“Because thirty years ago, when my son died and I wanted to follow him, a stranger showed up and gave me a reason to keep going. A man I’d never met paid for my son’s funeral when I couldn’t afford it. I’ve spent the last three decades trying to pay that forward.”
I looked at Marcus. “Your boy told me he made a hundred shots in a row. Said his daddy promised him a basketball hoop. I can’t bring his daddy back. But I can keep that promise.”
“I’ll be back in an hour, ma’am. Don’t go anywhere.”
I rode to the nearest sports store. Walked in still wearing my vest, still looking like the kind of guy security follows around. Found the basketball hoops. Picked out a good one. Not the cheapest. Not the most expensive. The one that would last.
The clerk looked at me sideways. “You need help, sir?”
“Yeah. I need this delivered today. Can you do that?”
“We don’t usually—”
I pulled out my credit card. The one I only use for emergencies. “I’ll pay extra. Whatever it costs. This needs to be at this address in the next two hours.”
He looked at the address I’d written down. Looked at me. Looked at my vest with all the patches. “Sir, are you with one of those biker clubs that helps kids?”
“I’m with a club, yeah. But today I’m just a guy trying to keep a dead man’s promise to his son.”
I shook his hand. “Thank you, brother.”
I rode back to Marcus’s house. He was sitting on the porch waiting for me. When he heard my bike, he jumped up and ran to the curb.
“You came back!”
“I told you I would, didn’t I?”
“Most people don’t come back,” Marcus said quietly. “They say they will but they don’t.”
That hit me somewhere deep. This kid had already learned that adults lie. That promises get broken. That people disappear.
“Well, Marcus, I’m not most people. And I don’t break promises.”
“Mr. Crawford, I don’t know how to thank you. That money… it’s going to help more than you know.”Continue reading…
