Morning in August — Real Philadelphia — #1
I keep baker’s hours. Snoring at nine p.m. and up at three a.m. Philadelphia time. My front step is on the pavement. What happens on the street happens fifteen feet from my desk. Dawn happening. Peace.
I began to feel vibrations in the ether. Maria de los Dolores passing: earrings flashing, bracelets clashing, accompanying cherubs jiggy jigging. Everybody calls her Lola. Lola is louder and crazier than I am. I find that soothing.
Everyone else runs when they see her coming. Lola starts her circuit walk around ten o’clock most days. Big disturbance in the pattern means big news. It is the Cherubs. Little fuckers tell her everything. So I opened my door.
“What?”
“Baby Dee is dead. You got a stamp? Give me fifty cents and I get my own stamp.”
Lola jiggy jigged away, Cherubs in tow and one dollar richer. I sat until the light told me it was coffee hour. I meet all my neighbors at the bodega, at one time or another.
Robbers shot the clerk behind the counter at the bodega five years ago. Then they went straight home. The cops had them in 45 minutes. Robbers had a wee problem with drugs. We got new owners of course. They spent their first year looking fierce. Now as the hipsters and Art studios begin their invasion, they just look bored.
Everybody in the world goes to the bodega just the same. The bodega is our oasis in a food and sundries desert. I get mango ice cream and Dominican beef stew. I get the heat. I get succulent roasted pork leg. I get fly tapes, socks, lottery tickets, and EZwider. I get the story.
When I rounded the corner onto Tangerine Street, I saw The Commodore and Shorty. The Commodore looks like a mocha stork. Just as tall as can be. I call him The Commodore because he is a sharp dresser. Always looks like he is about to go sailing. Classic Sport, you know what I mean? Shorty is short and short.
“What happened to Baby Dee?”
“Maybe you don’t know Baby Dee worked with these young druggy kids. One kid freaked and Baby Dee was trying to calm him down. Boy shot him 4 times. Shorty found him.”
Shorty nodded. He short. And black as a frying pan.
“What can I do?”
“Funeral on Thursday at the Baptist Church at three o’clock. They started putting candles and flowers around his door. Shorty put up a balloon say PEACE.”
Shorty nodded. Just stood right there. Shortening.
I keep walking toward coffee at the bodega like always. I pass Baby Dee’s altar. It grew over days. Candles, flowers, notes. He was the Mayor of the ‘hood and kept the day folk nicely separate from the night folk.
Baby Dee and I, we had a thing. Knees. I would hobble around to the bodega on my (I can still walk and get my own coffee) mission every morning at 7 a.m. Sometimes hurt so bad I held onto the brick walls and took one agonizing step at a time.
Dee ruined his knee being a football person. He would stop detailing some Cadillac, limp over and hug me. I am like a child. I thought it was forever. I can walk now and Baby Dee is gone to Jesus.
