BEING 40 SOMETHING

© “Sarah’s Sight” by H. Walker

Most of the foliage across the town pushed through the ground as early as mid-May but the frost did something to the earth, or so everyone wanted to believe (and said as much in whispers as well as general conversation)

Sarah’s early birth wasn’t the sign; it was the lateness of the ground opening up in July that pushed the thoughts to the supernatural

See, Sarah was a magic child… born in July, they said the power of her life came from the flowers that bloomed when she entered into this world

The dirt was bare the night before and when the first cries were heard at 2:52am on the 10th of July, sighs of relief echoed off the walls of the hospital waiting room

Reminiscences of mid-May musings: the farmer’s market re-opening; the local high school band beginning their practices outside the 100-year old school at the center of town; and a host of babies born at the hospital between May 1st and 22nd

21 children; only 8 survived… and by mid-May, no foliage had pushed through the rich dirt and all the trees were still bone-bare from winter

April showers did not bring May flowers that year

Vigilant prayers by all the church mothers and elders combined across the community of 5,000 people couldn’t delay the passing of 13 souls to the ancestors and

Most of the foliage that should’ve pushed through that mid-May didn’t… but two months later

Sarah was born at 2:52am on July 10th and her first cry made the ground swell, then tremble and

Everyone remembered where they were when they felt the shift underfoot; mothers stood on their porches

Surveying yards up, down, and over in the darkness of the AM hours… pulling sprinklers out

Using the spray attachment on their water hoses… moving as if in a trance

A dance they already knew, and maneuvering through the motions from 2:52am on July 10th, the earth

Was saturated across the yards and lawns and gardens in the town of, now, 5,001 and by noon

When the sun was at it’s highest

When the town was most in the midst of its busy mid-day rush

When many people made random stops to do random things: check their glove compartments for extra quarters for the meter; read postings on the community board outside the library’s main entrance; mother’s running back inside their homes to grab left items; father’s dropping keys on the ground and bending over to retrieve them…

In their own worlds in those moments, they looked to their left and/or their right

And saw bursts of colors that weren’t there barely 10 hours prior; leaves on every tree as far as anyone could see swayed in the slight breeze

Bushes in their vibrant greens towered just over beds of flowers: roses, daisies, daffodils, and others…

Tulips reached for the sky just over porch railings in yards watered under a crescent moon chasing the darkness away for morning to arrive undeterred

Sarah, see, was the magic, and everyone saw in that mid-day rush what the trembling was about…

And every flower you can think of pushed through and showed their leaves and blooms in their full glory…

There’s a story that everyone tells about that July that gets more magical each re-telling but for those of us who witnessed it, what we know is that something was birthed inside of all of us that day

Something beautiful, and lush… and to this day and beyond, we all marvel at the sight each July when petals from all types of flowers make a showing from one corner of the small town to all the others…

See, Sarah was magic… and saw the flowers as everyone else did…

She also saw the 13 children born the same year she was where no one else could…

H. Walker 5-29-2020

© “Packed Seats” by H. Walker

The miles made sense to her once she got through the first 25. By mile 30, she kept her head turned to the window of the seat she shared only with all the thoughts about what would be there at the end and all that she meant to grab a hold of from where she left.

She didn’t say much to me, but from three rows away, I could hear her talking to herself. Telling herself things that she didn’t want to forget: where the car was parked at the station, dropping off clothes donations at the collection box along her route home, praying that the pot she’d left on the stovetop hadn’t turned into a science project yet…

”I take this scheduled train often,” she said from three rows away.

I only nodded; didn’t bother to speak further because I didn’t know what I would learn of her in the process. Her conversation with herself continued without my acknowledgment, and as I got immersed in my book, the sobbing started. Low then guttural, wracking sobs that seemed to match the trains speed. I couldn’t do anything but sleep.

A few hours later, the train was still moving and when I looked down the aisle to where I could see the top of her head, I found that she was looking back at me. She smiled a hard smile, tilted her head, and said, “I can give you a ride when we get to wherever this train is going, but you’ll have to help me push the car to get it moving for real.”

I leaned back in my seat and wasn’t afraid at all; I saw her eyes. Saw them looking past me. A laugh threatened to come but I held it. Over the seats I saw her rise up, leave her row, and walk back towards where I was. The panic started then, because I saw her eyes again. Saw them looking past me, and as she passed me, she said, “I’m coming, don’t yell so loud!”

There was no one back there; the train car  was only transporting a total of five of us, and I was in that number. The other three people were sitting past where she was, and as I was adding the numbers, I heard her footfalls increase in speed, then the scream started and followed her as she took off through our train car to the next and you could still hear that scream trailing off with her…

When I stood to look in the direction she ran then behind me where the others were also standing up or leaning over the armrest of the aisle seat, we all had the same confused expression.

The remaining three hours of my train ride she never came back. She left her belongings in her seat. Even her cellphone was still plugged up to the charger and on the seat next to her purse.

Her eyes, though, stayed with me the rest of the way… and I didn’t close my eyes the whole time…

– H. Walker 5-19-2020

1.

Early never needed anyone’s help and everything he did was for the good of remembering when he’d almost believed the monosyllabic myths and tales of progress before the mob attacked him; whipping his back open leaving scars

that for pleasure they threw salt in the opened wounds causing him to writhe about on the ground just outside of town where they left him. They were sure that they had either killed him or killed his confidence but Early survived and grew up to become

a walking, talking, man of magic who defied the social and legal customs of the day when he fell in love outside the conditions and boundaries dictated by misinterpreted power plays over heart matters when

the sky healed and the roots helped him brace himself fo rate tomorrows that came and passed when he had to bury one parent then the other. He never left this small town where his people once yielded to them on sidewalks where they lowered their

glances, avoiding eye contact with them. Early walked pelvis first/forward and he stepped aside for no one and when the population of Blacks swelled and crowded out everyone in the town’s borders of African-descent, even the one-drop persons

who passed but came back to the race once they saw that they could be safe in the developing, self-sustaining community… only the cemetery remained the last vestige of racial hate. Early never imagined it would be him that tended to the place where

the first and only person he’d ever love laid to rest… when Early had been kidnapped and tortured in his early adulthood and left for dead outside of town, he wasn’t alone, but only he survived the incident where two people were left for dead except

Early had lived and still remained in the small town he couldn’t fully leave nor did he want to. He spent his time selling life insurance and making sure the colored section of the cemetery was kept as pristine as possible. Soon, the other part of the

graveyard became overgrown and headstones toppled over as relatives who used to make the trek weekly dwindled down to nothing. A man who was there as often as Early was, on the other side of the color line that divided the area for the dead asked

Early “why don’t you take care of this whole area and not just that patch back there?” To which Early pointed towards a figure only he could see standing back in the shaded corner of the colored section; they smiled at him, tipped their hat, and

pointed back in the familial way they’d always communicated without words; Early’s heart skipped a beat then just as it had all those years back when they were both walking the same Earth only aware of one another… which was how they were taken

away… Early held the gaze of the figure for a little longer than he meant to; instead of telling the man off like he wanted to, he pointed, again, towards the figure only he saw and told the man “I’m just an insurance man keeping my loved ones happy and

the one I loved most, that you made sure you murdered is buried just back there  near that tree.” The man gasped at what Early told him; this time, he looked back where Early pointed and he saw them; wanted to scream but couldn’t…

Early had already made his way back to where the ghost of his friend awaited so that they could talk as they had been since the day they had to break the ground and add another body to rest there in the small patch of land Early still went to feel alive.

 

Walker 4-26-2020

© “Early Rising” by H. Walker

 

“While you sleep, mountains are moving deep within your psyche.”
– Walter Mosley

I remember what it looked like before they “built this all up”
as both my mother and father regularly say of just about everything

when I come home, I look around to see what’s still there and remember
what isn’t there; trying to guess/estimate when new buildings rose and

when old businesses I frequented closed-up shop or became new ventures
that I intentionally avoid no matter how “good the calamari is” my friends

find reasons to run to just because. The native Chicagoan in me finds it too
much to go for, but the skyline view I knew from years ago has changed

and rising early this hour, this moment, and looking towards the sun
I know I am as different as the rising; more different than the open spaces

that used to be makeshift parking lots and construction storage sites and the
sight of waking before anyone else and seeing this city, my home awake

before goodbyes to the sky and elevator rides down to ground floors
straightening disheveled hair in mirrored boxes moving to street-levels

I remember you, then, too… we are changed, but different; and now share

coming home and leaving, sometimes, is the reward for moving away
and the reason for coming back makes it just that much sweeter…

 

“So long as I have yesterday / Go take your damned tomorrow!”

– Dorothy Parker, “Godspeed”

 

(© “Backyard Walking” photos by H. C. Walker)

sometimes the yard gets overlooked because of the work that needs to get done before walking the short distance around the side to outback where the wooden fence bordering the property makes the square circle enough of a trek to get lost and find my way back to the start of the poem that roams around in the lot on the other side

of the gate facing south where the eastern view lights up the side of the house and warms even the shaded parts of this yard…

I bring my camera outdoors and walk each corner of the yard; west then south; east for a pause to survey the grass and all the holes that have appeared since across the lawn out back, under the tree that’s older than this old brick house and single car garage that is a true throw back to the days of single car families being a luxury…

it is easy to forget that there is a whole space to sit in a chair, read a book, and let sunlight from overhead, even the struggling rays fighting to shine through the clouds ahead that stretch across the city and leave no openings for even the slightest view of warmth to come through…

and the greatest part of making my way out the side and around back past my teenage jeep with the flattened tire and the back porch I now have time to take in and sit a spell to remember the versions of yesterday that were easier… always accessible…

not many yesterdays ago, I had the option of being gone away, being away somewhere else just to bring outside remnants home:

leftovers from meals at restaurants where the table wasn’t even dry before I pulled out a pen to write in the margins of slick menus

half-empty coffee cups of various sizes balanced in the same hand reaching for keys to open one door/close and lock another

invitations out, sometimes multiple, to do everything everywhere except explore the yard beyond taking trash and recycling out back or out to the curb once a week

and the poem roaming around the side yard I don’t go out in – this side yard that I could walk even further from front to back, have more steps to imagine both yards are filled with places to see the sun and feel whatever song of the day comes through me

each walk from corner to corner, rewritten more times than steps west, then  south, then north before arriving back at the wooden stairs facing my teenage jeep that wants to move but can’t because uphill dreams are impossible when wheels are flat…

this piece, perhaps, will remember the promise of yesterday that could’ve been today

this piece, perhaps, could reach further than all these corners reached by placing one foot in front of the other

perhaps, this is just the walk needed to see the bright spot in this lesser-traveled space jst beyond my parked automobile that I’ve rewrote the journey ten times before now

a single dandelion, a picture taken reflecting the picture taken

another walk around, another revision of the song’s journey, and hours later

the song of remembering how easy it was to navigate life in miles traveled, daily

can be counted corner-to-corner just outback

and, smiling, singing out loud, and snapping pictures doesn’t make this day or the days before feel shut in

this walk and each step in the square circle in my backyard, bought the world closer…

 

© “Almost Downtown Chicago”, by H. Walker

Despite the way its
marketed, some pitches
will not sell

Hm: a grandson
married, giving away
money earned
convincing
the majority to parlay
real-life drawings
(larger, methodical)
for others to use
compelling dreams
against blind faith
businesses overlooking
the passenger and freight rails

reward the ones who accept this guidance

come early, stay late traits
leaving lasting markings that
even the rust of time recognizes

a hybrid can shine
when it breaks out on its own,
pride sounds important where
progress comes despite winter
(changes happening; bridges, critiques)

We are strangers conversing,
our interests beyond different
but we both remember talk of
the aurora borealis’ appearance
over Michigan and
corporate settlement talks and
strained timelines to withdraw
after whatever happened there…

What remains
among those missing
are both our memories,
our passenger tickets
pushed down in pockets
as this train barrels through
the southeast side towards
Union Station

flights have been cancelled

relatives are stranded across oceans

and we purposely don’t mention how scared we are

We, strangers on this train,
are anxious, we have just one
effect to show without angst
but the stories we will tell later
without names, will affect
future rides…

 

© “Giants on Grand River – Detroit, MI”

The space is never filled enough

no matter how fast/slow we drive this stretch of street

the spaces don’t make it okay to

create shapes that fit only some

sometimes I don’t want to be the one

who makes sense out of nonsense

this stretch of street from the center to its northwestern border is a mural

an understanding exists but blatant disregard for the truth blocks out sun

keeps the darkened narrative present

presently, I’m riding this stretch of the avenue with you and you… aren’t looking

I can’t define what it makes me think: riding in silence with you passing these giants

body language creates hurtful lapses

lapses I can’t make-up for, though I try

lapses I can’t rewrite, though I write what

I can to make sense of the senseless and it’s

senseless you didn’t see the same mural I did barely two miles ago

you speak, finally, and ask me what I wanted to be growing up

(I wanted to be a fireman but never could see beyond the dreams I forget)

 

Forget that there has always been a tomorrow

for someone, somewhere. This stretch of road we are driving wasn’t

always paved and there isn’t always a way to move backward in forward spaces

 

In this compact space on wheels where we entertain silence and noises found

along this streetscape, we didn’t count the number of ways routes ended

when other drivers turned off onto east/west moving streets

we didn’t think of the meeting between “candor” and “mortality” and

with barely a mile left before we hit the city limits into somewhere else

the silence became exclamations to indescribable planes that break storylines

making them emotionally charged ballads where this avenue’s blank areas

magnified the silence

 

Years later, you ask about this picture that I can tell you exactly when it was taken,

where we were; even describe the deafening silence from the start of our journey

and throughout. The murals are still there despite your argument that I may be

making this all up

 

You will look away, even then, as if I was looking for an argument when what I wanted

was to know that humans sometimes falter when seeing over before the ride ended

and the things we carried got dropped off; buried.

 

H. Walker, 3-26-2020

 

“Time can’t ever make up for the light we miss; once the light is gone, it’s gone… but the new moon starts it all over again.” Mama said to me as we stood between the houses and watched how much light covered the neighborhood and beyond. We’d both seen the moon before, but hadn’t watched it together since I was younger.

“Sometimes I forget to look up because I’m always trying to get through my days…” I shared with my Mama. I never wanted her to know that I don’t look up.

She’d raised me to always keep my head up, no matter what… but looking ahead of me takes precedent too often these days. I can’t make up for all the light I miss, and when I’m not trying to just “make it” through my days, I look up only to catch the light of day in quick glances.

“Son, you know better than that. If you want your days to count, look up while you’re living, no matter the hour of the day.” She shared with me the night before she went back home and while we watched the moon. With a vengeance, began to look up more.

Six weeks later, a storm hit the city and knocked out power across several counties. Between the wind and rain, tree branches blanketed the front and back yards across my  neighborhood. In my own backyard, the large, old tree with limbs that stretched over two backyards away fell on my garage but didn’t crash through the roof. It barely scratched anything, but it did dent the gutter on the structure’s northern side. Though I was able to get my auto out later that day, I realized that I had looked up at the sky just the night before the tree fell. I could see the moon shining through the branches and making its maze stretching from the back porch to the back fence at the westernmost edge of the property.

Look up and don’t miss the light, Son!

 

 

© “Stopped on John R – Detroit” / photograph by H. Walker

The majority of my time commuting anywhere involves looking at signs. Street signs always capture my attention. When I take John R Street to *Stef-n-Ty’s Boutique and Coffee Shop, it runs both north and south until it gets to a point where I pass a STOP sign that faces southbound right before it becomes one-way going north. I kept trying to make out what it said for nearly a month, but the speed I was traveling made it impossible to turnaround without flying into the side of one of the many old homes along the way.

When I passed by it today, I noticed that it was painted over.

Free K D

Where is KD?

Why is he not free?

What did he do that he is no longer free? And who are his friends that want him free?

In 1985 back in Chicago, I used to walk to school past a building that housed newly-released prisoners in a building on the southeast corner of Ashland and Monroe. Sometimes, the men residing there would holler out the windows at my school friends and I good morning  or come here lil fucker and give me a  cigarette. Sometimes, we’d cuss back at them and they’d bang on the gated windows and threaten to beat our asses if they caught us. The adults in my neighborhood along Lake Street called it a halfway house. The reasoning was that it was the stop just before their full release back into the community. We didn’t know any of the men who resided there personally, and wouldn’t be able to identify any of them had they got out and walked past us. All the grown folks, however, warned us about going near that building, though.

On a Friday morning, a small group of us were leaving school for the day and went walking north on Ashland Avenue towards Madison Street where the store was. Right before we crossed Monroe, we looked to our right and saw a group or men being lead in a single-file line into a side entrance by uniformed, armed guards. I watched them one-by-one and when I spotted the one who looked not that much older than I was, I stopped to watch. In the process, I got left behind. The guard held the line at him. I couldn’t help but wonder what had gotten him sent to the halfway house. When the line moved, I watched until the last person was in before catching up with my friends. We all went to the store on Madison next door to the lounge, the People’s Palace, and from there, we all parted ways. There was, however, a young boy who walked the same direction I did back to Hermitage, but we didn’t know another. I would turn north off Madison and go up Hermitage Avenue to my building and he would keep going further west on Madison to wherever he went.

I never knew who he was. Sometimes he spoke, other times you could see his mind was on something else. When winter came, I’d see him walking fast with his hands in the pockets of his camouflage jacket looking straight ahead. Other times, I’d see him standing waiting on the Madison bus stop smoking a cigarette while staring across the street towards Ogden. This went on until after I graduated from eighth grade and then I didn’t see him anymore. His absence didn’t register until they painted the gates around the Patrick Sullivan Senior Citizens Apartment Building on the south side of Madison Street just north of Ashland. The gateposts were painted jet black and gave the building a futuristic look, and at night, it reflected the glow from the streetlights.

“You shouldn’t be out this late, somebody could snatch you up or kill you!”

The voice belonged to the man I used to see at the bus stop all the time when I was in 7th and 8th grade. In October of 1987, I was a freshman in high school and was walking from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Madison and Ashland after taking two trains: the Ravenswood Train from the Damen stop on the far North Side then transferring to the Lake-Dan Ryan Westbound from State and Lake in Downtown Chicago. Walking from the Lake Street Train (now called the Green Line), I wasn’t thinking about anything but using my “3-piece-meal-for-a-dollar” coupon. Along the east side of Ashland Avenue, Union Park ran from Lake Street to just before Madison. Other than Mary Thompson Hospital, Spaulding School, and the First Baptist Congregational Church of Chicago there was nothing else on the west side of the street. I left the restaurant with my backpack on and my Eddie Bauer portfolio bag in one hand and my chicken order in the other. I didn’t even see where he came from.

“Do anybody know you out this late? Your mama? Your daddy?”

I looked back at the voice belonging to the stranger I’d known but not known, and I didn’t answer. I kept walking down Madison and trying not to show I was worried, for the first time, about something happening to me. As I approached Paulina, the block before Hermitage Avenue, I was about to take off running. The man from the bus stop kept walking closer to me and asking the same two questions, neither of which I answered. I tried to pretend he wasn’t there, walking as close to the buildings on the right as I could. Coming towards me was another man whom I didn’t know at all, however, he looked at me and looked to my left and slightly back at the man following me then slowed down.

“Hey, Young Blood! I knew you was walking this way. Come on so we can catch up with your Mama and ‘nem!”

I recognized the man from the halfway house on Ashland, but I also realized the reason I’d stared those few short years prior was because I realized I knew him from the far west end of my neighborhood. He was in his early 20s, I knew, because he was a relative of one of my older sisters’ friends. And he knew me, and knew the man following close-by meant me some type of harm.

“Hey, Man! Two express trains went by me, and I had to wait forever for an ‘A’-train. I got hungry, but I was coming.”

“Right on, Young Blood! Come on. You know this cat behind you?”

The man had stopped only steps behind me and watched our exchange. He looked suspicious and kept his hands in his pocket.

“Nope, not at all!”

“Why you walking all up on my Lil Cousin like that, *joe?!?”

The man’s eyes widened; he clutched whatever it was in his pocket, but backed away and eventually took off running back eastward on Madison. I let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the person who’d saved me from who knew what. I was visibly shaken but also relieved because I had escaped something bad. “Man, I’m walking you right to your building after this. Don’t be on Madison like this no more! You see what kinda fucked up folks out in this world!”

That man was a sign of safety for me that day. I remembered in that moment that his story was that he got in some trouble and was locked up in Cook County Jail over a gun charge that was later dropped, but he had a burglary charge that they caught him on and dropped a year-and-a-half later and the day he was sent to the halfway house was the day I saw him but didn’t realize it was him. That was the last time I saw him before we moved from the Henry Horner Homes in December of 1987…

Every time I’d pass that sign on John R, his name would come back to me, but today, I saw the sign, and couldn’t remember his name. I know he used to skate at the Henry Horner Boys Club with us; go to the big cookouts in Union Park on Ashland Avenue and Lake Street. I even remember, now, that he could do all the coolest dances. On concrete grass, or wooden floors in the club gym, he would do five, no-hand back flips in a row just because. But his name still escapes me…

I hope wherever he is today that he is, indeed, free…

It’s amazing what a sign will make you remember once its gone…

HW

©“Crossing Lake Street – Chicago” / photograph by H. Walker, 2016

 

Notes:

* Stef-n-Ty Coffee Shop and Boutique, 9425 John R. St.  Detroit, MI 48202    (313) 405-5759

* joe was/is a popular term that identifies a stranger or a familiar

 

 

©”On 7 Mile – Detroit” / photograph by H. Walker, 2012

Moving to the other side of Lake Michigan (plus some additional miles east) was more than a simple move to another city for me. In 2010, it only made sense after visiting my friends here for about a year prior. I accompanied my buddies to a grocery store on Greenfield just off of Grand River and after walking the aisles and getting a bunch of items for the big Sunday meal we were planning before I headed back to Chicago. While doing so, I realized that I was adding up items using the Illinois tax that I was used to (the extremely high 10.75% as of 2010) and figured that my estimation would be pretty close.

“That’ll be $26.50, baby,” the cashier said, and all I could do was stare. I was sure she was cheating herself. I was convinced that she must’ve figured out a way to undercharge customers for a shopping cart full of food and pocket…something, I didn’t know what. What I DID know was that for all the items I had in my cart (which was packed) couldn’t have possible come to $26.50.

I leaned over and whispered to my Detroit friend, “I think the cashier is cheating herself. That price can’t be right!?!” I reached inside my back pants pocket for my wallet, and my friend laughed at me.

“We don’t pay tax on uncooked foods!” they revealed. It was as if a light in the heavens shone through a cloudy sky, just on me. My eyes showed that I, clearly, was not from the area, the city, or the state of Michigan. For a moment, I stood stuck in place, when I had a revelation. Before I handed the cashier $30 of the $50 in my wallet that I had budgeted for the big family style meal my friends and I had planned, I turned to the customers in back of me and made an almost tearful plea

“I’m sorry folks, I’m not from here but do you all mind if I go run and grab a whole chicken, a block of Muenster cheese, some more boxes of macaroni, and several bags of chips AND Faygo 2-liters?”

They all met my request with smiles and laughs and all shook their heads letting me know it was okay to go and buy up more items.

“I’m retired sweetie, I ain’t go nowhere to be!” the woman immediately behind me said.

I ran and got all the items, I’m sure, in less than four minutes and was back holding all of them in my arms as if there was a storm on the way, and I’d perish if I didn’t have (at least) two whole chickens!

“Where you from, Sir?” the cashier asked me as she rang up my additional purchases.

“I’m from Chicago… our taxes are almost 11%.”

“Damn, that’s HIGH! Well, ours is just 6% …”

I decided on that day in 2009 at the checkout line of Food Giant on Greenfield that I would be moving to MI … and nearly 8 years later, I’m still here.

On Tuesday the 20th in the late afternoon, my older brother sent me a text that I read while in the middle of a conversation at work. I read it while we were playing a trivia game and laughing about the various answers we were coming up with to questions about things we hadn’t thought of in years. It was a math question. I loathe math, especially math problems dealing with percentages and fractions. I laughed at the struggle of it all but figured it out correctly. I read the text just as I had the answer to to the problem.

“Adrienne passed away”

Adrienne is my sister. She’s older. On my Dad’s side. We played phone tag when I was a teenager. I remember she loved motorcycles; I stole a picture of her from my Dad where she was sitting stylishly posed on one. I kept it until it disappeared from my possession and ended back up at my Dad’s. I still don’t know how that happened, but it’s with him at this very moment.

As an adult, my life with her was communicated through my older siblings. My big brothers were and still are protective of me despite me being at the halfway point to 90 years of age. When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get older and be the “this is my little brother”  at the bar with them; or in one of those cool and quirky situations where I could be smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer with a finished shot (glass turned over on the bar) in front of me, and have them walk in, see me, give me the shoulder punch, and buy me my first legal round of drinks. Unfortunately, the day I had my first legal drink was underwhelming and the first time I had a drink with two of my three older brothers was five years after my 21st birthday on July 19, 1999.

We were at my brothers’ Courtney’s and Zachary’s grandmother’s bar on just west of Laramie Avenue on Division. We played pool and talked and, finally, I was not only having the drinking moment I’d wished for with my brothers, but also, my Dad sat down with us and bought us all a few rounds. I remember asking him had he heard from my sister Adrienne and he took a pull on his cigarette, looked up at the ceiling, and rocked back on his bar stool. “Nah, Junior, I haven’t recently…”

Courtney went to serve another customer a drink and my brother Zachary left out the bar for a bit, leaving my Dad and I sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar with drinks in one hand and cigarettes in the other. When I asked him when was the last time he’d heard from her, he repeated the same series of movements: take a pull from the cigarette, look towards the ceiling, rock back and forth. “Your sister don’t really talk to me like that, Junior. But I’m sure she’s fine.” Instead of speaking to me further about her, he pointed to the television screen at the end of the bar. ABC World News was reporting that the remains of John F. Kennedy Jr’s Piper Saratoga plane had been found and no survivors were expected.

I was in my own world but I was also watching the news update with him. My Camel cigarette was barely enough left to hold let along take another puff without burning my fingers (I smoked unfiltered Camels at the time). I lit another one while continuing watching the news update with my Dad. When the montage of the younger Kennedy began to play on the screen, my Dad turned to me with a level of emotion in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. It actually scared me, and, because I was in my own world despite being with my brothers and my Dad, I was sure we were about to have a pivotal Father-Son moment.

“You know, seeing this happen to that boy hit me and the men of my generation hard! We watched that boy grow up; he was like a son to us.” My father said, and with a quick flourish and point of his cigarette at the television screen. Looking back, I now know he was saying something bigger than that, but all I saw in that moment was MY father telling me that someone else was like a son to him… I lost it, but I didn’t let him see. What I did instead was down the shot that my brother Courtney had placed in front of me and drank my Miller Genuine Draft beer quickly afterwards. I decided it was time for me to go home and I planned to leave without offering an explanation. I lied to both my brother Courtney and my Dad that I had forgot there was something I needed to do. They both just looked at me; Courtney told me to wait for a bit when the bar died down (it had gotten more crowded since I’d got there), but I knew if I stayed I would end up telling a bit more of what I thought about my Dad and what he’d said to me.

“It’s okay, Big Bro, I’m good! I got a straight shot on the Division bus.” I offered, which was only partly true. I grabbed my backpack and put my arms through both straps and straightened out my dashiki shirt and Army jump pants and damn near ran out the bar mumbling “let me let him mourn the loss of his son in peace” but ended up running right into my other brother Zachary who made me take a seat and wait while he went to use the restroom. I didn’t look at my Dad. He had begun to talk to one of the other buddies of his that he knew who also frequented the bar.

“Come on, Lil Hank, I’m going to walk you to the bus.” he said, and walked out in front of me. Only when I got to the door did I turn around and see that both my Dad and my brother Courtney were watching after me. I waved and they both waved back; my Dad gave me a quick salute, actually. And there was a smile there. A “look at my lil Junior walking away from me” glance that I saw… but I didn’t wait to dissect it further. I wanted to get out and away before I let my feelings get the best of me. Zach knew. He always knows, and knows what to say. “Hey, you okay? Because if you’re not okay, then we can go somewhere and talk. Or you can just say nothing and deal with it in your way, but one day we’re going to talk about this moment, deal? Deal!”

From a distance, I saw the #70 Division bus headed eastbound coming. I shook my brother’s hand and told him I was good and that the bus was coming. It took some assuring, but I think he saw in my eyes that I just needed a few moments alone. The bus was a block away when Zachary crossed the street back to the bar. I pulled out another cigarette and, instead of waiting for the approaching bus, began walking eastward from Laramie towards Lake Michigan. Eventually, I made it all the way to Halsted Street, which was not a short walk by a long shot. I was over the sentiment my Dad had shared with me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my sister Adrienne.

Fast forward back to the moment I read the text just this past Tuesday, I remember that moment. I remember other moments of me following my sister’s journeys through messages from our brothers; or the times I called her at her old gig (Moo & Oink on Madison) and played phone tag with her then. I used to have an answering machine with a message from her on it. I forget about that until this moment of searching my psyche for remnants of the other Big Sister whom, in my head, was out in the world doing great things and waiting on me to get grown so she could share memories with me. In my head, her memory was always more stronger to hold than the my reality of her. The text message had to be an epic autocorrect fail.

Maybe it said something else…

Adrienne moved away

Adrienne won the lottery

Adrienne asked about you

I looked again after solving the math problem in my head (something I can only seem to do best on paper) and instead of saying the answer a second time out loud, I scream OHHHHH SHIT, MY SISTER JUST PASSED AWAY!

I still am not processing any of this… but I know that there are some answers that’ll come to me in my dreams about her. I know my Dad will have some things to offer as much as he can being a man-of-a-certain-age/-generation that might not come out in words. I’ll find my sister in her daughter’s eyes; maybe even in a memory I won’t see coming or going where she’s just as present in the moment as I am before the dream-wavering begins… for now, these nearly 300 miles away, I’m preparing for something that the words I’m good at speaking to comfort others, to help those outside of me heal and just “be”, they escape me… and not because I can’t speak them, but because the effect of this moment, this truth, has me at my most silent… but my inner blues are wailing…

 ©“Sunday Blues at Eastern Market – Detroit” / photograph by H. Walker, 2017