From the Bottom of My Toes

“Fuck You! It aint like you anybody’s daddy here anyway.” He sat with his elbow bent and perched on a closed textbook with Latin written in gold Helvetica font across the binding. His hand cupped his flushed cheek.

The other man’s unbuttoned and rolled white cuff exposed a muscled vascular forearm as he extended his right hand open palmed, “You may voice your opinion and concern, but only in a respectful fashion, so as to be heard, otherwise, as you know, your newly acquired opponent will immediately defend instead of listen, which lacks any constructive nature in discourse.” Putting his hand down he tugged at the bottom of his navy vest straightening phantom wrinkles. A nervous tick, a manifestation of the idiosyncratic nature of growing older.

The fourteen-year-old stood now, looking down into the older man’s eyes, for even with years of growth left, he had already eclipsed the gentleman on the other side of the silver flecked granite island. “You don’t know me, you don’t know what my life is like, how could you, like I said, you’re not my father.” He loosed the burgundy and navy university striped silk tie, collected the other two text books on the kitchen table, and left his navy preparatory jacket hanging on the chair back as he exited to the circular staircase leading to a hallway taking him to one of three bedrooms.

Tucking a greying curl behind his ear he picked up his tattered leather brief case and retired to the single bedroom on the first floor. He looked in the mirror and squinted while removing his modern-day armor. Standing in nothing but grey cotton trunks he inspected time’s victories: crow’s feet, melaninless chest hair, softened edges. Opening the middle dresser drawer, he saw a picture of the young man on the first day of this new journey they were to embark upon. He kept pictures around his room in random spots to remind him of where life had taken him, visual representations of eternal memories. He pulled the picture out and ran his finger down across the boy’s two-dimensional figure. His brain flickered back ten years – a new social experiment, a push for single men to adopt young boys. It was believed, with enough background checking and psychological testing, they could weed out the crazies and whinos, thus infusing a community with a dearth of men with the strong, caring male presence. Only, they, whoever they were, failed to realize the community would not be infused with anything, instead, the community would be dismantled as the young male population exited into a world that did not know them and they did not know. Oddly enough, everyone involved seemed so well intentioned.

So, at thirty-five years old, single, with no family of his own, and not much to show for his life, he dove in headfirst. Johnathan Isaac Birdwell was the perfect guinea pig candidate for the scientific method to play out. Mr. Birdwell spent four months getting to know four-year-old Thomas Malcolm Smith. They played with Hotwheels, had deep existential conversations about who was stronger, superman or batman, and on a few occasions, John comforted Thomas when he was sad, or scared, or both. Then, just like that, with the bang a of a gavel and the scratch of a pen Thomas Malcolm Smith became Thomas Malcom Birdwell, had his photograph taken holding his favorite stuffed animal in one hand and Johnathan Isaac’s hand in the other, and he walked into his new life at 1342 Brookside Drive far away from anyone who looked like him, talked like him, or had experienced anything like him.

“Hey buddy, I need to say, I won’t always understand the challenges you may face, I may not be able to speak from experience, but I will, without a doubt, always be here for you and do everything in my power to give you a compass rose to guide the way.”

“What’s a compass rose,” asked the nearly five-year-old boy laying down in his comfortable new bed in a very uncomfortable foreign place.

Staring at the photograph, Birdwell thought to himself, maybe the agreement didn’t mean as much to the five-year-old that it meant to me.

Three distinct knocks on his open door startled John out of his reminiscent gaze. “Hey, John, I just wanted to say, well,” Thomas’s head was hanging low with his eyes staring at the red cherry floor, “I’m sorry man, it was just a weird day, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Thomas – it’s okay,” Johnathan nodded his head three times in a sign of peace.

“Cool, now put a shirt on man, your old flabby skin is hurting my eyes,” Thomas smiled wryly.

“What,” John walked toward him, “this old skin,” and grabbed Thomas in a headlock as the two struggled and laughed falling onto John’s bed. “Get out of here, go study, I know you’re not done yet, I’ll get dinner ready in thirty.”

“Alright, alright, mac and cheese? Please?” Thomas made praying hands and bowed as he exited to complete a geometry proof before eating what could only be described as the best out of the box mac and cheese known to man.

At 8:34 am John’s office phone dinged once, “Hillary from St. Agnes Prep,” echoed from the receiver.

“Put it through…This is John.”

“Mr. Birdwell, this is Hillary from St. Agnes.”

“Is everything okay, is Thomas, okay?”

“Fine, fine,” her voice registered in an octave only flutes could play, “Father Mark wanted us to reach out about yesterday’s incident.”

“Thomas didn’t mention an incident,” John made air quotes that only he could see.

“Well,” she squeaked, “we at St. Agnes just want you to know how sorry we are for putting young Thomas through all that, he’s such a great addition here and we don’t want this to tarnish our relationship with the young man, he is such a remarkable presence and really adds something to our student body.”

Thomas was one of three black students at St. Agnes, and the administration was keenly aware of the importance of diversity, and their lack of it. Not to mention, each of the three stood out in every other positive way aside from, in spite of, or perhaps because of their varied backgrounds. Top marks, student leaders, strong additions to debate, theater, and athletics, they managed to set themselves apart by doing exactly what everyone was doing, only better.

John held the phone away from his ear as Hillary’s voice pierced through the receiver, “we had a visit from the local police station,” Hillary nervously laughed in an effort to soften the ridiculous tone of what she had to say next, “and well, for some reason, they, well, um, how do I…”

John was pumping his fingers into a fist and back out as he waited for her to say what he already knew. After years in corporate law, John had found his way to the local Public Defenders office where he met young men who came from the very place Thomas had left.

“The officers thought Thomas was trying to run away and they tackled him, then handcuffed him as they searched his bag,” she couldn’t stop the nervous laugh from breaking through, “but of course, Thomas had done nothing wrong, and eventually it was all straightened out.”

John, as stoically as possible, gave a simple response, “uh huh, I’m sure Father Mark handled the situation superbly,” the words dripped from his mouth like thick molasses. “Thank you for informing me.”

Hanging up the receiver JIB remembered a phone call from the elementary school when Thomas was nine years old. He rushed to the hospital where Thomas had been taken by ambulance after colliding head-to-head during a dodge ball game. John arrived just before the first stitch went in. Thomas’s white short-sleeve oxford was crimson from the collar to the bottom of the boy’s chest. John’s breath shortened and he felt a pang in his heart knowing the actual pain his boy was in. Thomas wrapped his small arms around John’s neck and cried into his tweed coat. After he was cleaned and sutured Thomas overheard John tell the young female doctor, “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, no, that’s not enough, the bottom of my toes and all the way up, thank you.” Thomas and John went to Sprinkles off Hastings and Garfield for a few scoops of frozen ambrosia.

“How’s the head bud?”

Thomas touched the gauze atop ten stitches and shrugged, “aint nothing John, just a scratch.”

“A man among boys Thomas, a man among boys,” John Isaac smiled wide as he wiped the hardened cream from around Thomas’ lips.

When John got home from the office that evening, he did not grill Thomas for answers or explanations about the day before. He simply asked if Thomas wanted to talk about anything, to which, the young teenager responded, “Nah, I’m good,” and life moved along. John tried hard to comprehend how this was life in 2021, how progress had only come so far, how we continued to fail every day, and he did not quite know what to say himself, other than I’m sorry, so that is what he said, and he worried it came off as disingenuous or worse, pompous, but he did his best – for Thomas he did his best, and he wondered if he should have stayed in the church for a longer period of time.

When John Isaac Birdwell committed to Thomas Malcolm for life, he made a decision to attend a Baptist church nearly fifteen miles away where one of his co-attorneys was a member. He had open candid conversations with her about the optics, and she, being far wiser than John, helped him overcome the demons of years of privilege. The congregation opened their arms to John and Thomas and for a few hours once a week Thomas interacted with people who looked just like him, and John did not – and this was good, for both of them, until Thomas started asking hard questions.

One Autumn Sunday, a twelve-year old Thomas riding shotgun in John’s maroon 1983 Mercedes 300D asked, “John, do you believe all this God stuff?”

A wide-eyed John responded, “Well, the God stuff is tough, I am not a believer.”

“Why do we go to Church every Sunday? You’re just lying to everyone then?”

“Thomas, I go because…we go so…um, the World is a strange place and people need some sort of hope in their life, a lot of people get that hope from an idea or ideal of the immortal soul, which for many Americans manifests in Christianity, and if I’m being honest, gosh I don’t know how to say this, I…”

To John, what Thomas said next seemed very adult, and he thought the young boy was quite precocious at the time, but looking back, he was just Thomas. “John, it’s okay man, I know you take me there so I can be around black people, and I know you don’t believe, we don’t say grace, we don’t have a Bible, we don’t pray, and you talk about evolution and homosexuality as if they are inalienable truths. Just so you know, I don’t believe either, it’s all a little juvenile.”

“You’re twelve! But hey, the people are kind and generous and loving and compassionate, and they have accepted us into their weekly community, but perhaps it’s time we stop lying, eh.”

“I think so Juanito, I think so.” John laughed at the brain of this boy he was raising and thought with some trepidation, jesus, maybe I am having an impact – scary.

“I tell you what, we won’t just give up, ya know, we should educate ourselves before we decide we do or don’t believe, so we will study Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Atheism, and then make a choice, and if none of those fit, we will come up with our own reasons for life on earth. What do you say?”

Thomas just shook his head and gave a thumbs up, but by the end of his thirteenth year, after visiting mosques and temples, reading Darwin and Muhammed, and finding their way in and out of various parts of the world they lived in, they settled on eternal blissful confusion summed up by Thomas’ best quote to John on the matter, “we don’t know, and neither do any of these people, let’s stop wasting so much time on it – they can do their thing, and we can just let them, while we eat pancakes and bacon, and enjoy our Sunday mornings.”

Thomas never spoke to John about the incident at St. Agnes, but he thought it strange of the four teens present, he was the only one tackled, cuffed, and searched. Thomas tried not to let it grate on him, but as time passed it stuck in his brain like a pin in a New Orleans Voo-doo doll, poking and pricking every so often. John did not know, he could not know. But, he did want to give Thomas an opportunity to know about his past.

When Thomas was sixteen John managed to track down his birth parents. Thomas’s mother requested she not be involved. She said she didn’t want to face him and have to try to explain why she gave her only son up for adoption. She said she struggled explaining it to herself. Thomas’s father, however, was keen to make Thomas’s acquaintance.

John presented Thomas with the option one night across their round oaken dining table, “Thomas, I found your biological father, and the choice is yours, whether you want to meet him. I can come with you, or not, I’ll do whatever you want, just say the words.”

Thomas’s fork stopped mid bite, his chicken fell back to the grey ceramic plate, and he rubbed his open palm down his face, gently moving his head up and down he said, “ok, when?”

Five days later Thomas and John sat in the same seats in the same old Mercedes and drove three and a half hours to meet a man neither of them much cared to meet.

“Junior,” Mr. Smith walked from his doorway to the just parked car at the curb, “Junior, HA HAAA, look at ya boy, you’re grown up aint ya.” Mr. Smith went to hug Thomas, but the best Thomas could muster was an extended right hand to shake. Thomas sat in the center of a brown fabric couch across from Mr. Smith as he regaled him of stories from the last sixteen years, none of which involved Thomas. John sat in the corner of the room, as out of the way as possible, but hoping Thomas could feel his presence if he needed it.

“Mr. Smith,” Thomas stood after two hours, “I appreciate you meeting with us, and I appreciate all you’ve done in your life, you’ve accomplished a great deal, but it’s time for us to go, we have a good drive back, thank you.” Thomas reached out his hand and shook Mr. Smith’s one last time before he and John saddled up to travel back to their life.

“I don’t think I need to see Mr. Smith again. John, thank you for it.” John remained silent and just nodded in capitulation, he was lost for words. “Hey, John, man, you should know that I know, everything you’ve done for me, I am grateful.”

John nearly crying, held out his hand and the two men shook on it as if they were betting on the World Series, but it carried far more weight than many, perhaps, any other handshakes either ever had.

Thomas went on to finish as the salutatorian of his St. Agnes class taking the high A in Latin and Physics, before making his way to the nation’s capital to attend Howard University – a choice Thomas felt strongly about.

Howard was different, not necessarily better or worse, but different none the less. John, was proud and beaming when he dropped Thomas off for new student orientation, and he left him with a gift, a new 1983 sky blue Mercedes 300D, “just like mine!” John was smiling ear to ear.

“John, this thing is a beater man! It’s a grandma car. And it’s old as balls!”

“Ah, yes, but it’ll go forever, and it’s safe, and trust me, you’ll grow to like, nay, love it!” John pulled Thomas in for a hug. Thomas dwarfed John by now standing a good four inches taller than the fifty something year old man who had given the young giant his heart and soul for the last thirteen years. “You’re going to take this place by storm, I can feel it in my bones.”

“Your bones are old and brittle, if they’re feeling things, it probably means it’s about to rain,” Thomas said smirking and nudging the old guy in the shoulder.

Thomas did take Howard by storm. After his first two years he found his way into the Social Sciences and studied the growth of peoples over millennia. He read Daniel Quinn and Harari, Plato, Rosseau, Kant, and Equiano, Du Bois, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglas. A brain that had been primed at St. Agnes exploded like a volcano with knowledge, and Thomas Malcolm Birdwell felt a font of action inside his gut that needed to be released. Then he met her, Cornelia Montgomery, standing a vivacious five feet two inches tall with the strength of an alligator, she hailed from a small port town in South Louisiana and her southern charm put a spell on Thomas.

“John, she’s brilliant, and funny, and smart, did I say that already…”

“Can it be, Thomas Birdwell is smitten, I never thought I’d see the day. I can’t wait to meet her, she must really be something.”

Thomas and Cornelia fell into a bit of a routine, after she finished cross country practice, they would study until dinner time, then watch an old movie, and bid each other adieu before doing it all over again the next day. By April of his senior year Thomas knew two things for certain, wherever Cornelia was he wanted to be, and he wanted to make sure young boys, whatever color of their skin had good male role models in their lives – he had yet to figure out just how to do the second part, but he thought he had the first part in hand.

On the first day of May in the year 2029, after speaking with Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery, and with the help of John Isaac Birdwell, Thomas took Cornelia to a place he had found nearly four years ago that he had kept to himself, a small forest in the countryside of Maryland where a person could read and think with zero interference. At the edge of a small running river, he took Cornelia’s hands in his, looked into her honey brown eyes and spoke, “You have destroyed me, and in so doing you have taken my heart and soul. I am lost without you; you are my compass rose. Where you go, I must be, for you are the rhythm with which my heart beats. I am unabashedly now and always in love with you Cornelia Montgomery.” Thomas went to one knee as he pulled from his pocket a small box sent to him from John Isaac, the contents of which had at one time belonged to John’s grandmother.

A tear rolled down Thomas’s cheek as Cornelia accepted slipping the ancient metal onto her finger. “I love you back Thomas Birdwell, with everything I have, I love you back,” and she peered at the beautiful pearl setting sitting atop her betrothed left digit.

With the engagement behind him Thomas had one last task to complete. He had been chosen by the entire student body to speak at commencement one week away. He hadn’t told John for a few reasons, namely, John would make a bigger deal out of it than it was and a small part of him wanted to surprise the old guy.

So, one-week later John sat in section 133 Row H Seat 16 to watch the most important person in his life walk across a stage and receive a piece of paper, and he was as proud as he’d ever been. Then, Howard University’s Chancellor called upon Thomas Malcolm Birdwell to give the commencement address to the graduating class of 2029, and he beamed.

Thomas cleared his throat and moved his tassel from his face, “Before I speak to my classmates, professors, and administrators who have been with me on this four-year journey, I need to speak to a single man seated somewhere out there. John Birdwell, where do I begin? How can I put into words how extraordinarily grateful I am? Not because you picked me, or you got me out, or anything like that. That’s for cheap Hollywood movies about white people and the projects. This isn’t that. We aren’t that. I’m grateful for your love, your relentless pursuit to be a parent, your unrelenting desire to make me the man I am today. And it’s time you hear me say these words,” Thomas paused as tears choked him for a brief moment, “Dad, thank you, thank you for being the best damn father a boy could ask for, from the bottom of my heart, no, that’s not enough, from the bottom of my toes and all the way up, thank you, for all of it.” Thomas went on to speak to his classmates, professors, and administrators about the wave of change they could be a part of moving forward, but John heard nothing else. He sat wrapped in the warmth of the words his son had just spoken to him, for the first time, he was not only a strong male figure in Thomas Malcolm Birdwell’s life, he was his father, and Thomas was his son, and that was enough.