“Mr. Streety, you say you got spooked when you found out that your ex-girlfriend, Ms. Johnson, cheated with a man she worked with at a haunted house. You have dragged the defendant into court today to prove that you are not her thirteen-month-old son Z’Andre’s father, so you can remove your name from the birth certificate. Additionally, you are also suing for $108, the cost to get your name removed. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Johnson, you say you never forced Mr. Streety to sign Z’Andre’s birth certificate, and you are furious. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So, Mr. Streety, why did you sign Z’Andre’s birth certificate if you had doubt?”

“Your Honor, I was foolish at the time. In the beginning, it was the way I felt about her. When we first met, she was already pregnant. We were trying to make things happen. We were trying to be a family. She told me her situation—kids’ fathers weren’t really there. I’m a good man. I felt like that was the role I was gonna have to take on if I wanted to be with her.”

“So wait, let me be clear. So you took on the role of father for a child you knew wasn’t yours. When you met her, she was pregnant.”

“Yeah, plus the other siblings, too.”

“And the older siblings. It’s not like you didn’t know. But you signed the birth certificate of the first child.”

“Yes, this last one and his brother—the two youngest.”

“But you knew that. That’s what you agreed to do.”

“Yeah, but I did that to show you—”

“Wait, I want to be clear. You signed the birth certificate for a child you knew wasn’t yours.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I know how foolish it sounds.”

“And now Z’Andre—you question if he’s yours, and you signed his birth certificate, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So how many children do you have between the two of you?”

“One.”

“You just have one.”

“The other one you’re on the birth certificate, but you’re not the biological father. But you have two other children besides that.”

“I have three other children besides that.”

“Now, tell me about this relationship before you got pregnant with Z’Andre.”

“We met back up after years of not seeing each other, and then he left and went to Denver. And when he came back that December, he proposed to me. And I would say he was still involved with someone else, because he was receiving phone calls, and he was very suspicious about it. And I didn’t pay attention to him.”

“Your Honor, I moved to Denver. She knew that I was moving out there so that me and her could try and move out there. That was the game plan after he got out there.”

“Okay, so you told her, ‘I’m gonna go to Denver first and get things set up, and then you’re gonna come as well.’”

“Yeah.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“But you did move to Denver.”

“Yeah.”

“He moved to Denver without my knowledge.”

“This was before Z’Andre was born.”

“Yeah. Yes, it was. I was pregnant with Zayta at the time.”

“So now the first thing we really need to understand is, why do you doubt Z’Andre is yours? May I approach, Your Honor?”

“Insecurity.”

“This is what the exhibit is about?”

“Yes, ma’am. Please approach.”

“Thank you. We have a timeline here. Moved in together in or around April. This is her parents’ house, this is one of their properties. All of her bills are automatically my responsibility.”

“No, they weren’t. He got his name—”

“Hold your thoughts. Thank you. Here we go. We’re moving through here. At the midst of all of that going on, I’m getting tired of being accused of things that I’m not doing. So I move out. Not even a few weeks later, I see her at the gas station around the street from my brother’s house. Who was that she was riding with? Hold that thought. Couple weeks later, I’m at my uncle’s house—”

“Wait a minute. ‘Saw with other men’? That’s the red car? And what did you see when you saw that?”

“I saw them at the gas station at the pump. She was just chilling. As a matter of fact, this person that she’s with—if this was such a good man, he’s sitting in the truck, she’s pumping the gas. A couple weeks later, I’m playing soccer with my two younger cousins in my uncle’s front yard. Guess who come bending around the corner? Her and the same one that I saw earlier at the gas station. This time he’s driving.”

“Whoa, okay. If he’s driving—and that’s the car below driving with that other man. That’s the same other man. Same person. Same guy. This is around the time where I discover that she’s pregnant. You got to understand, I’m gonna feel some type of way.”

“Now, Mr. Streety, hold your thought. Ms. Johnson, do you remember those instances?”

“I do.”

“Do you remember the man you were driving with?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You were with another man?”

“I was. But all that took place in October. I didn’t meet the guy until October.”

“No. No, she tells me that, Your Honor, and as far as she’s concerned, she’s gonna tell me that.”

“Mr. Streety, I just want to make sure. Now, how do you know it’s August? You just remembered that was the day?”

“No, that’s when I saw her. As far as I’m concerned, after this time passed, she told me that she was with somebody else. She had met him at a haunted house that she and he had worked at together. As far as I’m concerned, this is the same person that I saw earlier. You can’t prove to me it’s not.”

“All right, and then in October, that’s when it is revealed to you that she cheated.”

“Yeah, that she had been cheating in October.”

“So if you had been doing that in October and you now just telling me you only slept together two or three times—you found out she cheated with a haunted house. She was in the haunted house cheating?”

“No, she was in the house that we were living in with them kids. That’s where she was at.”

“Oh. The same bed that I was lying in—”

“Oh, she was working with the guy at the haunted house. It wasn’t even there.”

“Oh, so that makes it okay?”

“No, it doesn’t make it okay. You removing your name from the water bill doesn’t make it okay either.”

“Yeah, it do for my credit.”

“Really? Oh, so I gotta leave my name on the water bill so y’all can shower together. Why did you agree to get the water turned on in your name? What sense did that make if you didn’t plan on paying any bills?”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Streety, you took your name off the water bill ’cause you didn’t want her taking a shower with this new man?”

“No, he decided that he was gonna take his name off the water bill and go freelance or do whatever it is that he wanted to do. Meanwhile, I have—”

“Wait, wait, what’s ‘freelance’ mean?”

“Your Honor, can I go back? Are you done with your exhibit, sir?”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, please step back to the podium.”

“He made beats or he would help record songs with other people without a fee.”

“Oh, I thought you meant he was freelancing with other women.”

“I mean, his ex, of course. Like, he would leave my house just to see his ex and their child. And they would spend time together. Pictures all over Facebook. Him lying in the bed when their baby was born.”

“Your Honor—”

“It’s, like, wow. You didn’t tell me any of this. I didn’t know none of this. So listen. And as bad as that is, that didn’t land us here in paternity court.”

“No, it didn’t. From what the exhibit says, the haunted house did. Ms. Johnson, I want to hear what your side of the story is.”

“Okay. First of all, the calendar’s not even right. We moved in together in March, and he moved out in June. He stopped by just to check on me or whatever, but it wasn’t that much. So I would say in July, that’s when I got pregnant. And this right here, all this happened in October.”

“So you’re saying he got the dates all mixed up?”

“He does. And you’re saying that when he saw you with the other man driving around, you were already pregnant.”

“Yes, I was. I was already pregnant.”

“Were you sleeping with the other man?”

“I met this guy in October at the haunted house. I would say two weeks after being there of getting the haunted house set up and getting ready to bring customers in—’cause it was from the 15th to the 31st. So I’ll say—”

“You met him in October, but y’all were hanging out two months before?”

“No, we weren’t. See, that’s where you’re delusional.”

“So that’s somebody different?”

“No.”

“So that’s somebody different? Yes or no?”

“I wasn’t even with anybody. I was at home with my kids, making sure they ate, making sure they were bathed and they were clothed.”

“Who were you driving to my uncle’s house with?”

“That was the guy in October. That’s the same guy.”

“Lies.”

“No, they’re not.”

“So, Ms. Johnson, you say you were already pregnant. But you say you saw her with the other man before you realized she’s pregnant. Take me to the point when she tells you she’s pregnant.”

“I went over there just to go check on her. We’re just lying there, and she’s like—as a matter of fact, I asked her, ‘Have you been with somebody else?’ She’s always been honest. She says, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, have y’all been sleeping together?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh, so this only happened one time?’ ‘No, it’s been two or three times.’ I’m like, ‘Where’d y’all sleep together at?’”

“In October.”

“‘Right here is where.’ The same bed that me and her had been lying in.”

“After I told you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“And when I told him I cheated, that’s when he decided he wanted to come back around and play dad or play house or whatever. Because he was always in and out of the house.”

“Who do your children look at as dad? Of course you! So how am I playing dad then?”

“Listen, I see the tears in your eyes, and I see you’re very upset.”

“I am.”

“What is this about for you?”

“It’s the fact that he’s been in my daughter’s life since she was one. And she’s five now. And knowing that he knows that they don’t know their fathers—their fathers don’t come around or call or check on them. And then for him to step up to that position and then all of a sudden slowly wean his way out—that just drives me—”

“Don’t sit up—”

“Let her talk.”

“I wasted my time, my energy. Anything that we put forth to build our family and make our lives better within ourselves and for our children.”

“Now, Mr. Streety, what were you trying to add?”

“Your Honor, look. Straight up, I was in the military. I take responsibility serious. I would think she would think the same thing, considering her father and her sisters—”

“Not the way you act. Not the way you display yourself.”

“It don’t matter about how I display myself. You don’t sit up there and tell me that I’m wrong because I want to separate myself from a situation that I put myself in when you made me feel uncomfortable about it.”

“At what point do you get so uncomfortable that you backpedal out of there and that you decide that this baby, Z’Andre, is not yours?”

“‘Cause when you sit there and you push your responsibilities on me after I take a moment—yeah. But you don’t never put your responsibilities on another person and make them feel bad when they’re not doing as much as you should be doing in the first place.”

“Why do you then doubt the child? It’s not about responsibility. It has to be based in some—you feel like she was sleeping with this guy. That’s what you feel like?”

“Your Honor, the reason why she says she did it was because I wasn’t there for her. Right. But you feel like she slept with this guy before Z’Andre was conceived.”

“If you felt like that at one point, all the times that I feel like that, you might have felt like that before, too. You might have been doing that before, too. You don’t say stuff like that to a person, and when they get insecure about what you said, you get mad at them ’cause they’re insecure.”

“Okay, so let me ask you something. Why did you sign Z’Andre’s birth certificate?”

“Your Honor, I was already there for the other three. I ain’t taken nothing from Ms. Johnson. But I already know what she’s dealing with. I know that their fathers were not there for them. I already know that. I’m sitting there in the hospital holding him.”

“So wait a minute. This is what I don’t understand. How do we go from this picture of you in the hospital to Z’Andre is now thirteen months old, and you’re saying you don’t believe he’s your biological—”

“Your Honor, the reason why I have my doubts is—y’all see a picture of him. Look at me and her. We both dark. That baby yellow. That person that I seen her with was yellow. So that makes me have my doubts.”

“You do understand that children come in all shapes and sizes. You know that it is about your genes. You can make a child that could be a throwback from another generation.”

“Totally.”

“You can have a child that is a different shade of brown than you, and it doesn’t mean it’s not yours.”

“Okay, I understand, ’cause Z’Andre looks more like Chante than he does—I mean, I understand that. That boy looks just like her. I have my doubts by the way he looks for my own reasons.”

“All right. So listen—”

“But did that start from signing the birth certificate and being there for them and spending time with them? No, it didn’t. I still did that. And you signed that birth certificate willingly.”

“Yeah.”

“Ms. Johnson, you admit you slept with this other person.”

“I did.”

“Did you tell this other person you were pregnant, too?”

“I told him. Yes, Your Honor.”

“Now, has he met Z’Andre?”

“He has not, Your Honor. After October was over, that was it. We slept during our work relationship those two or three times, and that was it. So after that, he went ghost back to the haunted house.”

“Okay. We’re gonna get to the paternity results in just a moment. But I want to rule on Mr. Streety’s suit. Mr. Streety, you’re suing for $108, which would be the cost to take your name off the birth certificate should Z’Andre be determined to not be your biological child. The issue is this—I asked you point blank in court, ‘Did you do this voluntarily, willingly?’ And you answered to the court, ‘Yes.’ Without any evidence that Ms. Johnson tried to defraud you, did anything to coerce you, put forth any circumstances that would mislead you to sign this birth certificate, I cannot award you $108 because you did this on your own volition. So because of that reason, I have to deny your suit. But I want you to understand this—even though today we may determine you are not the biological father, you understand that you still are the legal father, and so you would still be required to support him financially via child support, and you still have a legal right to see him as well as the other child.”

“And he knows that.”

“Now, you do have a right to petition the court in your home state to have your name removed. With that said, it’s time for the results.”

“These results were prepared by DNA Diagnostics and they read as follows. In the case of Streety v. Johnson, when it comes to thirteen-month-old Z’Andre Streety, it has been determined by this court, Mr. Streety, you are the father.”

“I told you.”

“How do you feel now, Mr. Streety, now that you know for certain?”

“That just shows right there that she did have somewhere, some kind of a respect for me. She never been unsure. I always been unsure.”

“I believe you doubted. You know, some men come in here after like they ain’t got a doubt, they just don’t want the responsibility. And I’m gonna tell you something—this is a consequence of a relationship where there’s no trust. And what I want to say to you all is, if you’re going to do better for the children, you all have to find a way to establish a foundation of trust. She knew you were insecure, but one thing you testified to, Mr. Streety, was you said, ‘She don’t lie.’ You asked her questions—’Did she sleep with someone?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Where’d you do it?’ ‘Here.’ I mean, she told you the truth. So you’ve got to take that as a foundation that now you all need to communicate. You’ve got a beautiful baby boy. Figure out where you want to be and how you want to proceed together. And she made a good point—you’ve taken on this family, you’ve stepped up to the plate. Now you can’t step up to the plate, get the bat, tell the pitcher to throw, and then decide, ‘Aw, you know, baseball ain’t my game.’ You can’t do that, because there are children here that are counting on you, and they look to you to be their father. All right?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Lewis, you say you’re here to demand the defendant finally take responsibility because, though he denies it, he is indeed the biological father of both your children.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Pippen, you argue there’s no way you’re the father of her kids and claim you have undeniable proof on your side.”

“Yes, I do, Your Honor. Furthermore, you and your girlfriend, Ms. Sanders, say today’s DNA results will clear your name once and for all.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So, Mr. Pippen, why are you so confident you’re not the biological father of Ms. Lewis’s children?”

“Because she’s a liar, she’s a cheater, and I have proof I’m not the father.”

“Your Honor—no. I was with this man since I was young. I had his back through everything. When she kicked him out, he came cryin’ to me. When he had nowhere to go at—when you had nowhere to go at, you came home to me. And you would deny both of them, and you asked me to have them.”

“That was your choice.”

“Your Honor, that right there—I did ask her to have my child, but I was with you.”

“Okay, I can see that this is a very passionate situation, and I understand why—there are children at stake. But for the sake of this proceeding, let’s talk about your doubts as they relate to Que’Shauun first. Please tell me how you met.”

“I met him—his mother was a bus driver at my school. One day he came out from the group home. He was riding the bus with her. I was about fifteen, sixteen. Okay, fast forward to 2009. Me and Mr. Pippen got closer. He was dating Ms. Sanders, but she doesn’t know this. He had a little red truck. He comes to my house. I was home by myself. We had sex the very first time in 2009.”

“Your Honor—”

“Okay, fast forward to 2010. Again, I had moved into another apartment. He moved in with me because he had nowhere to go because them two were on the outs again. So he moves in. Me and Mr. Pippen had sex again. This time was a repeated thing. This is when he asked me to have his first child. He had went to her, because he was taking my hair out—I had these braids then, too. He helped me take my hair out. I was between his legs. As a matter of fact, me and him were—because we had just had sex the night before—and he was kissin’—”

“Okay, so let’s pause for translation.”

“You and him were on and off again.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Throughout that time, he was also supposed to be with Ms. Sanders in a committed, serious relationship, and you all were close.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So close that she would let him take your braids out?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Got it.”

“Now—Mr. Pippen, so you admit you were in a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewis.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Not using protection.”

“Right.”

“So why do you have doubts about Que’Shauun if you admit you were in a sexual relationship with her during the time of conception?”

“Because the time around she got pregnant, I was not there. I was in Greenville at the time that she got pregnant. I was staying in Tarboro at the time with Ms. Sanders. I have the proof, Your Honor, if you want to see.”

“I would like to see the proof. Jerome, please pass that to me.”

“And they said I got pregnant—conception was on May 25th, when I was with Mr. Pippen, because you can’t blow up my phone and pop up at my house. He kept popping up, crawling up on top of my dadgum balcony, knocking on my back door.”

“Ms. Lewis. This evidence you’ve presented is to show that your child, Que’Shauun, was conceived May 25th, around that area.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It is your contention, Mr. Pippen and Ms. Sanders, that Mr. Pippen wasn’t even around?”

“He wasn’t, because he was living with me in Tarboro, and so in order for him to go to work, I had to take him to work.”

“Just ’cause you said he—”

“So therefore, when we were going back and forth, he hadn’t been to Greenville because of his work schedule and my work schedule.”

“How far is—”

“Only about ten or fifteen minutes, ’cause Mr. Pippen—”

“It’s thirty minutes from Tarboro to Greenville.”

“Oh! You’re acting like it was three hours. So he’s thirty minutes away from her?”

“Right.”

“Yes.”

“But he had no way to get there. And my mother saw him coming out the front door when she was coming to bring me the car. And she saw him that same day coming down the stairs. He said, ‘I’ll be back in the night.’ And he came back that night.”

“Were you dating anybody else?”

“No, Your Honor. Nobody. I trusted Mr. Pippen. He kept saying we were gonna be together, we were gonna build a family. Because he told me, ‘I want you to have my kids. I’m coming home to you and only you.’ Because he had given me a ring. And he said, ‘I’m coming home to only you, and I want us to build this family.’ This is when he asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘Cause I never thought I could have kids. It took me so long to have my son. So now they came back—the doctor—into the little room, and they were like, ‘Ms. Lewis, you are pregnant.’ I burst into tears. I was twenty-one years old. I didn’t have it figured out what I’m gonna do with my life yet. And here I am, about to have a child. He comes to Greenville where we’re living, and he was like, ‘What do you want to do?’ I was like, ‘You asked me to have this child. I’m against abortion.’ So I said, ‘I want to lay down and have him and be woman enough to take care of it.’ He said, ‘If this is your choice, I’ve got your back. I will be there for you.’ This is when he asked me to marry him for the first time. There were four different times he asked me to marry him.”

“She says you’re the only guy she was with sexually. You were the person going back and forth between two women. Why is it you doubt that you are her child’s biological father?”

“Because I seen her with her ex-boyfriend—”

“Your Honor, what he saw—”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“And then I tried to call her phone, and she didn’t want to answer her phone. So I went to the house. By the time I got there, she was back to the house. So I asked her about it.”

“Your Honor, the night he’s claiming he saw me with my ex-boyfriend was in December of 2011. I wasn’t even pregnant yet. There was snow on the ground. So now Que’Shauun is two years old.”

“Two! And all this nonsense is going on. Two years old!”

“What are you feeling, Ms. Lewis?”

“He doesn’t even like you! Because he wanted you to sit with him, so he said, ‘Dada, Dada.’ And you went out the front door and slammed it like you never heard him call you. That boy looks just like your dumb self.”

“Your Honor, I have proof that this child looks nothing like—look at my baby. He didn’t ask to be here. You asked me to have him. And now you’re saying you won’t take care of him.”

“Please explain, Ms. Sanders, what is that—”

“On the right side is my child that I have with Mr. Pippen. On the left side is her child.”

“They look just alike.”

“So Que’Shauun is on the left, and your child that you’ve had with Mr. Pippen is on the right?”

“Yeah, both of them are the same age.”

“And it is your contention that there is no resemblance—”

“None. Look at her nose and look at his nose. They got the same little pointed nose.”

“Their child—”

“He got my nose, so what?”

“Then you’re talking about, I don’t do anything for this child. I went and had a DNA test done. And I have the proof right here saying that the child wasn’t mine.”

“You do? All right. Jerome, please hand me that evidence. Mr. Pippen, what exactly is this evidence of?”

“That’s the proof of the DNA test, and the results were that I was not the father.”

“Your Honor, you know how I know why he’s not the father—Mr. Pippen on that day kept going to the bathroom, chewing on stuff, whispering with Ms. Sanders about different things.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I was a witness. She kept saying, ‘Did you do it? Did you do it?’”

“But, Your Honor, I did not—”

“Let’s get some order. So you claim he took a DNA test and manipulated the results to compromise them?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Your Honor.”

“How do you think he did that?”

“Anything. ‘Cause it don’t take much to throw off your DNA. Especially Mr. Pippen, ’cause he don’t like to take care of his children as is. All four of them.”

“What do you know about this situation?”

“I mean, there was just too much going on at that point in time.”

“What do you think he did?”

“It has been determined by this court, Mr. Pippen—we have yet another child whose paternity is in question. Why is it you doubt that you are her child’s biological father?”

“I tried to call her phone, and she didn’t want to answer her phone. Look at my baby. He didn’t ask to be here. You asked me to have him.”

“Let me hear from your mother. Please stand, ma’am.”

“State your name for the court.”

“Agatha Slade.”

“Ms. Slade, you are Ms. Lewis’s mother, am I correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

“What do you know about this situation?”

“Your Honor, I was there when the DNA tests were performed. He was going back and forth to the bathroom. Like, he had something in his mouth. They were sitting there and whispering. I was like, ‘This is a DNA test, why are you sitting here whispering to each other? Why are you smiling? Why are you doing all this walking around? Back and forth, back and forth.’ I mean, there was just too much going on at that point in time.”

“What do you think he did?”

“I’m just saying that I know what to do to throw anything off. You can do mouthwash. You can do anything.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because, Your Honor, I am a certified nurse assistant. I have been one for eighteen years.”

“So you believe that there was some funny business going on?”

“Yes, ma’am, totally. Oh, yes. Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much for your testimony. You may be seated.”

“Your Honor, how was I supposed to throw off a DNA test when I was sitting there the whole time with my daughter on my lap? And then after that, I only went to the bathroom one time—that was to use it—and I came right back out, and I did not have nothing in my mouth.”

“All right, well, I’ll tell you this. I think it’s time for the results of the DNA test as it relates to Que’Shauun. And we will get to the second DNA results in just a moment.”

“These results were prepared by DNA Diagnostics, and they read as follows. In the case of Lewis, Kornegay v. Pippen, when it comes to two-year-old Que’Shauun Pippen, it has been determined by this court, Mr. Pippen, you are not his father.”

“I told you then! I told you!”

“Okay. I mean, you’re up here doing nothing no way. So he lost you, but he still got a father who’s got his back. So why are you making a big point of it?”

“Ms. Lewis, calm down. Calm down, ’cause this is a mess—and yet, you two continue to have a sexual relationship, because we have yet another child whose paternity is in question. And that’s one-year-old Que’Tavion.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What are the circumstances surrounding this particular paternity issue? Or let’s just cut to the chase. Who else could be the father?”

“Nobody, Your Honor. Were you sleeping with anybody else at the time? No, Your Honor.”

“All right, so please give me the circumstances surrounding this particular pregnancy and why you are so certain that it is Mr. Pippen’s child.”

“Because around the time I got pregnant, I was only sleeping with him.”

“Mr. Pippen, tell me why you have doubts as it relates to the second child.”

“Because—I have really serious doubts because after the second child was born, I saw on Facebook the baby name. It have his last—the guy she was talking to. It have his last name, and—”

“He does. He does. That’s because he’s been there. And in the pictures right here, this baby do not look like me. It look more like him.”

“Jerome, please hand me that picture. So what you’re saying is, Mr. Pippen, the child don’t look anything like you, in your opinion, but he looks like her current boyfriend.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And that’s Mr. Kornegay?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And if that were the case, she would’ve given the child my last name like she did the first—”

“But wait! Mr. Kornegay, please step up to the podium. I want to hear from you. So the child has your last name?”

“The reason why he got my last name is because I’ve been to her doctor’s appointments with her. When she hurt, she cry, I was there with her. When he was born, I cut the umbilical cord. I signed the birth certificate ’cause he needed a father. Ever since then, he had my last name. I bought the boy clothes, shoes, Pampers. Then he got right down—when I first fed him—I dealt with the boy. That’s why people think we’re family. I’ve been with her ever since then. When I lost my son, September the first, she was with me. I lost my son. He passed away. And it took me a while to get a bond with her two children. Now they call me ‘Dad.’ And I accept it, ’cause I lost my son. Later, we had a girl. Our daughter is two months old. So we do got a daughter together now, Blair. But I lost my dad when I was eighteen. That’s a long time ago. Now I’m trying to show them the right way, the way my dad taught me. I’m his father right now. So when I get back, I’m gonna sign the birth certificate. He’s all mine. He’ll be taken care of. That’s why I ain’t worried about nothing.”

“All right. So Mr. Pippen, were you intimate with Ms. Lewis during the window of conception? Without protection.”

“Yes, Your Honor. You were. So you all were back in a sexual relationship again while you were still with Ms. Sanders?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“When you informed him you were pregnant, what was his response?”

“He asked me to name him after him. So if you feel like he’s not yours, why are you asking to give him your last—to give him your full name, not just the last, but the full name.”

“And so is this true? You asked her to give—then you ask me when I was pregnant with Que’Shauun to have a second child by you. Did you believe the child was your biological child?”

“At first I did. Until everything else started happening. And then the child that came that was really mine was Ms. Sanders’. That daughter is really mine. So I guess she just feel bad about it because she just—”

“Oh, the fact that you did not have a paternity issue with Ms. Sanders and that child is in fact your biological child, you feel like she’s still trying to just say you’re her child’s father as well to get between you and Ms. Sanders?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Ooh! I’m good where I’m at.”

“Jerome, it’s time for results.”

“These results were prepared by DNA Diagnostics, and they read as follows. In the case of Lewis, Kornegay v. Pippen, when it comes to one-year-old Que’Tavion Kornegay, and as to whether Mr. Pippen or Mr. Kornegay is his biological father, it has been determined by this court—Mr. Kornegay, you are not his father. It has also been determined by this court, Mr. Pippen, you are his father.”

“Thank you. I told you. I told you!”

“Then I’ll step up and do what I gotta do.”

“That’s what I wanted to know the whole time.”

“Ms. Rainey, you are here today requesting two paternity tests and suing the man you say is the father of your children. You admit that you slept with one other man during the time of conception, but you argue that was only because Mr. Matthews refused to accept his responsibilities.”

“Yes.”

“To that end, you are also suing Mr. Matthews for $4,663.50, his half of the expenses for the children in question, Salih and Renaya.”

“Yes.”

“Now, Mr. Matthews, in your statement, you claim you have every reason to doubt you are the father of Ms. Rainey’s children. You say she is known to be promiscuous and even named her son after another man.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You say you are confident the children are not yours and that will be proven when today’s DNA results are revealed.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Okay, so Ms. Rainey, why did you name your son after another man?”

“He told me to.”

“He told you to?”

“Yes. And the reason is—the situation is, when I thought I was pregnant, I told him and the other person that it was between both of them. No, no—’cause you weren’t sleeping with anybody else during the time of conception?”

“I slept with him and Rondale.”

“Right. Mr. Matthews, what do you have to say?”

“I have to say that it’s not possible that this can only be between me and one other person. She is known to have family trees in her.”

“Mr. Matthews, were you having sex with her all the way up until the birth of the child?”

“No, just a few times—”

“We had sex June 23rd. The day I went into labor. When my child was born, we sent him a picture on the phone of my child. His words were that it must not—why did you text it to me? He don’t look like me. What did you text me for? You might as well name him Salih and be with Salih. So guess what I did? I named him Salih.”

“Right. No, you tried to give me—you tried to give me an ultimatum. If you don’t marry me, then I’m gonna marry him. I’m like, you need to hurry up and marry him, ’cause I’m not going to. I asked him several times to marry me, but you always chose not to because you were worried about what other people said.”

“No, I was worried about—”

“Wait, wait. I want to get this down, because Ms. Rainey, you are explaining a lot of things. You’re saying that you all were together.”

“Of course. Yes, I dealt with him for eight and a half years. Yes, I did. I was in love with this man. Yes, I was. And so he basically was not going to do what you needed him to do and step up, so when he said, ‘Name him after the other guy,’ you called his bluff and said, ‘And I will.’”

“It wasn’t a bluff. Guess what? Why not?”

“She tried to say, like, ‘Oh, it was before you, and it was before then, and this was still while you was gone and I was messing with this other person. Yeah, I might have did, but we used a condom.’ All type of stuff like that. So I did have sex with the man, and I told you it was way before your time.”

“So you admit, Ms. Rainey, that there was another guy, but you’re saying not in the timeframe?”

“I kept it real. But it’s only between them two. In terms of the timeframe of conception?”

“Correct.”

“So, Mr. Matthews, you are admitting that you continually sleep with her and have, at least, a sexual relationship with her.”

“Sex is sex. It ain’t nothing important.”

“Well, it’s important when it produces people. Who’s gonna have sex with somebody for eight and a half years and don’t have no feelings, period? Point blank. Let’s be real.”

“Me? Let’s be real. Let’s be real. I would.”

“Let’s be real, you ain’t gonna deal with me for eight and a half years off and on and don’t have no type of feelings. I’ve been dealing with females since I was thirteen years old, and I don’t got no feelings for her. Please stop fronting.”

“So what will make you think—”

“I need you both to talk one at a time. I can’t understand your level of doubt, Mr. Matthews. Why you have such a negative opinion of Ms. Rainey, a person. And she’s making this point, and I have to agree that you have had a relationship of some type for over eight years. I mean, we’re not talking about eight months, eight weeks. Eight years!”

“That’s nothing, though. There’s females that I’ve been having sex with since I was thirteen years old, and they don’t mean nothing. She don’t stand a chance.”

“But you done lived with me off and on. In my apartment. That your baby’s daddy was paying for?”

“My baby’s daddy didn’t pay for nothing. Anything I ever had, I pay for. Lonniesha worked hard for what I pay for.”

“Yeah, look at my face, too. This is my face when I’m serious.”

“All right, let’s address the court. Ms. Rainey, so you had your own place?”

“Always had my own place, until now.”

“So you made your own money?”

“Own money. Surviving, getting it—whether it was working on a pole, working at a restaurant, working in a group home. Anything. I got it.”

“Right. And you had half of it, so what are you complaining for?”

“I wasn’t complaining about it when I was getting half of it. Mr. Matthews, what do you say to that? She’s saying that—”

“Oh, yeah, she was giving me her money now.”

“I was taking care of you.”

“She was giving me her money.”

“That’s my point. So you’re criticizing her, and yet you openly admit you were living off of her and letting her take care of you?”

“Listen, I don’t care if she was at the store panhandling for money all day. If she came back and gave it to me, I’m gonna take it.”

“That’s because he’s nothing. He’s nowhere. That’s ’cause he’s nowhere. He’s a loser.”

“I got to drop a little knowledge on you, Mr. Matthews. If these kids are yours today, you’re going to be paying for ’em.”

“Oh, he already gonna be paying for one, ’cause he signed the birth certificate, so I ain’t worried about it.”

“Right.”

“All right, so did you, in fact, sign the birth certificate?”

“For the girl, for Renaya. Not for Salih.”

“Do you believe, in fact, she’s yours?”

“Like I said, she got family trees, and there ain’t no telling. So cute. How can you treat her mother and talk about her mother and address her mother this way when you have signed this child’s birth certificate and have pretty much owned up and said, ‘I am her father’? How do you disrespect her mother on this level and think that it’s okay?”

“He don’t respect himself. You give respect where respect’s due. ‘Cause he don’t respect himself.”

“You’d know, because she don’t respect herself. Any time you can take time out of your day talking about somebody who you’ve got a child by, you’re disrespecting yourself.”

“Like she be proud of it. Like you proud that you had sex with the whole family.”

“Oh, yeah, I did. And so? How many people you gonna have sex with?”

“How many people?”

“I’m a dude. It doesn’t matter if a dude—”

“So what? Because you’re a dude, it makes you any different from me?”

“Yeah.”

“Ms. Rainey, I need to understand from you. You stand here, you’re very strong, you’re opinionated—’I can do this, I got my own life, I’m equal, I can sleep with who I want, I can do what I want’—and yet your actions, in staying with a man that treats you this way for over eight years, that don’t add up to me. That’s not what a strong woman does. And I want to understand that. What is it?”

“I had a rough life. When you don’t have nobody and that’s all you have is somebody who does really nothing to lean on, when you can’t lean on, that’s what you gotta do. Like I say, yes, I did love him. I wanted to marry him. I still love him, but I don’t want to be with him because he can’t respect me—not only as his child’s mother, but as his Muslim sister, as a friend, as a woman, period. I’ve been dealing with him off and on, and it’s my fault because I allowed him to do the things that he did. And as long as I allowed him to keep playing me the way he keep playing me, he gonna keep playing me that way. But at this point in time, I’m done. I’m tired, and I’m fed up. Period.”

“When you say, ‘I had a rough life,’ explain to me what you’re saying, because it sounds like between the lines I hear you saying, ‘I don’t want my children to go through what I went through. I don’t want them to feel alone.’”

“Yes. My rough life—in and out of foster care. Being homeless. Fourteen years old, on my own. Period. I’m twenty-six now. I gotta live with my cousin because I don’t have no help. And if I need help—a dollar—I can’t even get two dollars from him to get on a bus to take his kids to the doctor. Enough is enough. I’m tired of taking care of these kids on my own.”

“As a mother, you’re understanding that the love and support of a father is valuable.”

“Yes, ’cause my daddy wasn’t there. And where I’m staying now, my daddy is around the corner. Do my daddy come around the corner to see me? No, he don’t. He’s right around the corner.”

“You come around the corner to see them kids? No. You live right around the corner from your father?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“And you say he never comes around to see how you are?”

“Mmm-mmm.”

“And then you also live right around the corner from Mr. Matthews?”

“Yes.”

“And he doesn’t come around to see the children—even the one whose birth certificate he signed?”

“So you feel like this cycle is repeating itself?”

“Yeah, but it’s not going to repeat. It’s going to get broken today.”

“And I can tell it hurts.”

“It hurts. It hurts. It hurt a lot. It do. It hurt a lot when you love somebody and they don’t be there for you and all they do is just doubt you. That do hurt. It hurt a lot because I went through a lot in my life. You are gonna have to deal with me while I’m here, and that’s how I feel. Period.”

“So you feel like you have loved him unconditionally?”

“I loved him and never got loved back. All I ever got was being mistreated, talked about to his other ‘females’ and ‘baby mamas’ or whatever he wants to call them. I’m done. Period. No, he ain’t nothing.”

“So today’s DNA results are going to see whether he’s responsible for these children. You are suing him for half of the childcare expenses in the amount of $4,663.50. Now, have you brought the court any evidence of the moneys you’ve spent thus far?”

“Mmm-hmm. Jerome, can you hand me the folder, please? So tell me, has he helped you at all?”

“Well, he bought a pack of diapers and a can of milk. My daughter’s eleven months.”

“Mr. Matthews, is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“Are these your only possible children, Mr. Matthews?”

“No, I have six kids.”

“You have six children besides these two?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Do you take care of those children?”

“No. I do what I can. I talk to them. I tell them stuff. I teach them—how to not be like me. For real. I can’t literally come out of my pocket and give something I don’t have.”

“But, Mr. Matthews, let me be clear. Six kids, maybe eight. You need to be figuring out how to make some money. Because you gotta take care of these kids—financially as well. Now, Ms. Rainey, I’ve got receipts here for diapers, formula, money that you spent on the children.”

“Correct.”

“Since their birth?”

“Correct.”

“Half of that amount comes to $4,663.50. Yes. And that’s in two years?”

“Stop. For real, stop it. ‘Cause my son is two years old.”

“Two children?”

“Correct. All the way till now.”

“You mean to tell me in two years it added up to four thousand-something dollars? The receipts don’t lie. She’s not buying clothes. I’ve seen those numbers. And these are receipts for baby-related expenses. Her kids have never got clean clothes on.”

“They do have clothes on.”

“Mr. Matthews! What I’m telling you is these aren’t receipts where she’s just out at the mall whiling out and shopping and buying things she doesn’t need. These are receipts for diapers and formula and food and things that your children need.”

“I’m not including body wash, not including lotion, not including diaper wipes, not including none of that. That is just diapers, food, and formula.”

“I have enough. I need to get to the results, because your responsibility and her suit is conditioned on whether or not you are in fact the father. So Jerome, if you could please hand me the envelope, I’m ready for the results.”

“These results, as prepared by DNA Diagnostics, read as follows. In the case of Rainey v. Matthews, when it comes to Renaya Matthews, Mr. Matthews, you are indeed her father. All right, let’s go to the next one. In the case of Rainey v. Matthews, as it pertains to Salih Sanders—named after another man per your insistence. And this is the child where you feel like you have the most doubt. Mr. Matthews, you are the father.”

“All right, so the results are in now. Mr. Matthews, it was hard to sit here and witness a man disrespect a woman that’s the mother of his children in this way. I don’t care what she’s maybe done in the past. The fact remains that she’s the mother of your children. You got to do better on that level. For your children’s sake. If not, you’re gonna raise a son that treats women the same way you do. And that’s not cool. Ms. Rainey, as you allow them to see you be disrespected by him in this way, you are teaching them that level of disrespect is okay. And it’s not. I can see the look in your eyes. And if somebody treated your children the way he treated you, I wouldn’t want to see you on that day.”

“Ain’t nobody gonna ever treat my kids the way he treated me.”

“Thank you. And therefore, you must require more for yourself, and you must require more of him. I’m not so certain yet that he’s gonna get his act together. But he’s gonna take care of those kids. Now, Mr. Matthews, since you’ve been found to be the father today, I am awarding Ms. Rainey the amount of $4,663.50, which is half of the money she has spent raising those children without your help. Judgment for the plaintiff. Court is adjourned.”