Uncle

"I wish it would rain"

The month of June always puts me in my feelings.

Partly because Father’s Day rolls around, but mostly because June is the month of my Uncle Larry McJames’s birthday.

A true Gemini.

You never knew what you were going to get, when you were going to get it, or how you were going to get it. But one thing was certain, if Larry McJames was involved, you were going to get something.

With Father’s Day coming up, I wanted to get this off my chest.

When it comes to Mother’s Day, we give flowers to our mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and all the women who helped raise us. But on Father’s Day, people rarely acknowledge their uncles.

Now, I have a lot of uncles. My mom is the youngest of nine children, and my dad has a brother on his side. But when it comes to Larry Darnell McJames, he was more than an uncle.

He was my father.

And that’s no disrespect to my dad.

My father was always present, but he wasn’t always active. During the times he wasn’t there, my uncle moved heaven and earth for me.

A little backstory.

My uncle was about seventeen years older than my mom, so he was more like her father than her brother. She used to tell me stories about how he would walk her to elementary school every morning and wait around until classes started. Sometimes he would even come back later with a home-cooked lunch my grandmother had prepared.

Eventually, the principal had to tell him that she would be okay and that he didn’t need to stay all day.

Funny how life repeats itself.

Because years later, he did the same thing for me.

I can vividly remember my uncle dropping me off at school, showing up with a Happy Meal, or taking me to Church’s Chicken, Rally’s, or the Chinese spot after school so I could get my fix.

To everybody else, my uncle was grouchy and mean.

To his nieces and nephews, he was the sweetest man to ever walk this earth.

Every Christmas, he had a roll of quarters waiting for all of us. Every birthday came with some kind of gift. Whenever he could get them, he had extra tickets to Busch Stadium so we could watch the Cardinals play and listen to Jack Buck while he talked trash Mike Shannahan calling him all types of drunks.

As a child, I didn’t realize how much my uncle sacrificed for me.

He worked at Busch Stadium long before I was born. But when I started school, my mom couldn’t afford to take off work to get me there and back. So my uncle and aunt changed their schedules to make sure I got to school and home safely every day.

Every morning, my mom and I would take the MetroLink at the St. Charles Rock Road Station to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where she would drop me off with my aunt, who worked overnight as a housekeeper. My aunt and I would catch the 41 Lee bus back to our family home, 5944 Lucille Ave . Where the infamous Mcjames family resided lol. My uncle would already be awake, making sure I ate breakfast before taking me to school.

Then at three o’clock every afternoon, he would be waiting outside Jefferson Elementary. We’d drive downtown to Busch Stadium to pick up his girlfriend Dorothy, grab me a snack, and head back to Lucille; were my cousins would be waiting to beat me up because I more than likely talked some smack and bragged about what Uncle Yaya got for just ME. Yes, Ive always been the drama lol!

Then we’d do it all over again the next day.

I haven’t been back to St. Louis in years. I haven’t ridden a city bus in even longer.

But one thing I can say is if you ever need somebody to navigate the north side of St. Louis, I’m your girl. I still know it like the back of my hand.

Some streets may have been blocked off, but as long as I can make out them rundown buildings we are safe.

As I got older, life changed, but our routine remained mostly the same.

He would still randomly pick me up on the weekend and take me Fishing or to a Blues hockey and/or Rams football Game. Before him and Dorothy would go to whatever Funkfest or Temptations concert he would always slide through to show me his fit; close covadis haircut, black slacks, stacy adams and versace style shirt with his signature tooth pick dangling from his mouth and a pack of Kool cigarettes tucked securely in his shirt pocket. And if he won any money on the Casino Queen he always stopped by that morning to slide me a 20… 25 if I pushed hard enough.

Did I tell you he could dance too? My uncle was a two stepping fool and always had one of his nieces on the dance floor twirling us all around to Motown classics.

I remember when I got my first period.

We were living with my Aunt E.E. on Riverview, and I completely freaked out.

I called my mom, and looking back, she wasn’t prepared for her baby girl to be growing up. She told me the basics about pads and hygiene, but then she kind of avoided the situation altogether.

The next day I stayed home from school, which was rare.

My uncle noticed immediately.

He asked what was wrong, and when I tried to explain, he quickly stopped me.

“I don’t want to hear all that. Keep that to yourself.”

I was embarrased.

Later that day, before he left to pick up Dorothy, he called me downstairs.

Waiting for me was a giant bag filled with chocolate, a heating pad, a half bottle of Vinegar that he took from Dorothy (he was born in 1951 give him a break lol), all my favorite snacks, and of course, McDonald’s.

When I asked him about the vinegar he said frantically, “ I see Dorothy putting this in her bathwater when she have her situation ask your mama what you suppose to do with it.”

He was very uncomfortable concerned but uncomfortable as hell.

Years later, I learned that after our “conversation”, he sat my mother down and told her she needed to talk to me about the changes I was going through.

He told her that ignoring those conversations was how young girls got taken advantage of.

Eventually, she did.

When I became a teenager, I was difficult.

I didn’t have the most stable environment growing up, and by then nobody was picking me up, dropping me off, or checking on me every day anymore.

I felt alone.

And although my uncle was always one phone call away, teenagers don’t think like that.

The anger, hurt, and confusion I carried because of what was happening at home spilled onto everybody around me, including him.

I shut down.

I loved my uncle. I respected him.

Even when I wouldn’t listen to anyone else, I listened to him.

But I was still a teenager who thought she knew everything.

Around the time I turned fourteen, my uncle ended up in the hospital.

He had always struggled with diabetes, so I assumed it was related to that.

He asked my mom to bring me to see him.

When I walked into the room, I was terrified.

There were tubes and machines everywhere. I’d never seen him like that.

He told me to sit down.

Then he told me something that completely changed how I saw him.

He had been addicted to heroin for more than twenty years.

He told me he had spent years trying to quit, but his body kept fighting him.

I didn’t understand.

To me, heroin addicts looked a certain way.

We had neighbors who nodded off in the middle of conversations.

That wasn’t my uncle.

My uncle went to work every day.

My uncle paid bills.

My uncle made sure his nieces had money in their pockets.

My uncle never looked like the people I thought addicts were supposed to look like.

Then I started thinking.

All those mornings before school when we had to stop at the VA and the methadone clinic.

The urgency he always had on Fridays to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

The random candy he always seemed to have around.

The moments when I sincerely thought he was just tired, when in reality he was nodding off.

The times he would lock himself in a basement for hours listening to doo-wop and The Temptations.

How irritable he would be sometime when he tried to switch it up and not get me my McDonalds after school.

The random stops he would make before heading downtown. He’d pull up to what I now realize was a drug den and have me sit in the car for what seem like an eternity before coming back out like a completely different person.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

My uncle was a junkie.

But he wasn’t the kind I thought existed.

He was functional.

He was loving.

He was responsible.

He was my uncle.

After that conversation, he threw himself into trying to get clean.

He continued methadone treatment. He started going to church more often. He distanced himself from certain friends. I stopped seeing him hanging around the neighborhood as much.

He was trying.

The last time I saw my uncle, I was nineteen years old.

I was desperate to get out of St. Louis.

I had signed up for the Air Force and begged him to drive me to the recruiter’s office.

When he picked me up, something felt off.

His eyes looked different.

He repeated himself a lot.

He drove slower than usual.

And he talked to me like I was eight years old again.

Even offering to stop at McDonald’s.

I didn’t think much of it.

I was too busy worrying about myself.

Before I got out of the car, he asked me something.

“You love your Uncle, Erica?”

For some reason, it shook me.

I told him of course I did.

“You gone be alright, Im going always take care of you.”

It was so random and when he said it he looked so serene.

I kissed him on the cheek and went inside.

Three months later, I moved to San Antonio.

Not long after, I got into some big trouble and was facing some serious jail time.

(And No we will never talk about that situation)

Instinctively, I didn’t call my mom.

I didn’t call my dad.

I called my uncle.

Because whenever I needed somebody, he was who I called.

He was my mama.

He was my daddy.

He didn’t answer.

I called every day, every hour, every chance I got.

And I felt abandoned.

I felt forgotten.

I felt annoyed.

Eventually, I called my mom and asked about my uncle because it was unlike him not to answer the phone.

She didn’t really say much.

She just said, “He’s going through a lot right now, Erica. He’ll call you eventually.”

Then I called my cousin.

She asked me a question I’ll never forget.

“Nobody told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Uncle Larry is in a coma. He’s on life support.”

Nobody had told me anything.

My mom’s reasoning was that I was already going through enough and didn’t need anything else added to my plate.

That explanation alone and her reaction to PIVITOL THINGS in my life probably says a lot about our relationship.

My cousin went on to explain that he had gone into diabetic shock.

Before the doctors sedated him, he kept trying to climb out of bed.

The nurses kept telling him to stay put, but he was becoming more unruly by the day.

And he kept saying the same thing over and over again.

“I need to put on my pants. I gotta go pick up Erica from school. I can’t be late.”

Even then.

Even in that condition.

He was still trying to come get me.

They told him I was coming.

I wanted to.

God knows I wanted to.

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t see him like that.

So when my family decided to remove life support, I stayed away.

Not because I didn’t love him.

But because some irrational part of me believed that if I didn’t say goodbye, he wouldn’t really leave.

Maybe he’d wake up.

Maybe he’d come home.

Maybe I could come back and take care of him the way he had always taken care of me.

My uncle died in November 2013.

And to this day, I still grieve him. And now that I think about it that is probably one of many underlying reasons I hate San Antonio.

But in my darkest moments, when depression creeps in and life feels too heavy to carry, he visits me in my dreams.

And somehow, every time, I wake up knowing I’m going to be okay.

When people talk about Black men, or say they never had positive male role models growing up, I can’t relate.

Every one of my uncles came with flaws. Addiction, Abuse and exposed me to all around nut shit.

Every single one. BAT SHIT CRAZY!

But every one of them loved me.

Every one of them helped raise me.

If Im being honest most of them did more for me than they did for their own kids.

And I have a story about each of them.

But when it comes to Larry McJames, he stepped up when nobody else did.

He deserves his flowers just as much as my daddy.

Happy Father’s Day, Uncle Larry.

I know you’re looking down on me.

I love you.

I miss you.

And thank you for loving me enough to never let me feel alone.