I am seven months pregnant with a boy baby who is not my husband's. I know my baby is not my husband's child because my husband, Chuck, had a vasectomy before we were married. I know the baby's a boy, because we've had an ultrasound done and the technician showed me his little boy package.
I also know my baby's black.
I was still just 32 years old in those weeks prior to Halloween, when my husband of nearly two years asked me if I was ready to have a child of our own. I can't tell you how excited I was, because I'd lived with a man for five years during my twenties and I'd never gotten pregnant by him. In fact, I was afraid it was me, and that I'd never ever get pregnant at all.
Chuck told me he'd check with the doctor about the possibility of getting his vasectomy reversed. I was delighted. Later that week he changed the subject to us hosting a visiting army buddy of his in the next few weeks.
I shrugged my shoulders and told him that I didn't see why not. Then he said a funny thing.
"My ex never welcomed Leo into our home."
"Why's that?"
"Because I-I sort of...asked her to sleep with him."
Chuck told me that he'd asked his ex-wife to sleep with his best friend from the army, and her refusal eventually became part of the reason for their divorce. I was surprised as I imagine you could guess.
"Why would you want your wife to sleep with your best friend from the army?" I asked.
"If I tell you, you'll laugh at me," he said.
I told him I wouldn't laugh, and he told me. I didn't laugh.
To make a long story short, there was a riot on one of the army bases stateside when Leo and Chuck were stationed together. It was a terrible riot between black soldiers and white soldiers, and in the process of both men being caught in a place where neither wanted to be, Leo, a black soldier, saved Chuck's life by getting him under a tarpulin and hiding him there until the black rioters left.
"I owe him my life, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude," he said finally. "The only way I can think of to repay him is to give him--"
"Give him what?"
"You."
"Me!" I was shocked.
"He'd take it wrong otherwise," Chuck said. "He's pretty macho and he wouldn't stand for a man propostioning him. But I want to make good on a promise I made a long time ago."
"That's--that is crazy, Chuck."
"Okay, Mae if you promise not to be mad at me, I'll drop the whole thing."
Promise not to be mad at him! How dare he ask me--then I stopped. I never knew about his asking his ex to do that for Leo, but her actions sounded just like her. She'd divorce him before she'd sleep with some
n*gg*r.
But I also knew that when Chuck had a debt to repay, he'd make sure it was repaid.