Theory vs. (not a threat but a) promise

The security guard stops me as I enter the building, wants to show me a picture of his 6 month-old daughter on his cell phone. I stop to take a look, and tell him she looks like him (me who can’t tell identical twins unless they’re dressed alike). He’s relieved to hear this because, he confesses, he wasn’t very sure that it was his child. I ask him “but weren’t you there my braadha? And don’t you know what you were doing while you were there?” to which he responds that yes he was there and knows what he was doing, but you never know with these young girls (and he isn’t that old himself).

Donning my “learned” hat, I remark: you know can always go for a paternity test to make sure… and he says he’s afraid of being taken to prison (as a deadbeat dad) so he just accepted it. I’m busy going on and on about the theoretical “but you can’t be jailed without proof” and he says “yes, the (baby momma's) mother promised me…. She promised me 4 times that she would send me to jail if I didn’t pay support for the child, so I agreed”.
I try hard but can’t stop the guffaw of laughter. The way he put it, I was waiting to hear of the good thing he’d been promised.

That’s the one thing I respect about South African men though, they are happy to accept their paternal responsibility. They may never marry the baby momma(s), but they will always have a place in their lives for the fruit of their loins.