RIP
I heard something pretty interesting once. It was a saying. It went, “The very best of a man is illustrated in his words.”
That’s what a famous philosopher dude once said, or that’s what I heard. It was at this school lecture, one of those ones where you just file into the assembly hall not knowing what’s about to jump off. I was sitting there, and spitballs and “your momma” jokes were flying back and forth like always, and this tall, stately-looking, old black dude came out onto the stage and just looked at us. Or maybe it’s better to say he regarded us, ‘cause he seemed to be taking mental notes on what we were made of. He was looking deep into us. It was kind of scary ‘cause nobody had ever looked at me like that. It was like he locked eyes with me, made a quick check on this list in his head, and moved on to the next kid. I think we all felt it, ‘cause them kids who had been cutting up didn’t say a word. It was silent, and you know silent is deeper than just plain old quiet. I mean like if it was nighttime you would have heard crickets. And then we started looking at him the way he was looking at us. I wondered who he was ’cause I had never seen anybody really like him. Like I said, he was an old dude, but not all broke down and decrepit like them folks at the retirement center off Cottage and 83rd.
Turned out he was a retired judge who stepped off the bench to motivate kids into doing something with themselves. He was tall and his back was straight and his chin stuck out like a ledge of a mountain. He reminded me of an old drawing of Frederick Douglass. All class, muscle and dignity. Like every word that crossed his lips had enough juice to cause a stir in folks. He told us his name, but I just called him Old Fred.
So old Fred stared at us and us at him for like a whole minute. And then when it started to get really creepy, he spoke. And spoke. And spoke for, like, an hour nonstop, about all kinds of things, from our heritage as black folk to civil rights, our personal responsibility and our futures. What was so amazing about the whole thing was none of us, I mean none, made a sound louder than a sniffle. Not even a cough. No giggles or anything. It was amazing to me. And then Old Fred hit us with that line I told you about, “The very best of a man is illustrated in his words.”
Yeah. That was deep to me, ‘cause so many people in our hood be talking crap. Like that’s all they do. Another reason it stuck with me, ‘cause it reminded me of my father. But not in a good way. Like , he would be on the negative end of the statement, ‘cause if you lined up his words you’d have a mile of cussing so foul you’d think he was from some foreign country where they didn’t speak no English and he came here and learned the language from listening to Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy records. I mean, like cussing for no reason. You know how he would do. He get all bug-eyed and just starts winging them out there. He get all excited and turn into some cussing tornado. Just ignorant.
Sometimes when my father would snap on me, calling me all kinds of MF’s and F this and F that, I imagined Old Fred, and I wished he could tell my father all that stuff he told us. Then maybe my dad could be silent like we were silent that day, and maybe that quote would shake my father up and get him to think about his words and how he uses them. But you know what? Thinking about it now, my father would probably cut Old Fred off and then cuss his old butt out like he was some nigger on the block and not a retired judge trying to help somebody do something with themselves. That’s kind of sad, you know?
Rip was a trip. What? I never told you why we call him Rip? Well for all my life that’s all he’d allow me to call him. Not dad or pop or anything that let on that he was actually responsible for raising me. Just Rip. That was his street name when he banged back in the day. He said they called him Rip ‘cause he was quick to rip a fool off on payday. That always made me sad, to think that my father was that dude. You know, every hood in America got at least one. A lowdown thief so hell bent on causing misery that he would stick up a working man who slaved all week for a check. I mean, that working dude could have been getting it rough from his boss and taking all kinds of crap just to support his family. That dude just happen to make the mistake of walking down the wrong block on payday, and Rip or whatever they call him in another hood, just ups and sticks him. Whenever my father would brag about them days, I would imagine the face of that hard working dude when he’d have to go home to his family with nothing in his pockets. And since that man is a black dude, you know he is all prideful, so he didn’t tell his old lady what really happened, about how he got stuck up. That man would break bad with the lady to cover up the fact he been stuck. He would give her some crap about minding her business and then bringing up the fact that she didn’t clean the house right or that the chicken was dry or burnt or something. Anything to distract from the fact there ain’t no money, right. Now that woman, she a sista. So you know she ain’t gonna take that stuff. She listen to all his mess and then tell him how full of shit he really is. The man goes crazy because his pride can only take so much. I mean first he got robbed by a punk and now his woman is putting him in his place. To save face he goes up side her head and then he breaks out. I imagine the apartment being all quiet as the woman pick herself up off the floor. I see her face when her kids get home from hanging on the stoop. They all loud and crazy and she pissed off. She got a right to be. So who she snap on but them kids? Now they feelings hurt. And then that lady go beg from her momma so she could feed them kids she just snapped on, and then momma be disappointed in her daughter for putting up with that man of hers and his trifling ways. The daughter gets mad all over again now her and her momma are into it. All that hurt, bitterness and bad feelings ‘cause some fool named Rip or whatever they call him in another hood. That’s my father and it makes me sad to say that.
But out of all the things that make me sad about Rip, and there are a lot of them, nothing makes me sadder than what I saw when I stood at the mouth of this alley one day last week. The one half block up from the corner of 79th and Cottage Grove. The left side with the Chinese restaurant. Yeah, the one with the red sign. That’s the one. I was walking home from this girl’s house. I was feeling good; you know what I’m saying? It was a regular day, nothing special. The sun was shining and the pigeons was walking around the sidewalk and people moved from here to there just like they always do. Anyway, I come up on this alley and I just stop ‘cause of what I was seeing. Wasn’t nothing out of ordinary about the alley at first. Just regular with normal alley activities. Well, at the far end was a garbage truck backing up, getting ready for a dumpster. A little further in was a couple of Mexicans going in and out of this warehouse, loading a van full of clothes on hangers. You know that stuff was going to be sold out of some hustler’s trunk later on. So, closer in still was a Chinese busboy out for a smoke, just chilling when another chink comes out and says something in that ping-pang language of theirs. Kind of sounded like he was cussing ‘cause he was waving his arms all wild as he was pinging and panging. The busboy just stood there and took the last drag off his cigarette and acted like he wasn’t paying the fussing dude no mind. Just regular. Even had the typical rat and bum nosing around the dumpster looking for lunch, except the bum in this alley was Rip.
It was him. I’m sure. Yeah. I know it was ‘cause I stared at him for a real long time. I actually took a step back and used the corner of the building to block me. I didn’t want him to see me… I saw how he shifted through the garbage, looking for God knows what. He had a Jewel’s shopping cart full of black garbage bags. Couldn’t see what was in them. But then I noticed he stopped shifting and lay hold of a Styrofoam container. Like the ones you get at take out joints. He opened it up and it was some old Chinese food. I saw half an egg roll and some chow Mein noodles. He closed it and put it in the shopping cart. There was a big clear bag of dandelions in the cart, too. I think he was going to make him some soup. I remember he said he used to make that all the time when he would run away from whatever foster home he was in back in the day. Dandelion soup and old Chinese food. That’s where old rip turned up after what? Like five years?
I remember that bad silk suit he had when I was like ten. It was bone white and he would rock it with some gray gators. Remember that? Man, he would be clean. To see him all bummy now was too much. I mean, he had on a dirty old Bears sweater and filthy pants that looked like a potato sack. I ain’t even gonna describe the rest of him. I felt shame for him. I started to say something to him. I saw me taking him and hugging him. I wouldn’t even mention the five years. Nope. I would just take him to my crib and get him clean and fed. No Chinese food either. Chicken wings maybe. That’s what I saw in my mind. But that’s not what I did. I just stood there frozen. I tried to make my feet work, but it was like they had a mind of their own, as if they remembered how they would run from our house trying to escape the hollering and the cussing. Wasn’t no budging them now.
I tried to call out to him, but my tongue had joined in on the revolt. I guess it remembered all them times I bit it to keep from telling Rip how we really felt, and how we were. And my heart wasn’t no help either. It had healed just fine over them five years and wasn’t trying to get broken up again messing with that fool. So it was just my brain screaming inside my head, but no other parts of me would listen. Then, against my will, my feet turned us around and walked us home. I guess I still got some healing to do. That was a week ago.
I went back to that alley yesterday and looked for him, but no go. I been all over the neighborhood and I couldn’t find him. I don’t know what I would say or even if the rest of me would go along with us meeting him. I guess I got to get over it, huh? No matter if he don’t want to be called my daddy, he still is. And even if thinking about him makes me sad and brings up all the unhappy stuff from my past, he still my daddy. No matter what. I guess we still got time. He ain’t that old. I think he got more years ahead of him than behind. Maybe we can get a new history going. I mean, when I wash that dirt off him, maybe all that he was will come off too. The past just going down the drain in a big soapy swirl. Maybe when I was his hair, I can wash them bad dreams of the foster homes out of his head. Who knows? Some new clothes and shoes-maybe he would walk different. And if a man is walking right, maybe his talk will turn around too? Maybe Rip won’t cuss out everybody and tear everything down like he used to. And maybe he could be all stately and dignified like Old Fred was? Who knows? I’m hungry. Let’s go down to 79th and Cottage Grove. Yeah, Chinese sounds good.
Tony Bowers is a native Chicagoan and graduate of Columbia College Chicago, with an MFA in Creative Writing. He also has a MAT from National Lewis University. Tony is the author of On the Nine, a collection of short stories from Vital Narrative Press. He is the 2006 recipient of the Follett Fellowship in creative writing. His work has appeared in several anthologies such as Hair Trigger, the Story Week Reader, Expressions from Englewood and The Essential Summer Reader.
Tony began his teaching career working as a middle school teacher of English Language Arts for Chicago Public Schools. After four years he transitioned to City Colleges as an Adjunct instructor of composition and developmental writing. He currently is a tenure track assistant professor at the College of DuPage.
“I am living my best life right now. Writing and teaching writing. It doesn’t get any better.”