Grimy Guy
My neighborhood is chock-full of characters. I suppose I'm one of them - this time of year my resemblance to Santa Claus garners a lot of attention. Little kids look at me wide-eyed, and start tugging at their moms' sleeves; "Mom, mom, it's Santa!" Older kids yell "Santa" at me derisively from passing cars, as if I were unaware of the resemblance. Adults will comment good-naturedly.
Some of the characters are elderly, like Slim, who can always be found, cigar in mouth, sweeping or raking or shoveling the sidewalk, depending on the season. He'll stop to say hello, admire the weather, complain about "people these days," and then get back to work.
The kids are great characters. They are surprised that any adult takes notice of them, and are happy to tell very long stories. They come in clusters, stick around for a couple of years, then move away. Sometimes I bump into them in town as teenagers or adults years later. I remember Crystal, who played with her pals in the backyard shared by my house and three tenements. I knew her name because every day her mother would bellow it out the window in the most threatening way. We never saw the mom, just heard the roar. One day, Crystal and her friends rang our doorbell to ask if we could come out and play. While we talked with her, a monstrous woman came charging up the drive, catching our attention with a familiar bellow. She looked like the Tazmanian Devil of Looney Tunes fame. Crystal turned to us with a big grin and said in her little voice, "That's my Mommy!"
Even the landlords are characters. Roy owned a bunch of buildings here once. I think he broke every law there is about being a landlord, and did so proudly. He actually assaulted the Mayor once. He got arrested for evicting a tenant by going into her apartment, loading up her belongings, and dumping them on the side of a road. He finally ran afoul of the state, and that was more than he could handle.
There's Big Guy ("Hey Bill, wanna see pictures of me wrestling?") and Mr Crack (it's what happens when he bends over), Camaro Boy (with Camaro Dog and Camaro Cat and Camaro Wife and now Camaro Kid), and Grimy Guy, who I just ran into. I'm not sure what he does for work, but Grimy Guy looks like he's been held in a dungeon for forty years. He's missing teeth, and fingers, but he's friendly, and not nearly as scary as he looks. We'll talk about music. At some point in his life he played guitar, and violin, and cello. He played classical music.
My brother, the bagpipe player, once entertained the whole neighborhood by playing out in the yard. People cheered like crazy, and poor old toothless Kenny, the Vietnam vet, was in tears. Kenny finally drank himself to death not long after.
You may have gathered that this is a poor neighborhood. I understand why my middle-class suburban friends find this place scary, but people are still people. They're living a life, fighting a great battle, looking for a chance to tell their story. Just as it's easy to over-estimate someone who's well-groomed or well-trained, it's even easier to dismiss someone like Grimy Guy.
We had a visitor whose son was clearly terrified by the neighborhood - this was the closest to poverty he had ever been. He watched the men out in the yard, working on their cars in the middle of the day, and spoke of them scornfully. I was angry - how different is under-employed men tinkering with their cars from under-employed teenagers tinkering with their computers? Computers mean smart, and cars mean stupid I guess.
Little Emma next door was sitting on her stoop crying. The other kids had been picking on her again. My wife escorted Emma back to the local basketball hoop, where the kids were, and scolded the kids. The kids yelled back, "Hey, you can't talk to us that way!" "Yes I can," she said, "because Emma is my friend." They retorted, but also retreated. My wife and Emma shot a couple of hoops together. Kindness starts at home.
BC
Some of the characters are elderly, like Slim, who can always be found, cigar in mouth, sweeping or raking or shoveling the sidewalk, depending on the season. He'll stop to say hello, admire the weather, complain about "people these days," and then get back to work.
The kids are great characters. They are surprised that any adult takes notice of them, and are happy to tell very long stories. They come in clusters, stick around for a couple of years, then move away. Sometimes I bump into them in town as teenagers or adults years later. I remember Crystal, who played with her pals in the backyard shared by my house and three tenements. I knew her name because every day her mother would bellow it out the window in the most threatening way. We never saw the mom, just heard the roar. One day, Crystal and her friends rang our doorbell to ask if we could come out and play. While we talked with her, a monstrous woman came charging up the drive, catching our attention with a familiar bellow. She looked like the Tazmanian Devil of Looney Tunes fame. Crystal turned to us with a big grin and said in her little voice, "That's my Mommy!"
Even the landlords are characters. Roy owned a bunch of buildings here once. I think he broke every law there is about being a landlord, and did so proudly. He actually assaulted the Mayor once. He got arrested for evicting a tenant by going into her apartment, loading up her belongings, and dumping them on the side of a road. He finally ran afoul of the state, and that was more than he could handle.
There's Big Guy ("Hey Bill, wanna see pictures of me wrestling?") and Mr Crack (it's what happens when he bends over), Camaro Boy (with Camaro Dog and Camaro Cat and Camaro Wife and now Camaro Kid), and Grimy Guy, who I just ran into. I'm not sure what he does for work, but Grimy Guy looks like he's been held in a dungeon for forty years. He's missing teeth, and fingers, but he's friendly, and not nearly as scary as he looks. We'll talk about music. At some point in his life he played guitar, and violin, and cello. He played classical music.
My brother, the bagpipe player, once entertained the whole neighborhood by playing out in the yard. People cheered like crazy, and poor old toothless Kenny, the Vietnam vet, was in tears. Kenny finally drank himself to death not long after.
You may have gathered that this is a poor neighborhood. I understand why my middle-class suburban friends find this place scary, but people are still people. They're living a life, fighting a great battle, looking for a chance to tell their story. Just as it's easy to over-estimate someone who's well-groomed or well-trained, it's even easier to dismiss someone like Grimy Guy.
We had a visitor whose son was clearly terrified by the neighborhood - this was the closest to poverty he had ever been. He watched the men out in the yard, working on their cars in the middle of the day, and spoke of them scornfully. I was angry - how different is under-employed men tinkering with their cars from under-employed teenagers tinkering with their computers? Computers mean smart, and cars mean stupid I guess.
Little Emma next door was sitting on her stoop crying. The other kids had been picking on her again. My wife escorted Emma back to the local basketball hoop, where the kids were, and scolded the kids. The kids yelled back, "Hey, you can't talk to us that way!" "Yes I can," she said, "because Emma is my friend." They retorted, but also retreated. My wife and Emma shot a couple of hoops together. Kindness starts at home.
BC
posted by Bill Calhoun 4:22 PM
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