I open my mail, sorting through the bank statements, credit card statements, lease statements, the usual fan mail and requests from friends and acquaintances. And there is a personal letter, handwritten on yellow stationery.
It is from Samantha Stevenson, the former sportswriter, and she writes that she has a daughter, Alexandra Winfield Stevenson, and I am the father.
After reading that letter from Samantha, I sit with it for a while. I'm thinking this over. If Alexandra is really my daughter, then I have to own up to that, that's the right thing to do. I have to deal with this in my marriage and be straight with my wife.
Dr. J Audio: Samantha Stevenson
Julius Erving talks about discovering he is having a daughter with former sportswriter Samantha Stevenson.
I go downstairs and find Turq in the kitchen. She's drinking tea from a white ceramic cup. I take a deep breath and show her the letter.
Turq is a swinger, in that when she is mad, she starts throwing punches around. And the girl can hit. As she is reading the letter, she is torn between getting to the end of the letter and unleashing a haymaker.
She is pisssed. As Don King would say, she is pissed to the highest degree of pissivity.
"You fukking pig," and she is pounding me, hurling punches that I'm trying to parry with my arms crossed over my chest. I'm backing up, until finally I'm against a cabinet. Then she picks up her teacup, and she's throwing that at me, along with a spoon, a pot, another pot, another cup. I need to get out of here.
Turqoise and I have some violent fights. A man can't win these fights. If I hit back, then that only enrages Turq more and she's going to start swinging harder.
I've hit her, but only in self-defense. I'm not inclined toward that kind of confrontation. I may not always be the best judge of a situation — that is, coming downstairs and handing that letter to Turq — but I don't ever touch her unless I'm being attacked. There are guys I know, ballplayers, who say "Hey, if a girl starts a fight, slap her and she'll back down." But I know Turq. She doesn't back down from a fight. Ever. That's also what I love about her.
I get in my new Mercedes and I'm driving out east, along the Long Island Expressway, all the way to the Hamptons, where I check into a motel.
I call Irwin and we hire this hardball attorney from Philadelphia who is going to handle the paternity issues. He says we need to DNA test and until we get those results, we need to sit tight. In the letter, Samantha wrote she was sure I was the father. But I did wonder how she could be certain, since I was suspicious she'd been with another player as well as another sportswriter, but something about the letter made me believe her.
The tests come back confirming that Alexandra is my daughter.
Turqoise calls me after three days and tells me, "You need to come home."
"You're gonna hit me!" I tell her.
"Our babies need you," she says. "I won't hit you. I may kill you, but I'm not gonna hit you."
I come home. Turqoise tells me how it's going to be. The lawyers will draw up an agreement, providing support for the child — Turq doesn't care about the money — but I am to have no contact with the mother or child. Ever. It is to be a purely financial arrangement. There will be no emotional connection. The child should not even know I am her father.
What choice do I have?
We have the lawyers draw up the contract. I will give Samantha $4,000 a month until Alexandra is 18. She will get a car when she is sixteen and there will be private school tuition.
I'm not happy about this, but I need to work on the family that I have right here.
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Yeah that p*ssy is cray. 