterson explained.
“Yes, Sir. They have solid proof he didn’t pull the trigger, but they got him on conspiracy to commit murder, and then they got him for evading arrest.”
“So, that’s your father?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Now, you went to jail for a crime you didn’t commit too, right?” Mr. Patterson said.
“Yes. I plead guilty to murder, but I was innocent. The system is set up to jail innocent people. I was acquitted on all the charges once I had the proper representation.”
“That had to have been horrible,” Keeva shook her head.
“There is not a word strong enough to describe the level of hopelessness and despair found in the prison system. Prisoners become the forgotten population; disregarded human beings. Some prisoners are guilty and are paying for one thing they did at probably the lowest time of their life, for the rest of their life. Some prisoners are innocent but once they are jailed, they have to take on a guilty mentality to survive. You don’t hear about people after they’ve been put away. You don’t hear about the strides prisoners make to better themselves even though most of them will never get out of prison and if they do, it’s a seventy-six percent chance they will go back. The news doesn’t report on new programs for rehabilitation to reduce recidivism because there are none. It’s a place I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
“How would we manage crime if we didn’t have prison systems?” Kerem asked.
“The prison systems aren’t managing crime. They are making money off people who are housed in them. The more inmates they have, the more money they make. The crime rate doesn’t go down because a city or a state erects another prison. We manage crime by offering more opportunities to people in the areas where crime is the worse. We put more money into our public-school systems, so the kids in the projects and on public assistance have access to the same opportunities as the kids in the lower crime areas. We pay our public-school teachers salaries that make them want to work and change the world. We pay them, so they don’t have to get a side hustle and then be too tired to teach the children the next day. That’s how we begin to manage crime.”
“I agree. That’s why we do the event every year because if we can offer just a glimmer of hope to an otherwise hopeless situation then maybe we can save someone,” Averie said.
“That’s why I became a lawyer, so I could help people who find themselves in the same position as I was. Then I had to beg this beautiful woman to help me when my brother was being charged. After several rounds of pleading, she finally agreed to help me. I wouldn’t have won the case without her.”
“Don’t say that! You would have been just fine without me.”
“No, I’m positive I would not have been. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled.
Dinner continued with random conversations and stories. Mrs. Patterson culinary skills were five-star restaurant worthy and her baking skills were even better. She baked a pineapple upside down cake that I had to force myself to stop eating. It was moist and sweet.
