The New Friendly Inn - How The Ghetto Came Back

CLEVELAND [March 29, 2006] --- The correct address was hard enough to find; gray, white and crimson structures meshed with well-placed greens for the kids. There was an industrial feel that still outshined the previous Great Society black-brick bunkers that had deteriorated into propped-up rubble. There was a sense of community; odd and detached, much like the wonderful series – and sequel to Secret Agent (Danger Man) – called The Prisoner. Most of you over the age of fifty remember that show: Patrick McGoohan forced to trade in his name for a number in an effort to resign from the world’s most covert spy agency. “It just does not happen, Number Six. You have everything you need here, Just try to be happy,” so he is told.

Here now is our Village. The replacement for the crime infested, drug-fueled and deadly projects of the last 40 years. It was once centered by an old Masonic Temple renamed The Friendly Inn. Black Panthers would hold GED classes and operate food banks. It was perhaps the most misunderstood place in Cleveland in the 1960's. And the name is honored in a waste-high stone relief welcoming visitors to the new vision of low-cost housing: The anti-projects.

Aunt Lena lived in the projects briefly, so did Auntie. They were the strugglers, the fighters whom mom admired for their fortitude, ignoring their bad judgment. The projects of Aunt Lena's time was also a village. A place in the frayed edges of Lexington built as a starting point for a new life. No one ever conceived of these four-sided compounds to be permanent living spaces for stymied families and generations accustomed to failure. It was a chance to make things better. After all, isn’t that what we all want? Unfortunately these dwellings came with a price: a nonstop supplement that grew with need, but did not incentivize the population it sought to help. Girls could get a raise in government money by having another child; addicts could get a check by admitting they were addicts; hustlers keep on hustling and dreamers keep on dreaming. After a few decades it was just enough to live for the city, or at least the village. And that’s all.

Number Two said: “What in fact has been created? An international community. A perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they're looking into a mirror, they'll see that this is the pattern for the future.” What is here, created by very well-meaning city planners, spawn from the decay of good intensions is a very nice place. It will take years to call this the projects again. It may never happen because unlike the multi-room cells of the old style public housing, these townhouses - and in some cases free standing homes - are offered with a caveat: we will help, if you will help yourself. Ownership is in the offer and at least one young family is responding.

Norman looks like any other young black man, tuft of curly hair at his chin, sharp eyes and a strong body. He has two sons, both of whom he is extremely proud, and a budding career managing multiple properties of the world’s most popular fast-food chain. His two story walk-up is surprisingly spacious and still cluttered with children’s things and the trappings of parents who are nearly children themselves: Wide screen in a room too small for the appliance, DVD’s and video games. A computer sits awkwardly in the corner and the kitchen is – no other way to say it – a mess. But what is lacking in order, and even cleanliness, is made up in love and a sincere desire to make things right.

Walking to his door, through the new village that still shows tiny signs of desperation, a visitor looks other young men in the eye, what’s up. No fear, no separation. We are all in this struggle together. That is the message and it has to be communicated quickly and clearly. The meeting went well. There are still some gaps in Norman’s dreams, but one gets the sense that he will work hard until those gaps are filled. It is up to the boys and men in the courtyards, the commons and the greens – as opposed to the parking lots, the vacant lots and the streets – to see him work and work to be more like him.

The Negro and The Smoke

[CLEVELAND March 21, 2006] --- Uncle Wayman was not his usual boisterous self. He held his already crackled baritone even lower and waited until the room quieted. It always quieted when he was ready to speak; as though a wind of warning passed from wall to wall. Wait for it. It was going to be outrageously funny, surprisingly deft or just plain vulgar, but Uncle Wayman wasted few words.

“Have you ever seen a man…passed him on the street…maybe even said hello…then you go along and a few minutes later say to yourself, wait now…that man is dead!” His amber tinted eyes, with the blue-black center searched each soul. We all knew he was not kidding. Uncle Wayman’s jokes were well thought out and always rooted in facts. Later, when cancer robbed him of that marvelous voice, he could still shake the room. But on this night there was the full spectrum in place and his opening captured every ear. Wayman was not one to tell ghost stories.

“I saw a man, just today. Walked up on me in the pool hall and spoke like we was still runnin’ buds. Said ‘Polk, how are ya?’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Curtis, I’m doing all right.’ Then I went back to my drink and finished off the table.” He stopped and took a sip of the icy scotch mom had fixed for her baby brother. “Sitter, you remember when Curtis died?” Mom’s eyes went wide, but stayed in that zone of confidence and knowledge. She was the one with both formal training and street sense. She adored her brother because he made her laugh like no one else, and because he cared so much. Wayman was a human alley cat, make no mistake. He loved a game of craps and big-legged women; was good at winning. He won the game of life by marrying a kind-hearted lady who allowed him the room he needed as long as he came home. And he did, usually.

“Curtis’ been dead a few years now.” Mom said, propping up the improbable.

“I know he died. I was at his funeral. Got so drunk I don’t remember going to work that whole week.” But he did. Wayman never made more than seventeen thousand dollars in a year bending hot steel for machines that have been around since the turn of the last century. His big hands were strong enough to smash a coke bottle with a squeeze and calloused enough not to bleed. Sitting with thin legs crossed at the knee, smoldering Newport perpetually between billy-club fingers, taken in isolation an almost feminine pose, yet the whole picture was wholly man and a little dangerous. “But there he was. Put me off my game and I ran out of the joint looking. I look all up and down St Clair. Got in my car and drove the block, two, three blocks. That Negro was gone! Come in the night and gone out the dark like blowing smoke.” The last was emphasized by his trademark cubes of blue menthol exhaust. Not a ring, a cube!

“What killed Curtis, anyway?” Mom asked. It was cancer. Cancer or heart attacks killed most of the men then. Some had stokes and were rendered by half before the The Houses of Wills, Lucas or Boyds came and took them to the last mansions; the last party and the last songs sung for them.

That’s the way it was, then. Cancer took Uncle Wayman and his wife, the saintly Aunt Jinx. Cancer took four of Ruben and Mary Liza’s six children, leaving just the baby now, Ann, and she has had more than a few close calls and crushing heart breaks. It missed the eldest, too. Mom made it to 92 and died last year - in her words, "just got tired." Cancer took some of their children too, Linda, Benny Willy. Stroke took Lee.

But it is the laughter that remains, Especially Uncle Wayman’s way of making mom laugh. His face would crunch up and captured breaths, squeezed by powerful chest muscles, would wheeze passed in jumping succession. Lung laughs, we kids called it, and could imitate it like pros.

So it was no surprise the other day, when the man walked up, swirled from the smoke and shadows to simply ask, “How’ you doing, boy?” No need to look twice; that mountain range of a baritone was back, and so was the smile. It was Uncle Wayman sent by the others. Just checking in.

St. Petersburg [March 17] -- Debra has an easy smile. And because of it most of her coworkers are turned from pre-dawn grouches to pleasant servers, even before the first customers arrive. And the first is always Mel from the Honda dealership. He is at the door at five fifty-five AM every morning; his uniform is clean and pressed, the small logo and his name in blue and white breast patches on his gray shirt. It will take exactly twenty-two minutes for Mel to savor his scrambled Eggbeaters and turkey sausage. Mel had triple bypass surgery a year ago and when working he is careful swirling the mop along the gleaming stone floors at the dealership.

“Where’s Deb today, Millie?” Mel asks. Not needing an answer from the eldery hostess, he heads for the area where the pretty-faced strawberry blond is setting jams and jellies in the small steel rack. He watches her eyes until the welcoming smile beams under the resin tiffanies.

“Usual today, Melvin?” Debra takes a final swipe at the table and pops the towel in the seat of the chair as she pulls it out for her friend. “Thinking more about that surgery. You never told me what you thought.”

“You’re fine just the way you are.” Mel let his hand brush against hers as he takes the back of the chair.

“My ass is as big as the pie case. But you’re just as sweet.” She cringes at her lameness. The brochure for bariatric surgery is tucked in her apron. She slept only an hour the night before, and then dreamt of going under the knife and having her stomach physically reduced to the size of a Ping-Pong ball. “I’ll bring you your coffee.”

Mel watches the waitress move effortlessly through the tables and chairs. Her bottom is as round as a giant pumpkin, straining the black stretch pants. Mel doesn't see anything unattractive. Her sparkling clean hair pulled into a ponytail, her smooth skin and melodic voice combines into a complete package: the girl of his dreams. “Saved my life. Them sawbones. Be laying back there among the new Civics and Accords when the customers come in if not for the surgery.” Deb brings his coffee and looks into his eyes. “Dead, dead, Debra. Maybe you oughta…if it’ll make you happy.”

“You always want to make people happy, Melvin.”“Naw, just a janitor at a car lot. Only one I want to make happy.” Mel sips his coffee and looks up at the smiling server. His friend.

“I know, Melvin.” She lingers and puts her hand gently on his shoulder. “I’ll get your eggbeaters and sausage.”

“But if you really want to know what I think. You’re perfect the way you are.”

The March of Madness: A Most Unforgiving Month

In earth’s zones of seasonal sway, there are four times a year when a slight jerk is felt and the ratchet locks on a new landscape. Not so dramatic, Spring to Summer, Fall to Winter, but others take the stage with the plunging D minor cord and brass section fully engaged. October flourishes as a dying ember, while March sets upon us with a burning all its own, raging from within. It is that last possible moment when all but a glimmer of hope seems lost and the pain is no longer tolerable – just hang on, just a minute more. Many do not heed that presage of better things and the Ides of March ripples through wrecked lives like Brutus’ blade.

It was March when a young man more slipped than fell from a high span into a dirty river. His intentions were clear, in spite of the last minute panic. That was all. And a younger brother was left to grow beyond those twenty-five years that was the limit of his idol’s tolerance. It was in March that the realization crept across Europe that this Great and Nobel experiment, democracy, could create the most monstrous society in history. A simple election in Germany handed that country and all its hidden wealth and pint-up frustrations to Adolph Hitler. Nothing was ever the same again.

March added words like Dred Scott, The Alamo, The IRS, In Living Color, Barbie, Crossing the Rubicon, I Shall Return, The Pickwick Papers, Daylight Savings Time, the Greatest Show on Earth. Three Mile Island, Bangladesh, The Subway, The Movies and The Beatles. And it was in March that Mr. Bell’s creation began the journey from, “Number Plee-ahs” to Text Messaging.

For those who love the work of the seeker of truth in the face of danger and homicide – readers and writers of the Murder Mystery – we have the wonderfully demented Mr. E.A. Poe to thank. He thought enough of this bipolar month to publish his Murders in the Rue Morgue. Few would argue that this story ushered in the detective thriller, the serial killer and even the horror genre of story telling. So much is owed to that Baltimorean who sacrificed his sanity and ultimately his life to show America and the world that there is a different way to create the story. And that there is an audience for the delicious mental acrobatics his tales evoked.

Judging the month by its accomplishments alone gives one pause as we approach the point of no return. In this life the month is both good and bad: the suicide death of a brother mentioned earlier and the marriage of a soul mate. It was 28 years ago Monday that Monika stood with her husband-to-be in the chambers of a tiny judge and said she would, she does and he does, too. It has been a wonderful and frightening ride. Much like the life of Poe, replete with alcoholism, drugs, failure and accomplishment, risks and courage, our life together is never dull. Even as we sit in custom easy chairs and watch the medical Sherlock chew up a New Jersey hospital and all who dare venture near on Tuesday nights, there is still excitement in just being together.

March also lives up to its reputation by clouding the future with doubt and anxiety. Where did the money go? Where will more come from? How will we make it? Is there a sale, enough sales on the horizon? Will these books ever cross the Rubicon and take their rightful place on the shelves; after a suitable stint on the New Fiction Table, somewhere between Pickens and Possley? It’s enough to keep a person up nights, listening for the back draft of things to come. It is March.

--- 2005 ---

A Personal Note

Thank you for occasionally checking in to see the progress of a very determined mystery writer. It is well known that this is a crowded field in a brutally competitive game. Over the years many have tried, and some have risen to the ranks of professional purveyors of dark visions and screams in the night. The task is daunting, but there is something that drives us to fling blood on the page and uncover new motives for murder while making love, planting a garden, showering or half-listening to our bosses. In some real-life situations it is easy to understand our creation’s rush to the brink.

On this day, twenty-nine years ago, my brother slipped the grasp of sanity and enlisted gravity to end his life. He let go of the crumbling concrete guardrail of the, then, Lorain-Carnegie Bridge over the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. Witnesses said, at the last minute, he struggled to regain his footing on the wrong side of the decaying structure. The river below was so polluted that even if the fall had not killed him, which it most certainly did, fists of petrolatum forced his body to the depths and held him there until the CPD River Patrol was able to fish him free. It was an unparalleled tragedy for my family.

The span that connects east to west was rebuilt several years ago. It is now called the Hope Memorial Bridge, after Bob Hope’s father who was a city engineer in my home town. Almost three decades have passed and my sister and I still miss our brother. In each work I am fortunate enough to complete - and should greater fortune grant us publication - my brother Al can be found on every page. In the end, Hope replaced tragedy in the lives he left behind.

Atmosphere

You're sitting in your car. It's late, dinner is already getting cold and your wife's getting hot. But you can't help it. You were caught in traffic and did not make it in time; not in time to hear the beginning of a show in your hideaway off the family room. It is important not to miss a minute of the radio show that has evolved beyond favorite and ranks right up there with cigarettes and that little red-head you screw for lunch. So you sit in the driveway and wait, I'll go in after the opening, after the first commercial, and you listen.

The Interview

Good Morning. Today on Ungodly Hour with the Author we speak via telephone with Mystery Writer Elmer Polk. The reason he is on the phone is because, to paraphrase, “There’s no bleeping way I’m flying to Syracuse in February.”

Host: Mr. Polk, welcome.

Polk: What time is it there?

Host: A little after five AM.

Polk: Thank God I’m on Kauai. It’s only a little after midnight here. A good two hours before my bedtime.

Host: Mr. Polk, we’ve all enjoyed your Radio Murders Series.

Polk: I guess, that’s why I’m living on the Garden Island.

Host: You don’t sound terribly grateful, if you don’t mind me saying so.

Polk: I don’t mind at all. As far as being grateful, I say again, I’m living on Kauai!

Host: What was the inspiration for these unusual mysteries?

Polk: Who don’t love a mystery?

Host: Then you’re saying you only wrote them for the money.

Polk: Well, that, and working when I want, naked if I want, where I want. Kauai, remember?

Host: Don’t you worry that your fans will find this attitude, disingenuous?

Polk: They might not like what I say, but there’s nothing disingenuous about it. I write a story, you can read it or not. God willing somebody will. And I get up, listen to the incredible surf, check out the whales romping around in my backyard, have a cup of tea and write another one. Pretty crappy life, I know, but it’s the hand I’m dealt.

Host: Getting to your stories. It seems all of your characters have some overwhelming handicap to overcome.

Polk: Yeah.

Host: Is there a reason for this?

Polk: What, you want me to talk about inner conflicts, about the demons we all carry around and the accompanying drama.

Host: So it’s a convenient plot device?

Polk: I don’t even know what that means. My characters are screwed up because I don’t know anyone who ain’t. Never have. I have an ugly burn the shape of a seahorse on my right hand, had to have surgery to remove man-tits I had since I’m thirteen. If you really want to get messed up, I was a black kid in the fifties and sixties. Talk about the cards you’re dealt. But somewhere along the line I got the idea that none of that mattered if I can just find the one thing I love doing and make a living at it.

Host: And you love writing.

Polk: Give the lady a Cuban!

Host: You know, Mr. Polk, for a writer your grammar is atrocious.

Polk: Do you know a gerund from a gerundive?

Host: As a matter of fact, I do.

Polk: Good, then you write a hundred-thousand grammatically perfect words and see how many agents, publishers and readers are knocking down your door.

Host: What do you want the reader to take away from The Radio Murders?

Polk: A few hours of fun and a nagging jones for the next one.

Host: By ‘jones’ you mean you want them addicted to your books?

Polk: Show me a writer who doesn’t and I’ll show you either a corpse or a liar.

Host: Mr. Polk…

Polk: maybe a lyin’ corpse. As long as there are stations like yours and listeners like you <I>don’t</I> have, but will show up around five-forty-five Monday morning, then there are stories for me to write. Now, if it’s okay with you, I want to take a little dip before bed. (click)