Nicole Murphy with Some New Dude

This photo of Nicole Murphy and Michael Strahan jumped out at me from Bossip. Of course I am flattering myself but Nicole Murphy with those eyes and that apparently cool and collected expression on her face made me think of my ex, the mother of my third child. It is one thing to be some 18 year old boy like my eldest child, my son, looking at a photo like this but it is another thing entirely for me to see this—because, first of all, I know how it feels to see your ex with another dude. It looks like she is beaming right at Eddie Murphy through the camera taking this photo and saying, “Ha! I still can catch em!” And when you read the word “Ha!” you got to hear it like Eddie says it during one of his old, stand-up routines: “Ha!”

Since it is alleged (or actually documented with photos and fluid samples) that Eddie Murphy was, in May of 1997, stopped by police with a transvestite prostitute, I am not going to compare Eddie and me too much—and I really have no idea what kind of person Nicole Murphy (or Nicole Mitchell) actually be. But these random points come out around the subject of my ex with another dude:

• Most importantly you should be very glad that a new guy wants your ex woman. It might be a sign that you have taste and can actually eat of what others want to eat (even when you are sure you got the sweeter juice). Although when your ex is a mother who might misplace the word “daddy” (see below), having a “new man” in her life might protect your children from enmeshment with any loneliness and any misery she would have been radiating all over the children (and denying it with soulful, nigritic indignation that makes her nostrils flare like John Amos).
• My breakups have always eventually revealed a new (and painful) stage of self-improvement for me while most inconveniences have been unfairly and tragically placed on the children involved. This happened because of a combination of financial and holistic poverty crippling us so-called adults. So any wisdom or excellence in thought you might notice from me in this writing here was paid for in large part by my children—especially my eldest child.
• Many married couples with children, who are often described as “professional” couples, lead a “love” life that we might call leading “separate lives.” In fact, the kind of asexual, administrative, parent-centric cordial relations I have with the (two latest) mothers of my children are actually, sadly, identical to years-long stages of marriage—even in realistic polygamy. But these married people can live under the illusion that they are actually “together”—however, unlike me, they have the option of getting through the asexual patch and really getting it on when the childcare gets under control. The parents have to be passionate activists in this regard to make this happen. Parents overcoming these challenges actually help their children understand what it means to be a functional, thriving adult person. It is a way to show your children how to fight oppression. It is counterintuitive to many parents to understand that saving themselves also can save their children. This is not always a “selfish” act.
• I saw that I cannot avoid the subtle innuendo or direct accusation that I am jealous of my ex being with new dude. Sometimes, on the other hand, I cannot avoid the accusation of never really caring at all. This can become an emotional rollercoaster flung between these two extremes. Sadly, the supposed “new woman” in my life might be the fretful design engineer of this rollercoaster.
• It is often very correct to actually feel sympathy for the first guy your ex is “seeing” because he could be in the classic “rebound” relationship where someone is being used to “prove” a point or two brought out in the previous relationship. So Nicole Murphy could be saying to Eddie Murphy, “I think you are a latent homosexual with a dash of bi-curiosity. I’m going to hook up with this hulking, macho football hero just to see how Jim Brown did Hollywood.” But Nicole looks so cool and sharp that this cannot be possible… but sometimes we poor boys get fooled by the coolness of a supposed “rich girl”… sometimes we poor boys find out how rich we are compared to these human trophies we impose on ourselves… Sometimes these “elite women” are just screaming without making a sound. They are screaming, “Don’t you know I ain’t shit!” …“Sucker!” But I really do feel that Nicole is above all that…
• I can also feel a tiny bit of sympathy for the new guy when the mother of our child ‘insists’ he should be called “daddy” while years and years go by before this “daddy” is called “husband.” Both of my male children were encouraged (or to be extremely generous not discouraged) to call some new dude “daddy.” You can find out very quickly how sexism works just like racism when you pose the question to a mother, “How would you feel about your child calling some ‘strange woman’ ‘mommy’?” The last time I asked this question, I got no response—a very white conservative silence from someone supposedly liberal, articulate and wealthy. From where I come from, this is one quick way a guy like me can end up in prison for manslaughter (okay murder). But, again, intelligence—the divinity of which—saved me alive: mothers often use the title of “daddy” as a reward to the gullible motherfucker (the use of profanity is coherent and accurate). I have watched in agony, barely able to pay my rent, while my eldest son was dragged through man after man, “daddy” after “daddy” appearing and disappearing… Who is and was the person suffering the most? The child!!! Eddie Murphy’s son is called “Miles Mitchell” not Miles Murphy—this is either a reporter’s typo or an indicator of something similar I went through (with my second male child)—and I’m just writing about this shit for the first time in my life right here… Sometimes we poor boys get spooked by a “rich girl,” her imperial inhumanity and her Century City lawyers…
• It was wrong of me to use pregnancy to “help” or “force” a woman to settle down and really think about working with me for the rest of her life. A non-conscious, sexist and self-destructive assumption I had about women is that pregnancy makes them instinctively want to protect their children with the birth father—and this protection instinct would override any complex doubts they would have about me. It is important to stress how unconscious this approach was because the profundity of its stupidity cannot be overstated. This idea is so stupid that my father assumed that I was some bull in heat that would have unprotected sex with any woman instead of these particular women who all eerily share traits in common (traits surrounding my mother). In fact, one (who has actually lived with women while they are pregnant) knows that some women get less sensible because of pregnancy and their fears are magnified. They often say and do things that are simply unforgivable especially when they deny post-partum that these events actually existed.
• For me, the hard and fast rule is that once she is with another dude, I don’t want her back—no matter how jealous I appear. The women I have been with (that have had my children) leave me in less than five years. And when I say ‘leave me’ they either dump me (1.5 out of three) or leave me no choice but to dump them (because I have not had Eddie Murphy’s money to lead “separate lives”—and I will never pay money for this bullshit no matter how much money “we” have). Now I am old enough to know that, whatever I was not providing for them, I either was never going to bring it to them or they were not patient enough to wait for it. When I am supposedly denying something from my woman, I am also denying myself. We poor boys need to work—but, again, sexism and racism work my woman such that she finds it hard to assume that I am a hard-working man that is striving for another day—not this shit we are living in right now… She just needed to hang in there… There is no point for me to bring back into my life someone I cannot provide for—or someone that is not patient for me. Kids, it’s like being in that Hollywood action movie when you find out your “cool buddy” is not going to let that rope down and save you… even when the rope is attached to a winch and pulley system you specifically, painstakingly designed for such an emergency… She’s often not helping because she does not know that she is powerful and influential—it’s often too simple and non-educational to just call her a bitch…I know me well enough to know how eternally grateful and generous I am to people who were truly patient with me. You will never catch me exploiting anyone in a one-sided, decades-long, Imperial-style “love affair.” That’s just not Black—with the capital B.

I’m sure nothing I wrote here has a damn thang to do with perfect celebrity lives…The bottom line is that Nicole Murphy put in 12 years. There is no way a woman is going to live under the same roof with a poet like me for 12 years and fake me out—even when she is faking herself out… No woman has lived with me more than three years—by my standard, 12 years means she is totally in charge of her breakup… She should get “half” Eddie! Forget that pre-nuptial! “Half!”

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