Hot asphalt rises into the air as I pop the surface layer. I prod along a neighborhood of older 1940’s track homes that line a grid of yesterday’s dreams.
The heat is beautifully hot. Rain fell an hour before and the sun is back scorching the ground allowing steam to rise into an already thick air.
Here I stand in a time and place where nothing stands still, Houston Texas. Houston in 1971. Houston where rain lives and nothing but concrete and steel remains as a permanent fixture.
A father gone. A mother lost, and a grandmother burden with four children she does not want.
Houston, 1971 a hotbed of people, world people. With names like Patel, Ortiz, Nguyens, Gills, Scott’s, Strimples and LeBlancs, these are moving souls pushed together.
Worlds collided with one central theme, make something happen. Make a home. I stood here a wondering if and when I would get my chance. My chance to find out what it meant to have that chance.
The street gutters filled with tree debris and rotting vegetation made for an inviting investigation. With stick in hand I dig through leaves, mud and water that is whirling cascading spirals around the debris into the sewer drain.
Unbeknown to me is the old woman peering out her curtains at my drenched profile bent over at the drain. As I continue to lose myself in the drain, I feel the presence on my back as I turn she stands behind me with a question on her face. “What are you doing?”
I just stare up and then back to work at the drain. She repeats herself, “What are you doing?”. I turn and say ”working”.
“Working?” “In the rain?” “If you really want to work, I need help in fixing my floor.”
“Well it is not really raining anymore, and I am working on this drain. If I don’t fix it could flood the street.”
“Honey, that drain is not broke, but I have a vinyl floor that needs to be fixed. Do you think you can figure it out? My hands don’t work like they used to, and I can’t bend over” I have some glue and I will walk you trough the repair.
“Humm, sure i can fix anything.”
“You can? What have you fixed?”
“I fix my grandmother’s TV”
“OK so come in while I get the glue and you will need to grab some bricks. to push the floor down”
“I can’t find any bricks, so I grabbed these metal blocks.”
“Good enough, here’s the glue. Now be careful not to get it on your skin. Are you sure you can do this?”
“Yes ma’am, by the way how much are you paying me?”
“Well how much were you making fixing that drain?”
“I don’t get paid for that. My grandma just tells me to keep her gutters clear. So I do? Have you ever seen my grandma? She is so pretty. Always wearing her coat and hat. Even when she does yard work she wears her good clothes.”
“She always uses my grampa’s shovel to fix that drain”
“I need money, so how much are going to pay me?”
“OK, lets say fifty cents, and you have to empty my trash cans into the back”
“Deal”
I take a good butter knife and spread the glue on the ground and roll out the torn vinyl all the while placing the blocks in place to hold the patch down. I then stop and walk around collecting all the trash and taking it out back. Her house smells. It smells old. Not old like rotten, but old like my grandma. Newspaper old.
Still I make sure all the trash is out back and not loose. I then go back to watch the glue dry.
“Hey, that glue won’t dry any faster with you watching. Why don’t you sit and have something to drink? What do you drink?”
“No thanks, after you pay me I am going to get my Dr. Pepper. It is waiting for me at the Sheffield’s grocers.”
Outside Sheffield’s I drank it down before the sweat could begin to drip to the ground. How good it tastes to have something so cold and sweet combined with the stagnant heat. Too bad I am done. I can drink Dr. Pepper all day. The pinball table clanged loud and bright in the corner calling for its quarter. I jammed the rod as hard I could pushing the chrome ball up and into play.
The glass top scratched and wet with spilled soda reflected the pink face of a child who played with intensity and abandon. Never taking sight off of the ball. Mr Sheffield walked up and said, “Not again boy, hours on one quarter. My customers want to play.” “Here’s fifty cents and grab a soda cause you know you have to leave.”
Walking back in the sun I push up my drink and look at my quarters. Four in total. Four more than I left home with. Four more to add to the collection at home. Not savings but a collection of monies to pay for our needs.
Sodas, junk food and entertainment for me my brother and sister, but not the baby she was always with grandma. We were the three musketeers, closer than close. We depended on no-one. Grandma did not know the word “food”. We did, and too many days went by with a bare frig and pantry. We hit the road looking for work, food and entertainment. We always split up and came back together. It was natural. It had to be so.
Brother had his haunts mainly bottle collection. Sister had her elderly friends and the aunt who scared most. Brother made 35 cents in bottles. Sister made more than us, a dollar and change. We pooled our monies and hatched the day’s plan.
First we are out to eat. Our choices include Dairy Land, Taste Freeze, Weiner Mans or 7 Eleven. We start the walk down three blocks past Mr. James, Mrs Lathum and Mrs Green. They are standing in the old person formation we have grown to know. One centered in the back to up on the edge and we know they have the gossip farm going.
Mr. James only talked to people he liked. Never the Patels or Ortizs. They just acted as if neither one existed. Never said just ignored.
Mr James called out, “You kids need to stay out of my yard. I know you cross it making this trail.” Mr. James always said the same thing every time he saw any child walk by.
Too bad he never looked out his window to see that he was right. The more he complained the more we made it our job to run across his yard. Why? Well he accused us enough. We made sure that he was right. We weren’t the only kids who crossed his yard. Most every kid in our neighborhood kept that path alive.
“Hey we need that basket” Brother spotted it flipped over near a tree at the abandoned white house. The basket was a grocer cart that was pushed from a grocers some mile away. We grab it and rattled our way to lunch.
“You sure we have to have this basket? Why do we need a basket for lunch?”
“In case we find something to sell.” “I always find something to sell and I never have anywhere to put it.” Sister never talks much, but she cannot hold her tongue. “I say its to push me. Let me in…”
As we struggle down the road through the tar cracks and holes bumping and thumping the wheels wobble along. A whole three blocks. We have made it three blocks in 40 minutes. Its not easy coordinating three different agendas.
Food, we must get food. At Dairy Land there is a line outside the stand up window. The window is more a square with a screen and wood doors. During business hours, they keep the screen in place to keep out the bugs.
Patience is not brother’s thing. Pushing his face to the window against the side screen he explains, “I am tired of waiting. I need a dairy dog and a pepper float”
“Little boy, you’ll need to get back in line. I was here first.” Says a hippy who can’t remember what he wanted or how to order. Brother exclaims, “You may be here but you were not first. The way I see it if you waited in line you had time to decide what you want. Obviously, you don’t know what you want or where you are. Grandma always says you hippies are stoned out of your minds. Boy is she right, so order or move it! Mister!”
With Diary Dogs and Pepper floats, brother sister and I sit and eat. Sit and sweat. Sit and talk. With the sun on our brows, we find a better shady seat and lie around making small talk.
“So where’s mom?” “Don’t know I haven’t seen her in days. Grandma says she is shacking up with that Jeff guy again.” “Weird that we never really see her, except when she comes to get some money. “ “Who cares she is who she is.”
“I miss her”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Boy, I like this Pepper float. Got any more money?” No, so we better get on the move and find something to sell.“ “Not so fast! I know we had over two dollars, and lunch was only seventy seven cents.”
“Your right Brother, I am saving the rest to go to the leftover store to see what we can sell.”
“That place gives me the creeps. It is so dark and it smells with that junk. I wanna go home.”
“Sister we can’t go home til we find and sell something.” “I saw some chocolate bars there the other day. They look like those we sold for school last year.” Let’s see if they are still there.
Sister was right the leftover store was a bit spooky. It was like found old stuff from business trash cans and placed on their dusty shelves. Worse was there where no prices, so you had to haggle. Brother was always best at the haggle.
Sure enough the candy bars were on a back shelve in a box that was warped from something wet. It was something dark like soda or worse. Something sticky once live on this box.
Brother went into action. “How much for the box?” “Depends on what’s in the box .” There’s a bunch of old chocolate bars. Look at the outside of this box its a wreck. i am thinking the chocolate not worth a dollar. How about fifty cents?”
“Nice try kid, that will cost you five dollars for that chocolate. That is real school chocolate, and it normally sells for a dollar a bar.”
“Maybe but how long has it been here. I think it smells funny.” “Listen kid why don’t you go home an d leave me alone.”
Stepping in I say, “Mister, all we have is $1.50. How about selling the candy? We really need it.”
“OK take it and leave, and don’t come back. I’m tired of those attitudes.”
Crossing a busy street with a box of chocolates in a worn out grocer cart is not as easy as it looks. Pushing it across a stone parking lot was almost impossible. The heat chinged our hair with its intensity. However hot it is we love it. It is close to 3:00 PM the hottest part of the day. We have to get the chocolate under the shade.
Being it is the peak heat time most people have sought out the cool of the indoors. We only seek the shade of a tree. We find it just behind Mr Peepers. Mr Peepers is what Grandma say is a house of debauchery and den of sin.
Hippy girls in short shorts, tank tops and chunky shoes come and go at all hour of the day or nighttime. Shadows of men enter and exit as if they were silent minions of the lost.
I know because I always watch every place on this road. I have no one to tell me that I can’t watch. No one to tell me to stay home at night. Brother, Sister and I always sneak out late to watch our neighborhood and this street.
The street is like a break in the neighborhood. It separates homes from homes through a route call Telephone road. I don’t know where it got its name, but it must have something to do with the telephone.
And this is the road where we always find our opportunities. We always find something to sell. Something to do, Something to eat. Little do we know this road is our support. It pays, feeds and entertains us.
As we sit behind Mr. Peepers under a large misshapen oak, we remove the contents of the box from carton to grass. We inspect the chocolate bars. Sure enough it is school candy. 24 bars of chocolate gold. Mosts were in great shape but a few needed some work. Sister went to work cleaning up the ones that were in trouble.
Now here’s what we are going to do….
Copyright Michael Cayde
