He was born Terrance Junior, the oldest of the three kids, so he was Junior to his parents and his little brothers. Nice family, my mom said. I was just a baby when we moved next door, so I don’t really remember Mr. Terrance. But Momma always said they tried to help us out when they could, what with Momma on her own and a baby on her hands.
Momma told me Mr. Terrance worked three jobs to keep
the family going, and she figured his heart just gave out even though he was
only 42. Junior was 10 at the time, and that’s when folks started calling him
“Big Daddy.” He was nearly 10 years older than me, and I never knew him as
anything but. Back in those days, nobody thought anything about an unusual
name. You just looked at the person and didn’t worry if their name was new to
you.
