Chapter 11 The Confrontation

Of all the legendary tales I can write about my dad, my favorite story of all time happened when he was in college. He never directly told me the story until a couple of months ago, but I vividly remember him chronicling this event throughout my childhood to others. I wish someone had taped his rendition. He does voices and gestures and everything. I always died laughing, along with everyone else, every time he entertained others with this saga. But recently, I realized how this story served as an allegory for how I was raised.

So, it all begins with dad playing on the Tennessee State University football team in the early seventies as the starting tight end. Ed "Too Tall" Jones also played on that team. If you are forty years old or older, you know Too Tall Jones. He played for the Dallas Cowboys as a defensive end for over fifteen years and became a beloved American icon. If someone had invented *Dancing with the Stars* in the late nineties, you would definitely see Too Tall doing the foxtrot on national TV. After his career, he guest-starred in several television shows and movies. When he played with my dad, Too Tall was the number one-ranked player in all of college football, regardless of position or school. Racism dominated the South. Alabama had just placed an African American on the roster in 1971. This was 1973. The best Black players in the country attended historically Black colleges because they were not allowed to play for SEC schools. Too Tall Jones would go on to secure the number one pick in the NFL draft in 1974, make several All-Pro teams, and become a household name.

But before all that, he first needed to go through my dad. As tight end, my dad and Too Tall Jones played the direct opposites of each other, so they were always paired for drills and faced off against each other in scrimmages. They naturally became rivals. The whole team looked forward to these clashes of titans as both were six foot seven and ferocious. Dad gave Too Tall all he wanted.

One practice, Too Tall and my dad squared up in a one-on-one drill. Dad kept getting the best of the future NFL star. Embarrassed, the coaches started giving Too Tall the snap count behind Dad’s back. Twice in a row, Too Tall seemed to jump off the line at the exact moment of the snap and hit Dad with forearms that knocked him back. Dad correctly deduced Too Tall was cheating, and the next time they lined up, Dad did not wait for the snap count. As soon as Too Tall got in his stance, Dad shot off the line and hit Too Tall like a locomotive. This was the seventies when players' helmets were made out of the same plastic used for paper plates. Too Tall, dizzily, got up, took off his helmet, put his dukes up like Jack Johnson in the prize fights in the 1800s, and challenged my dad to a gentlemanly contest of fisticuffs. My dad kept his helmet on, calmly picked up Too Tall’s helmet, and started hitting him with it. (I am laughing so hard right now as I am typing!) Dad hit him twice before the whole defensive team jumped on him and started swinging. As the coaches broke it up and pulled my dad from the bottom of the pile, he promised the whole defense that he was coming for them… one at a time.

But as amazing as that story is, the most incredible part of all is that at the end of the day, when he came home, he potty-trained me. This all happened when I was in diapers.

If you think fatherhood mellowed him out, you would be wrong. He demands his grandchildren call him G-Pops. “G” does not stand for Grand as in Grandfather. It stands for “G” as in Gangster.

That’s the aura and the example by which I was raised. He did not raise me to prevent me from making his mistakes. He raised me to be a better version of him. Aubrey 2.0.

Never back down.

No mercy.

Win.

Be the best because it is the only way to measure if you are being the best you actually can be.

That is my DNA. During my step four reflections, repressed memories kept popping up of times of my trying to fight multiple people at one time. The only thing I ever backed down from, ever, was my dad. And that was out of love and respect (and a little fear. I still am not sure even at now, if I can take him). And even that was incredibly hard to do. I recently told my dad that when lions sire sons, they kick them out of the house before they become adults. They know what they brought in the world.

I recently remembered one time, over twenty years ago, when my girlfriend and her best friend took me to an Eagles concert. I liked some of their songs like “Hotel California” and “Desperado”. I didn’t know I would be the only Black person in an amphitheater with thousands of Caucasians. As I walked to my seat following probably the two best-looking women at the concert, I felt hundreds of eyes following me. Usually, no one would dare approach me. But one guy did. A huge burly country guy. He looked like a rock of muscle without definition. He was surrounded by five of his friends, all looking like they bought their clothes from a feed store. A couple of them even wore Confederate memorabilia. Their leader began shouting racial epithets at my girlfriend for her interracial choice of me while ignoring me at the same time. He didn’t even look my way.

As we sat down in our seats, rage began to build inside of me. I just could not sit there. But I also knew, intellectually, if I approached all six of these guys in front of hundreds of people of the opposite persuasion, I would get hurt, maybe killed. But I could not just sit there. So, I excused myself and went looking for all of them. Mind you, I am not crazy. I went looking for them, hoping I would not find them. Hoping if I did, there would be enough good people there to keep them from murdering me. Hoping that if it did come to a fight, I could just make one guy bleed profusely (a dad lesson) and that would stop everyone else. Hoping God existed and that verse about angels lifting me up to keep me from harm actually wasn’t a metaphor. But I could not just sit there. That was not how I was raised. I walked from one end of the concert to the other, not finding them. As I got to the end of the causeway, right before I sighed with relief and returned to my seat, I saw all of them hanging out in the courtyard. And they all saw me. I had no choice. I walked up to them, and they walked up to me. There were no police officers. No concession stands workers. No other concert attendees. It was just me and them in what looked like some western standoff.

I went up to the leader, exchanged words with the Aubrey scowl chiseled in my face since birth. I cannot record what was said here, because I don’t want my dad’s account banned. At some point all I could feel was anger, and I committed to dying right there. I growled my last short retort and awaited an answer. Silence. He looked me up and down. And walked away. His rural posse followed him without saying a word.

I told my dad this story recently, and he said: “That’s my boy. That’s my boy. You showed heart! You showed heart! They saw you coming out of a sea of white people, just hunting them. Stalking them. You walked right up to them, and they thought, ‘Who is this?” He don’t look scared at all. He must know something. He must got something we never seen.’ That’s why they walked away. You got heart!!!”

I told my mom the same story, and she asked on the verge of tears: “How are you still alive?”

My brother, Tremayne, knows this about me, too. He often counsels me in situations, saying, “I think you need to be more Mom than Dad.” He has some Mom and Dad DNA in him, too, but in the opposite way. He inherited my mom’s peace and my dad’s pragmatism.

In a gym with five hundred people in the stands, I once dunked on an opponent I didn’t like. Running down the court, I screamed louder than all the people in the auditorium cheering me on. Tremayne, on the other hand, once caught a five-yard pass and ran a sixty-yard touchdown in front of ninety thousand fans at a Gator home game—then simply handed the ball to the referee. In my life, I never shook hands with an opponent. I never helped anyone on the other team off the ground. Tremayne, however, won an award on his national championship team for exemplifying character and sportsmanship.

When his wife of thirty years told me she had never heard him raise his voice, I asked my mom if she was sure she hadn’t cheated on Dad with some light-skinned dude at the time of my brother’s conception. (She didn’t like that question very much.) How could our father’s blood run through his veins and not exhale, as my father sophisticatedly called it, bravado?

But my father’s blood does run in my brother’s veins. I remember one time Tremayne went what we affectionately call “full Aubrey.” After we both graduated from high school, we went to college on scholarships to play for our respective schools. I heard through the grapevine that one of our old high school coaches had said something untrue about our dad. I don’t even remember the comment or who told me. Looking back on it, it was probably something insignificant and innocuous, but fury burned within me.

Those coaches had fought with my dad throughout my high school tenure over the stewardship of my athletic career. I kept things they did to me from my dad because I knew he would run through those coaches like a tornado. I protected them from my dad’s vengeance.

After I could no longer play football, the school abandoned me. My dad was right, and I didn’t listen. They fought for the right to use my talent as they saw fit. Looking back on it now, I see my dad wasn’t just fighting for my athletic career. He was fighting for my soul. As far as I was concerned, I saved all of their lives by keeping from Dad some of the things that happened to me. The incredulity of saying anything about him, after all of that, engulfed me in wrath. I immediately decided to return to that school for the first time since graduation and confront that coach—one who had known me since seventh grade—and find out what he said and why. If I didn’t like the answer, it would go “full Aubrey.”

I called Tremayne, in case I needed bail money, and I expected him to curtail me and say, “You need to be more Mom than Dad.” Instead, he hissed, “I am driving. Let’s go.”

When he picked me up, his fury almost surpassed my own. He had witnessed this tug-of-war for four years. He, too, could have told Dad about what had happened to me and held it back from him because he knew what Dad would do. He wore my high school number during his time as a Florida Gator solely for the Allen pride of overcoming all that had happened to me.

When we arrived at our old high school, it was the second quarter. We ignored all the people who wanted to say hello after not seeing us for years. We saw Coach Wallace (not his real name) in the end zone and immediately walked across the field. He greeted us with a smile and reached out his hand for a hug or handshake. Tremayne and I rejected it. Tremayne let me do all the talking. I don’t remember what I said, but the summation was what Will Smith said to Chris Rock: “Keep my dad’s name out of your ******* mouth.”

Coach Wallace looked shocked and said he had never said anything about our father. I told him what I had heard, and he replied, “Ohhh, there is another Coach Wallace now. We just hired him. He must have said it. I didn’t.” Realizing he was telling the truth, I asked where I could find this new coach. This Coach Wallace told us everything he knew about the other Coach Wallace—he practically handed us his home address, his social security number, and his ATM code. Satisfied, the “Mom DNA” came out of me, and I apologized, and we commenced catching up. The Allen scowl melted from me, but Tremayne never stopped looking menacing. He kept his scowl the whole time, never saying a word. Finally, Coach Wallace said, “I am glad we straightened this out. I thought you were going to kill me.” I chuckled, but Tremayne spoke his first words in the entire confrontation: “We weren’t going to kill you. We were just going to rough you up a bit.” He had only uttered two sentences, but his aura screamed one message: He didn’t care if it was a joke, insult, or compliment. He didn’t care if it was Coach Wallace, Coach Saban, or Coach John the Baptist. Keep our dad’s name out of your mouth.

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

John 2:15-17

Have you ever wondered why Jesus found rope, handcrafted a whip, and stormed into the outer court of the temple, flogging the priests and their collaborators? The Bible records Jesus cleansing the temple twice during the holiday of Passover, when all the world’s Jews traveled to worship in Jerusalem. Any given day, tens of thousands of Jews, merchants, priests, and worshippers filled the temple court. Jesus, by himself, stopped worship for everyone, wielding his handmade weapon and chasing them all out.

During that time, Caiaphas, the high priest, was a Roman appointee who turned the temple into a marketplace, making millions by selling sacrificial animals at inflated prices. Jews all over the world needed these sacrifices, according to the Old Testament, to receive atonement for their sins and God’s blessing on their lives. If they brought their own animals, the priests would examine them and deem them as too blemished to be used, thus relegating Jews to buying their animals at drastically higher prices. If Jews from other nations came to the temple and didn’t possess temple currency, the priests would charge exorbitant fees to trade foreign currency for the correct currency to buy the animals. Jews, who desired reconciliation with God, did not have a choice—either buy the temple’s currency or leave Jerusalem without penance. This made all the priests of that day incredibly rich.

This wasn’t just greed—it was selling the love of God for a fee. It was using God for their own selfish desires. Poor and faithful people, desperate to be made right with God, were being extorted at the very gate of mercy. Jesus didn’t flip tables over money; he flipped them because access to his Father was being sold. This was the only time Jesus got visibly angry—because nothing enrages a son like lies about his father. When the reconciliation becomes a business, it’s not just corruption—its blasphemy dressed in religious robes.

God does not like his name used in vain. I find it hilarious that people feel that God, 4,000 years ago, foresaw that English speakers would put the word “damn” after the word “God,” as if God is his name. This would offend God so much, that he made it a commandment against it. (Does anyone know the translation for this man-made “vulgarity” for Chinese or Russian Christians?) It is pure hypocrisy that people actually think that God would care more about a man-made rule of putting two words together instead of, for example, burning a cross in his name to oppress and terrorize different-colored children he loved, predestined, and died for.

In fact, of the almost 1,600 rules of the Bible, it lists two sins God cannot forgive: the misuse of his name and lying about his Spirit. It seems like those two unpardonable sins might be the same thing.

Jesus seemed to be all my “Mom’s DNA” during his ministry. He loved prostitutes, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers. Those, the law deemed unclean; he touched anyway. He always healed. Never said “no”. Even ate with those who plotted to murder Him. Forgave the people killing Him as they were killing Him. The disciples asked Jesus to tell them about his Father, the God of the Old Testament, whom their nation had worshipped for two thousand years. Jesus said when they see Him, they see the Father. If they know Him, they know the Father. If they love Him, they love the Father. If they hate Him, they hate the Father. Every word He said, the Father told Him to say. Everything He did, the Father did through Him. (John 14 and 15).

I am convinced there are no contradictions in scripture, only paradoxes. If the pieces of the puzzle do not fit, it is because we do not possess all the pieces yet. But I do know one thing: the God of the Old Testament must reconcile with Jesus and not the other way around.

But when it came to denying people the grace and forgiveness of the Heavenly Father, Jesus went Old School Deuteronomy God, swirling a whip above his head and aiming it at the perpetrators, acting so violently and maddeningly, thousands of people dropped their money, abandoned their business, and ran.

God can forgive anything and everyone—except for those who lie about who He is by denying his grace and love to those who need it.

I can’t help but relate to the way Jesus felt, as I felt the same way on that football field, confronting insignificant lies about my earthly dad that turned out to be a misunderstanding. (I heard the new Coach Wallace found out Aubrey’s boys showed up on a Friday night hunting him and quickly made amends). The more I discover God’s grace, that same fire burns in me, except now it’s as if someone opened up the clouds and rained gasoline on it. All my life, people denied me His love and grace for their own worldly desires and appetites and fears. I believe that blasphemous dagger drips the blood of millions of hearts just like mine. I do feel rage for my heavenly Father. I feel it against those who denied me the love and grace of God by lying about the Spirit of my Father. I feel it against those who use God’s name to make a profit off of my Father. When I keep thinking about it, only one thing continues to echo deep within me.

Keep my Father’s name out of your mouth.

for zeal for your house consumes me,

    and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.

Psalm 69:9