Free Friends: A Love Story by Angela Bassett Page A

usually travel over to Teaneck, New Jersey, where Uncle Jerry lived, and we’d all hang out. They’d put on music, drink Crown Royal and we’d laugh and shoot the breeze. The first time we got together, Dad tried to suss out where I was and act cool.
    â€œWhat do young folk do today?” he asked me. “Want some reefer?”
    â€œI don’t smoke reefer! I don’t do drugs.”
    I noticed he didn’t offer D’nette reefer when she came to visit—he’d had a velvet picture painted of her; he didn’t have one drawn of me. I remember feeling closer to Uncle Jerry than my dad.
    As one such weekend was drawing to a close and I was about to return to campus, I remember having a conversation with my father about our relationship.
    â€œYes, you are my father,” I told him, “but I haven’t spent time with you. Getting to know each other is a process. After nineteen years I can’t just run and jump on Daddy’s lap.”
    Well, that did not sit right with him. He said, “No, I am your father! I’m your dad.” To me, his response felt like “Bullshit! No, it doesn’t take time. I’m the father, you’re my daughter. Daddy, daughter—we are close!”
    â€œYeah, you’re my father and I love you and you’re half of why I’m here. But to have a relationship, it takes time to get to know each other.”
    He said, “No, it doesn’t.”
    He was drinking and it wasn’t going so well, so I figured I’d let it go.
    â€œAll right, Dad, I’m leaving,” I told him. “Give me a kiss.”
    When I went to kiss him, he put his tongue in my mouth. I pulled back—I shot back! I was shocked! I was mortified! I was FUCKING MORTIFIED! My father had kissed me like a woman—that crossed the line! Your boyfriends put their tongue in your mouth, I assume my father put his tongue in his woman’s mouth, but—drunk or otherwise—a father shouldn’t put his tongue in his daughter’s mouth— EVER. If I had known what was going to happen I would have had the presence of mind to slap the shit out of him. I would have slapped him sober! But I was shocked. I didn’t say anything. I just got out of there as fast as I could.
    On my trip back to New Haven, I began to process what had happened. I was furious! That was fucked up! I couldn’t believe it. Then again, he was drunk—he had drunk a lot. I didn’t know if he thought that was okay to do or whether maybe in his drunken state he was confused about who I was. It really didn’t matter though. My rule about drinking is: you control it; it doesn’t control you. And drunk or not, in my mind that was just more evidence to me of the lack of the relationship between my father and me. His relationships had never beenfather/daughter; they’d always been man/woman. Perhaps in his very inebriated state he reverted to what he knew. Whatever was going on with him, it was some kind of interesting human nature something or other. I wasn’t going to let it fuck with my head for too long. Life with my dad was just what it was. I came to the conclusion that this was just part of what happens when a family isn’t at its best—the way God designed it to be: a mother, a father, the children. Some men just don’t know how to be fathers. My dad was one of them. He didn’t have a clue. I never brought the incident up—we never talked about it. But I paid a price for my silence. Between not having a father figure and having so many men try to take advantage of me, it definitely colored the landscape of my relationships. I don’t think I was as strong as I could have been in saying no to men whose behavior didn’t measure up to the standards I had in mind. Thank goodness I had acting to channel all these emotions into.
    As for my dad, I didn’t ask for another kiss until he was on his