So You Call Yourself a Man by Carl Weber

he shoved it into his mouth.
    Works every time, I thought. I never met a kid who wouldn’t take a bribe. All you have to do is find out his weakness. With some kids it’s candy, others it’s TV. I’ve got a nephew who won’t shut up unless you give him a dollar.
    I picked him up, placing him on my lap. “Do you know who I am?”
    He nodded his head repeatedly as he sucked on his lollipop. “You my daddy!”
    I almost dropped him off my lap, I was so stunned by his reply. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Who told you that?”
    He jumped down and headed toward a love seat across the room. Then he climbed up on it, pulling a photo album off the end table and on to his lap. He started flipping pages like he knew what he was doing and I walked over to investigate. About ten pages into the album he stopped, pointing at a picture. “Mommy and daddy,” he said in his rather cute child’s voice before pointing to another picture and repeating the same words.
    I took a good look at each picture, and to my surprise, each photograph had a picture of Michelle and me at various times during our relationship. I was surprised she kept those pictures and even more surprised that she showed them to her son. Now, if you ask me, that shit was low. She’d already had junior here brainwashed that I was his dad. I wondered, how long had she been showing him my picture? Not that it mattered. The damage was done now.
    I started to walk to the kitchen. “Come on, little man, let’s get your Lion King cup and get you some juice, so you can go back to bed and I can think.”
    I swear, I’d barely turned my back for two seconds when I heard Marcus sputtering and choking. I rushed back into the living room and there he was, laying sprawled out on the floor, gagging, with his hands near his throat. My heart was doing summersaults in my chest as I dashed across the room and grabbed him.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” His lips were turning blue and he gagged. I immediately turned his back to me. In one swift movement I delivered the Heimlich maneuver, and the lollipop spewed out of his little mouth. Relieved, I had to choke back my own feelings. What the hell was I thinking about? Giving him that stupid lollipop almost killed him. Without thinking, I held Marcus close to my chest to calm both him and myself. His little heart was trotting like a racehorse and so was mine. After Marcus caught his breath again, he began crying in deep gasps.
    â€œIt’s all right son, it’s all right, Daddy’s here. You’re going to be all right,” I said in a soothing voice. I thanked God Cathy had made me take a CPR class at the Y when our boys were infants. When he finally calmed down, I said, “Here. Let’s go get your juice.”
    â€œI wanna play with Majesty,” Marcus protested between hiccups. As if on cue, the dog began to bark from the laundry room.
    â€œOkay. I’ll let you play with Majesty or whatever his name is for a little while, then back to bed you go.”
    After Marcus drank his juice and went to the toilet, he romped around with his little mutt until he dozed off in the middle of the floor. I picked him up and carried him to his bedroom, feeling something stirring in my gut. Marcus had his arm wrapped snugly around my neck.
    I laid him down in his twin bed and shook my head. Lord, what if something had happened to him while he was with me? I don’t think I could’ve lived with that. He was a good kid, even if he wasn’t my son. And if he was my flesh and blood and died…dear Lord, I didn’t even wanna think about it.

10
Sonny
    â€œLadies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses one more time and join me as I wish my best friend, Brent, and his lovely bride, Alison, farewell before they depart on their honeymoon.”
    Cheers and clinking glasses echoed throughout the Westbury