Below are recent recollections of people close to my writing heart. We are getting old and at times forget. Often a friend of mine will be cued by conversation to tell me a tale, pause, and say, “Please, if I told you this before, tell me to stop.” I never do so. For the retelling helps me remember things I have not yet forgotten through writing and also helps me develop character cadence, tone and diction for novels. I want to hear the story again. The first of these below was told to me only once, the rest repeated to me recently, on its tail. Two of the stories were related by myself to two of these folks in response.

Jimmy Frederick

“It’s amazing that you coached at this school [we were driving past] for a decade and we never met until after you went on the road. Jimmy Frederick had a presence in this neighborhood. Once I saw him in his karate uniform, in his bare feet, holding up traffic with one hand and walking an old lady across the street [Loch Raven Boulevard] with the other hand. That is not the kind of thing you forget.”

-Jason, driving by midnight from the Esoteric Cafe

“I have enough on my plate. I sparred with Vince [1980s WBA Welterweight Titlist] down at Mister Max’s Gym. What do you think I used to drop those two jerks at the [Towson] Diner—left hook, to an overhand right. But I’m not a boxing coach. I teach Kenpo. People who want boxing, you coach and I take the fees. Your people train for free in the back. You teach weapons and help with kickboxing for my black belts. Any knuckleheads or idiots come in with that old karate challenge, that’s you and yours, got it. I’ll make sure you earn your keep.”

-James, recalling directions from Jimmy Frederick, as he stood behind his desk in his black gi

…

Mister Dee

[In a Northeast Baltimore grocery store.]

“James, you’re wearing a tie?”

[Yes sir, I’m managing this place]

“You’re fat!”

[Well, ah…]

“I saw you fight at Grosscup’s [tournament]. You looked great, welterweight! Now you’re fat!”

[Well, ah…]

“I want you to come train at the school. We need knife up there.”

[I work 7 days, evenings.]

“I have the keys. What time do you get off.”

[Ten, sir.]

“I’ll be here at 9:50. Be ready.”

-James, recalls as the ghetto grocer

…

“You were in the back, sparring with some giant guy and Mister Dee said to me, “Blake, you need to train knife with that man. He’s a professional.”

No offense, but you were kind of chunky at the time, should I say stout, and I said to myself, because I wouldn’t disrespect Mister Dee, ‘I will stab the shit out of that fat fuck!’ And here I am, still trying to stab you, even while you’re limping around on a bum leg. Mister Lee was—is, I hope to God still among us—a good man. I miss him so much. Him and Jimmy were such good men. In a way, I still come here to keep company with their ghosts.”

-Mister Blake

…

Mark [Duz, from the Harm City books]

“Mark was such a good man, cool as could be. I had a rough life at the time with a teenage girl to raise on my own. Of course, I’d close one night then drink too much to get to sleep because I opened the next day and that didn’t always workout. Mark, was always there seven minutes early, like a machine. I’d call and say, ‘Mark, I overslept…’ and he’d cut me off and say, ‘As long as you get in here, we are good. I need you. As long as you stay over to make up the work and I don’t have to, we’re good.’

“Nothing upset that man. Even when the two nigs in the Buick ran him over on the lot to get the Tuesday bank pickup, he just got up, brushed his pants off, and looked at them while they ran off like idiots.

“He would never speak to a female employee alone. No one ever had to worry about Mark putting his hands on you. He was a gentleman. Once, he calls me in the office because Takiesha brought up her till [1] before her shift was over. This was right after she came back in the building after her lunch break. She tells Mark, ‘I have to go. I can’t stay here.’

“Mark looks at her and says, ‘Whatever you need, Takiesha. May I ask why?’

‘I just shot my husband. I don’t want to get arrested on the job—juz be too embarrassin’

“He was unflappable, ‘In that case, thank you for not just walking away from your till, and good luck to you. We’ll count you out. You probably have things to do.’

“They shake hands, and the crazy bitch is out the door never to be seen again. Anybody else having a crazy bitch telling him she had just shot somebody, looking at him over a pile of money, might have blinked. Not Mark. The sisters loved him.”

-Megan

…

Notes

-1. A till is the money counting tray in the drawer underneath the cash register that the cashier uses to take payments and make change. The term till, an agricultural word for plowing up soil for planting, makes one wonder.