I was waiting for a ride out of town at 6 p.m. this past Christmas Eve. I picked up a draft of a comic script about a widower visiting the cemetery during the winter holidays, and it occurred to me, that I now lived only a mile from the graveyard of my youth, that chunk of urbanity that had sucked the last vestige of idealism from me; where I resided in squalor with a drunk, a stoner, and an ‘alloholic’ at age 18 over a cold winter; the winter that sapped my desire to follow my dreams.
What better place, I mused, could I read this haunting script, on a cold wintry night, but in the very place where the world had finally eroded the last ember of my childhood.
I walked down into the partially re-gentrified neighborhood of Hamilton to drink a toast to my long-dead roommate and my longer-dead youth, as I read this piece. I had an hour to kill, where once I had had a lifetime to extinguish.
I applied my grungewear, shouldered my pack, and headed out into the windy night. As I exited the century-old orchard house where I rent a room, and got a glance at the ancient hardwood furniture, I recalled a painting some 200 years old, which depicted Santa Clause as a dark-browed hard-drinking elf, come in the wee hours of night with presents for the adults, while the neglected children who seemed to fear him as a deliverer of punishments cringed together under the table. I recalled further that I was taking a journey to memorialize the passing of a feeling that most children brought up in the Christian tradition in past ages have not harbored, the notion of hopeful attainment.
I dearly wanted a high quality microbrew from Hamilton Tavern. Then I recalled my white-trash roommates, and the bar we used to share an apartment above. It used to be called the Wilken’s House, and had been owned by a big Irish-American NFL veteran. He had always been on hand with his cannonball shoulders and blonde afro to keep order as we lined up at the bar to wash the rest of the ambition from our brains. It is now called Brennen’s, after the now deceased original owner. A shrine to his gridiron exploits remains behind the bar, on the wall above the poker machines.
I entered a packed house and placed my pack on the wall ledge, where I would enjoy my mediocre draft and read Dominic Matterro’s script for This Monkey’s Gone To Heaven. The widower is named Charles Duquette, and he suffers from chronologically split personalities. His visit to the graveyard ends up descending into a grimy noir adventure. The bar atmosphere was appropriate, with ‘Tiny’ the towering 500 pound chair-melting clothing vender, showing up with retail bags full of attire for drunks to purchase for last minute Christmas presents.
I was now inspired. The ebonic barbershop next door was ejecting young bucks into the night so I thought I would finish the beer before the script, and go down the street to observe a food market shutdown, always an edgy proposition on the eve of a ghetto holiday. You see most ghetto dwellers work menial jobs that have them getting off work just as everything closes down. I well remember Christmas Eve’s past when I spent an hour or more after closing, letting last minute shoppers out and blocking afterhours shoppers from entering. I was often threatened with violence, even death, even by off duty police looking for afterhours access. How would the Harvest Fare security guard manage this delicate balance of courtesy and denial?
The market had closed at 6 p.m. When I showed up across the street at 6:30 p.m. cars were still rushing onto the lot at the rate of two per minute, every other driver getting out to plead their case. I once had a drug dealer offer me a thousand dollars for a gallon of milk. It has always amazed me how frantically needful last minute ghetto shoppers are, and how very inebriated. I didn’t know what the man was saying, but he ushered them off quickly. Even after seeing him sending customers away, fresh wouldbe customers still pulled up to make their case for entry.
Then I noticed, to my left, two plain clothes narcotics detectives in an economy car. I kept an eye on them. They fortunately seemed unconcerned with my presence. I began considering leaving before the store drama was done. I mulled over the ways I might avoid arrest for being found guilty of ‘walking while white in a black-operated drug market’. I thought I would cross the street and just head up to the pizzeria. I took my first step and noticed them piling out of the car with flashlights. They were ten paces to my left. Fortunately, they had convicted another white person of the crime of Caucasian bipedal urban locomotion.
The criminal was about six-foot two, and perhaps 180 pounds. He was in his early twenties and dressed similarly to me: heavy jacket, knit hat, backpack, jeans, and boots, and walking down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. The two cops were about forty, Caucasian, stocky, and seemingly irritated. They shined their lights in his face with their left hands. The cop nearest to me had a radio in his right. The other one pocketed his light and began patting down the young man as the one with the light questioned him, the light shining in his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking.”
“Where are you going?”
“My mom’s.”
“That’s a lie. You don’t live around here.”
“I live with my mom.”
The other cop had checked his person and was now searching his backpack. A female dispatcher could be heard on the radio.
“What did I do officer?”
The other cop announced that there were no drugs or weapons being transported by the criminal. The lead cop then said, “Let me see your I.D.”
I could not hear what the kid said, as cars were motoring by in a frantic attempt to be first into the food market parking lot. A cop cruiser with lights flashing was pulling up, so I crossed the street behind the traffic as the cops cuffed the criminal and stuffed him into the back of their car.
It was now 7:01 p.m. and time for me to get in out of the cold. As I looked back at the narcmobile pulling off with the government prisoner I wondered at that situation.
Was that kid an informant being publicly harassed to ally suspicion?
Were the cops just in a hurry to lock someone up for not having I.D. so that they could make like me and call it a warm and cozy night?
Was that kid wanted for some crime?
Was this a case of mistaken identity, soon to be sorted out at Mom’s house?
Would he be eating government baloney or food stamp ham for Christmas dinner?
I walked away, thankful for returning as an interloper rather than having stayed on through the crack epidemic as a cipher of the blight.
