Believe In T
By Jeff Henson

Crouched behind a parked car. A dark street off Sixth Avenue. A Thursday. A 9mm wedged between my stomach and black jeans, a sawed-off shotgun clamped in my right hand, I look for T up the street. He scurries to my position.
 
He asks, "What's wrong?"
 
I wait a second, worried what he might think. "T," I say, "for the first time I'm scared. This is a total freak out, man."
 
H says nothing. He peers through the driver side window at the porch light-lit home. He looks at me. I feel less afraid.
 
He dispatches 14 Arrowboys to the front porch. Sanman and The Zombie have captured the Arrowboy captain. They also have a fire hose filled with gasoline and plenty of matches. After the Arrowboys advance, T will dart from the rear of the car. I follow, guns blazing, each bullet reserved for Sanman and The Zombie.
 
T will get us through.
 
He always does.
 
He is 5.
 
We play make believe war games in the street in front of his home.
 
T is also known as Trevor Dolan. His mother, Shawn, is one of my closest friends, She's a single mother and Marshall student. Before T and I battled Sanman and The Zombie --- he invented The Zombie; Sanman is mine --- the three of us colored in coloring books in the living room. T said something about a date.
 
Shawn asked her son, "Do you know what a date is?"
 
"Yes," he said, eyes on his coloring book.
 
"What is it?," she said.
 
"It's when you love someone and you want to be with them," he said.
 
I said, "What do you do on a date?"
 
He thought, eyes on the coloring book. He looked up. He smiled. He just lost two front teeth, top rowers.
 
"You take them to dinner," he said.
 
"Where would you take her?," Shawn said.
 
Easy one --- "Ronald McDonald's."
 
Laughter.
 
"What would you do," Shawn said, "when you were done eating?"
 
"You talk."
 
I said, "What would you talk about?"
 
He thought. He thought. And then he launched a real missle, one that says so much about the blessed way he's been raised.
 
He said, smiling, "You talk about her."
 
Yes!
 
That's right!
 
Nailed it!
 
You talk about her, you sensitive man. You lose self. You put the need to tell her everything about yourself, your damned need to sell yourself so you can kiss her as soon as possible, on the table with the rest of the condiments and swipe them to the right. You give her the time and space to bloom and you simply enjoy the blooming.
 
Yeah.
 
I mean, that's what T would do, so it must be right, right?
 
Most dudes would talk about 1) Their hair or clothes 2) Sports 3} Video games or 4} Their hair.
 
T has been raised by women --- his maternal grandmothers contribute significantly --- to divest himself of self and be considerate of others, to show them more than decency, to show them more than respect.
 
Be sensitive, and be true.
 
Not only is T a model for new sensitivity, he has terrific leadership and management skills. His performance in battle against Sanman and The Zombie proved that he has:
 
A} Crisis decision-making abilities regardless of environmental factors (It's a battle, it's night, it's in the street);
 
B} An ability for time-sensitive strategizing (dispatching the 14 Arrowboys as the advance to draw fire);
 
C) Secondary pre-planning awareness (calm the nervous partner and also sell him The Plan);
 
and D} The guts to always take the first step (darting from the rear of the car to inspire aforementioned nervous partner).
 This is a future chief executive with the strength not to put his hands on the intern and calmly lead others in unified mission.
 
Playing war games and answering cute romantic inquiries is awfully simply sweet and adorable and fuzzy-wizzy, sure. But what a boy can show at 5 might suggest a lot about how he'll stand at 18, when games and hypotheticals have evolved into an often harsh and soul-testing reality.
 
The credit for T goes straight to the women. Their heart and character are emerging in wisps from this fine little boy I am blessed to call a friend.
 
The White House is his for the taking. But, personally, I think he could aim much higher.
 
I believe in T, absolutely.
 
Of course, I'm the nervous one.
 
Jeff Henson is a Huntington freelance writer and non-custodial father of 11- and 7-year-old daughters.