View current page
...more recent posts
King Of Scream 8.15.98
On the porch last night and someone in a passing car is yelling at me. It's
Billy, Mama D's youngest son, and father to Lance the Acrobat, and he wants to
apologize for his behavior at the Night Out Against Crime block party a couple
of weeks back. He says he called and left a message on the answering machine
a few days ago but I have to plead ignorance because I don't ever check the
messages.
"That was nothing," I said.
"But ya'll part of that Neighborhood Watch thing and I just wanted to say I'm
sorry for the way I acted."
"Okay Billy, it's good," I said, as he drove away.
That night in question Billy's older brother Joe Nixon and I were sitting next to each
other and Billy was standing in front of us. Billy was making fun of the
macaroni salad with prunes that I was eating. The woman who made it had
suggested I try some, and why not? I had just risked getting a hernia by
pulling this woman to an upright position after her chair had collapsed
backwards onto the sidewalk. Joe had then come over and bent the iron legs in
such a way as to prevent that happening again, and then seated himself. Joe
is trying to nod off and Billy is pestering him by suggesting that he may
stick his penis in Joe's mouth while he sleeps. Joe is very tired and says,
"come on brah, stop all that," but Billy can't stop so Joe pushes him in the
chest and Billy pushes Joe so hard that the chair is now falling backwards
again onto the car of the people that Phylis rents the other side of her house
to, and people are screaming and jumping up to stop this embarrassing night
out against crime incident, but other than the reflex action of grabbing for
Joe's arm as he flew backward, I just sit there and sip some of Mama D's
Canadian Club, and chase it with a Budweiser.
Evelyn comes over and says, "Jim, I want you to meet my little nephew, my
oldest brother's son, the one that got killed over across the street, they
ain't been back over here in all those years since it happened." And we are
introduced, his name is Glynn, and he ain't little, and he attends St.
Augustine, the all boys Catholic school and basketball powerhouse. I ask him
if he knows Eddie Green as I point across the street to Van's house. "Oh
yeah, he knows him, same school," Evelyn says and then she goes on for a good
while telling Glynn how he is family and even though his mama never brought
him over here all these years, they still family and we been loving ya'll all
this time. Kizzy comes over and Glynn seems interested and then Glynn's
sister is introduced to me and Evelyn says, "show
him your tattoo," and the sister lifts the short sleeve of her blouse to show
me on her upper arm one of those RIP tattoos which have become pretty popular
in this area as the number of murdered fathers continues to grow.