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I was going to post about this last year, but Louis left and he had always been the 1 I had shared the subject with, so I decided not to. Now, thankfully, he's back, and I've seen that FW and maybe others may share similar stories.
I've met my father exactly 1 time...for about 10 minutes when I was 5. I can still remember it pretty vividly. My mother took me up to The Bronx to meet him, we had to take 5 subway trains. He was tall as all hell. He met us at the hallway door to his apartment, lifted me up in his arms, I said "Hi Mr. Cenac"...I don't remember what he said or if he even said anything, though I'm sure he did. He put me down, talked to my mother for a bit, and we left. I never saw him again.
He never paid his court ordered child support...so as I grew up I resented him more and more. It was only me and my mother growing up...with the occassional live-in boyfriend.
When I was 16 we got a call from a woman who had seen my name in the phone book. My mother always listed our phone under my name for some reason, and Cenac is about as rare as it gets. My mother talked to her for awhile and then handed me the phone and said "Benjamin, talk to your sister." Turns out that her and the woman shared baby's daddy. I got on the phone and talked to my 14 year old sister Madeline. I had always known that my father was a dog, spreadin his seed all over the place, but actually meeting a sister after 16 years of being an only child was a trip.
In my high school the girl's dean was named Ms. Cenac. Even though she was white, I knew that she had to be a relative...you've got that name, we're related! Turns out she was married (though seperated) to Bundi Cenac, who was the original bass player for the '70s Funk group Mandrill. I asked my mother about him and she said that she seemed to remember him as being my father's brother. Funny thing though, even though I had Ms. Cenac as my spanish teacher twice, we never even discussed anything about even our having the same last names. I guess I just resented my father too much.
As much as I resented my father, my sister Madeline longed to find him. She had never even met him after all. She would call me and keep me informed on her searches, which I wanted nothing to do with. She actually found another brother and sister who I still haven't met. Then, about 12 years ago, she called me and told me that our father had died in St. Lucia (where he's from). Seems he got into a fight down at the docks where he worked (in his 60s) and had a heart attack. She was going down for the funeral. I held onto my resentment 'till the end.
Then, last year, a woman who worked for a company that was doing business with my wife's company noticed her name. They started talking and it turns out that she's my cousin Veronica Cenac. She's actually the person who had connected my sister Madeline to the rest of the family and sent her down to my father's funeral. Veronica and I talked on the phone a few times about meeting, but I never pulled the trigger.
Finally, I took a good look at my kids, and realized how fukkin selfish I was being. I know nothing about 1 half of who I am, which means that I am cheating them out of knowing anything about their paternal grandfather's family...or 1 quarter of themselves. So last Christmas night, all 4 of us packed up and went over to Veronica's for dinner.
We had an entire room full of Cenacs...at least 15 of us. My sister Madeline was there too. I got to meet my aunt, my father's sister, for the 1st time. Plus, cousins, cousins, and more cousins. I missed meeting 1 of my brothers (he had to work).
I found out that Bundi Cenac, who played for Mandrill, was not my uncle but actually my oldest sibling, my brother. He's currently in his mid 50s and living in California somewhere. My youngest sibling, a sister...is 14! And that scoundrel of a father of mine had a good 30 other kids spread out all in between...the family doesn't even know half of them.
We're going to get back together again soon.
Then...right about 3 months ago...my mother yells up the stairs to me that she's sending somebody up to see me. It was early in the day, and I'm like who the hell is she sending up to bother me. Then, I watch as this scowling thuggish lookin brother comes walkin up the stairs who I don't recognize in the least walks up an I'm wonderin who da fukk is this dude and he says to me "It's Maury fool!" and I almost fell down!
You see, Maury is my little cousin...my godfather's (my mother's 1st cousin) son. He's 8 years younger than me, so he was like the crew mascot back in the day. Unfortunately, since he was with us all the time during those crazy days back in the 70s, he got into a lot of shit way too young. He was always alot to handle, especially for the grown-ups, but we would just smack him around to keep him in line. The thing about Maury was, even though he could be a bad ass little kid...he was ALWAYS smilin', and he was funny as hell! I guarantee you that if Maury was in the room peeps would be smilin and laffin...damm I missed him!
The problem was, when Maury got grown, he wasn't tryin to be nobody's shorty anymore. He started runnin with Rastas, dealing with drug dealers, and all kinds of other foul shit. Then he started runnin drugs and guns down in Texas...NOT the place to get knocked! Cut to the chase...17 years of prison on a charge that would have got him no more than 5 in NY later...here he comes scowlin up my stairs.
Now remember, the Maury I knew was this smaller, shorter 18 year old smilin smooth-faced kid. Now, I'm sittin here with this muscle-bound bearded and bald 36 year old man with the thick thuggish Texan accent. Out of the fukkin blue! I'm sittin there with all these thoughts racin through my head, talkin with him and tryin to adjust to this new stranger in my life...when he smiles for the 1st time. Suddenly I recognize him! I can't describe the feeling, it's like a glimpse of a long lost brother. Next thing you know he's crackin jokes and laffin and it's almost like he never left! Damm I missed him!
Well, he comes through now like once a week or so...and I look forward to it. He's goin through alot tryin to find work...he's been fired twice already after the jobs did a record search even though he informed them from the begining that he was an ex-con. But, I think he's gonna be all right. And he keeps smilin and laffin...which fills me with all kinds of hope.
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