Them Stories

I’ve been invited by one of the old guys in my neighborhood to go on a bus trip tomorrow, compliments of him, with the rest of the old guys (and ladies) to Atlantic City. I was immensely flattered and genuinely surprised for many, many reasons. Mostly because I feel like they want me to be a part of their close-knit group. Unfortunately, I had to decline because I’ll be in New York with my family this weekend. I so wish this bus trip could be on another weekend because I really want to go. My neighbors have the best stories and I want to hear them all and write them down. It’s difficult to get an entire story out of any of them because of the steady stream of people stopping by to say hello. If I could be on that bus with my neighbors, there’d be less distraction and I could get more complete stories and histories. I especially want to get to know more about Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown lives two doors down from me and was one of the first people to welcome me to the block. He’s a rail-thin, loud, boisterous old man with a permanent scowl and seemingly limitless energy. Nearly every morning around 6 a.m., I awake to the sound of Mr. Brown sweeping the sidewalk and the gutter, meticulously picking up cigarette butts and anything else that’s blown down the street over the course of the night. When I get in my car in the morning, he literally bursts out of his front door to greet me, always with a scowl, yet tempered with genuine kindness.

“How you doin’, baby girl? How you feel today? Awwright! Awwright!”

I have to tell you though, Mr. Brown breaks my heart. He is an extremely sharp and intelligent man who was born the wrong color at the wrong time. He just turned sixty-five last weekend and grew up poor and an orphan on this block in a very segregated Baltimore. Really, what were his chances? He says he was raised by various aunts and uncles in the neighborhood, but never in one home for too long. He became a career corrections officer when he got out of school and he worked at the prison on E. Eager Street his entire life. He told me the way he stayed out of jail was by working in one and by watching so many people he knew get locked up.

To mark the occasion of turning sixty-five, Mr. Brown bought himself a massive gas grill that he now has chained to his railing out front. He burst out of his front door when I got home from work one day to tell me all about cookout he was planning on throwing in his honor. He invited me over for beer and burgers and hot dogs. Over the course of a couple of days, he began setting up card tables and chairs on the sidewalk and other neighbors donated their folding chairs too. It turned out to be quite the block party.

Each day begins the same way on this block. Mr. Brown is completely sober as he sweeps the gutter while still wearing his slippers and pajama bottoms, cigarette dangling precariously from his lips. It’s not uncommon for him to pull a speaker out of his front door so he can listen to classical music as he sweeps. By the time I get home from work ten hours later, he is smashed and nearly incoherent. At this point, he’s almost always listening to jazz, much to the chagrin of all of his buddies sitting on the sidewalk with him because they prefer old R&B and Motown. They usually get up, walk halfway down the block, and leave him to sit alone. It doesn’t bother him. He seems to prefer it that way.

I hear Mr. Brown out there every day talking to the other guys on the street and I hear his frustration in dealing with their ignorance. I can understand how it is he starts off each day sober and winds up bleary-eyed drunk by six o’clock. On any given subject, he knows what he’s talking about and his information is always right. Most recently, he was arguing with several people about what a four year degree is. Mr. Brown tried to explain that going to a community college for four years and then getting an associate’s degree is not a four year degree. They said it was. He furiously tried to explain that a four year degree is a bachelor’s degree and it is based on the number of credits you take in a given major. Then he explained what a master’s degree and a PhD are. They simply dismissed him, said he was drunk, and told him to go fuck himself. He knows he’s right. I know he’s right. It makes me mad for him.

Mr. Brown told me that after his wife died of cancer, he needed a positive distraction from his anger and sadness over losing her. He said he wouldn’t go to church, like everyone told him to, because losing his wife the way he did made him hate God. So instead, he set off pursuing his life-long dream of taking trumpet classes at the Peabody Institute in Mt. Vernon, something he couldn’t do as a young man. He signed up for some classes, took them for two semesters, and then quit. I asked him why he quit and he said, “They told me I just didn’t have enough goddamn air in my lungs to play at my age. So I left it. I never picked up that goddamn muthafuckin’ trumpet again, except to give it away to a young man who wanted to learn how to play.”

One of the other old guys chimed in and told Mr. Brown he was a goddamned fool for even wasting his time and money on “them classes.” Mr. Brown shot up from his seat and said, “You shut your muthafuckin’ mouth, you stupid fuckin’ n*gg*r. You never even finished grade school, muthafucker. Where’s your muthafuckin’ diploma at, n*gg*r? Go on home and get it!”

As soon as his outburst ended, Mr. Brown sat down and looked over at me and said, “I apologize for my language, baby girl. It’s just these ignorant fools get me so mad I can’t help myself. I apologize. I hate myself for getting so mad. I really do.”

One night, with jazz floating softly down the sidewalk from his stoop to mine, Mr. Brown told me about his love for Greek mythology. How, as a boy, they were his favorite thing and how now, as an old man, he appreciates “them myths” even more. He told me, “I read them stories now, baby girl, and I know there ain’t no goddamned new stories out there. They all the same in life, you hear me? Shit don’t change and these fools never learn a goddamned muthafuckin’ thing.”

He told me he can’t talk to anyone around the way about that kind of stuff because they don’t know what he’s talking about and they just make fun of him for it. He says it’s sad how people he’s known since boyhood choose to be ignorant. They won’t engage him, no matter how many times he tries because “they minds is so small.” It makes him feel lonely and want to stay in the house all day because he doesn’t feel like he can talk to anyone.

We sat there quietly for a minute or two and then I said to him, “Mr. Brown, you’re the Sisyphus of this street, aren’t you?”

He shot up from his stoop and took five long strides over to mine. He put his hand on my arm and his perma-frown crumbled away into a smile.

“Yes, baby girl. That’s exactly who I am.”