I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

by Kevin Hart

The next time I remember being with my dad, my brother and I were walking along a street in our neighborhood with him. I’ll never know where he was taking us, because out of nowhere, a group of guys jumped him. My brother and I stood there, shocked, as they started pummeling Dad. “Go run home,” my dad told us coolly between punches, as if we were leaving him with friends. “I’ll meet you back there. Go ahead! I’ll be all right.” So we went home and sat in the kitchen terrified, hoping he’d come back alive. An hour or so later, he strolled in the door covered in blood and casually asked, “You all right? You want something to eat?” He didn’t even mention the fight. It was as if nothing had happened. The only other time I saw him that bloody was after he got hit by that axe. I asked him about it much later, and he explained that he went to the home of someone named Mr. Jimmy. There was a man underneath the refrigerator who’d been struggling to repair it for two hours. My dad said, “Move out the way,” and fixed it. The next thing he knew, the other repairman chopped him with an axe, presumably for taking the job away. This is how my father concluded the story: “Coincidentally, a couple of weeks later, that sucka was found dead. I don’t know nothing about it.” This is how I responded: “Dad, I don’t want to know nothing about it either.”