Free After by Marita Golden Page B

while attending a dealers’ conference. When he opened the door of his suite, Eddie grabbed Bunny and hugged her, lifting her a few feet off the floor and twirling her gently in his arms. Bunny had told Carson that she talked to her father every day.
    When he released Bunny, Eddie offered Carson an energetic, nearly combative handshake. He had the practiced, slick enthusiasm of a deal maker. His hair was combed back from his face and was so black Carson wondered if it was dyed, and he imagined the man preening before the mirror, applying a coat of some heavy pomade. Eddie was dressed in khakis, a sleeveless undershirt, and suspenders and leather house shoes.
    “Come on in, you two, come on in,” he boomed. “Make yourselves at home.” The suite was cozy and Eddie had finished a room service dinner, plates and trays and metal covers stacked on top of the mahogany dinner table. Carson and Bunny sat at the table and Eddie lifted the trays and dishes and placed them on the floor outside his room. He went into the kitchenette and brought out a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses and several beers.
    “Beer or wine?” he asked Carson.
    “Beer.”
    Bunny opened the bottle of wine and poured her glass half full. Then Eddie sat down and shoved a beer and a glass toward Carson and opened a beer for himself. Carson sipped his beer and listened quietly as Bunny and Eddie talked family, Bunny’s job, Eddie’s convention, and Doris. Bunny had his pug nose, and Carson sensed in Eddie a purposeful confidence that bathed him in a sudden, welcome warmth. He had passed that on to Bunny.
He’s probably a hell of a salesman
, Carson thought, watching Eddie sipping beer and eating pistachio nuts. Bunny wandered over to the sofa and turned on the television so that, Carson knew, he and Eddie could talk.
    “So you’re in law enforcement?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Eddie.”
    “Yes, Eddie.”
    “A law ’n’ order man,” he said with a wink, opening his fat palm and releasing a fistful of pistachio shells onto a saucer.
    “Well…”
    “Oh, don’t explain. Anybody who’s got something to protect believes in law and order. You know, I never had a run-in with the law in my life. Never once, not even a ticket. I give the boys in blue their props.”
    “It’s tough. Sometimes people see me in the uniform and just assume, well, you know…”
    “Yeah, that you’re a kick-ass. Our people got to grow up.” Eddie wiped his hands on a napkin and looked over at Bunny, now cuddled on the sofa, shoes off, laughing at a rerun of
Living Single
. Eddie got up and sat beside Carson in the chair Bunny had left vacant.
    “Bunny talks about you all the time. She told me how you met. Did Bunny ever tell you how I met her mother? I bumped into her as she was coming out of the telephone company after paying her monthly bill, and ended up following her for six blocks until she gave me her phone number.” He laughed and shook his head at the memory. Then, with a knowing smirk that occupied not just his face but his whole body, he asked, “What was your plan? Arrest her if she didn’t go out with you?” Eddie turned on a megawatt smile.
    “Daddy,” Bunny scolded him from the sofa.
    “Aw, he can take it. You go on and watch TV. I’m talking to your man. This is between him and me.”
    Your man
. Carson liked the sound of that.
    “Honestly, I didn’t have a plan. I was just hoping she’d give me a break and maybe a chance.”
    “Looks like she did. I don’t know where you two are headed. I don’t know if you even know. Even though her mama and me been divorced a while now and I’m remarried, it’s important for you to know that I didn’t go AWOL. You know what I mean, don’t you?” Eddie looked at Carson steadily, his gaze holding its breath. “I pay my taxes, my bills, and I paid child support.”
    He was telling Carson that he was no statistic. No deadbeat dad. No trifling Black man who dropped his seed and didn’t stick