The Streets

I felt safe...no matter where I went in the city.
The streets were mine, and they were lovely...little peeks of old cobblestone, patterned brick sidewalk here and there...and the roots of huge oak trees that tore up the cement... causing it to look like the badly broken bridgework of an old woman.
But I felt safe in these streets. They were mine.
I remember nights, walking home from places with my mother...The street lights pooling light every so often, punctuating the blackness..... I loved it.
And then my mother's voice, "Bobby, if anyone tries to hurt us, I want you to run...."
I never understood her fear...these streets loved me. Everything I knew about them shined, like the
obsolete streetcar tracks nobody bothered to remove....like the wet asphalt after a rain.
Their smell is connected to my grandmother Emma...somehow. I think about smothering myself into Emma's damp house dress and apron as she worked in the kitchen. Her sweat, the odor of security...and the streets.
"Mom, we're ok."
It's so easy to be brave when there is nothing to fear.
Home was another matter.
Home was an on-again, off-again brawl...with hidden scandal...unforgiven hurts...broken promises ...neglected responsibilities...shame...secrets...lies.
Fear...lots of fear....especially fear of exposure.
There was a truth about the streets that I never found at home. Honesty and openness seemed to thrive in the streets....they demanded it. My family demanded something very different.
There was Eddie...he was married to my mother's sister, Selma.
Right about the time I arrived in New Orleans in the mid-50's, my cousin Mary Ida told her mother, my Aunt Roberta, that Eddie had showed her "dirty" pictures....and had "touched" her.
My family never recovered from this.
There were huge profanities thrown back and forth in the courtyards of the St. Thomas Housing Project...vicious phone pranks day and night ...along with threats and counter threats....
It went on and on for years.....with brief periods of uneasy peace....sub-surface hostility.
Sisters at war.
And Mary Ida? Besides Mary...and Eddie, I may have been the only one in the family who knew the truth.
Eddie showed me the very same pictures and tried to molest me too....but who could I tell? Nobody believed Mary....so, who would believe me?
Eddie looked at me as I sat in his '52 Plymouth...."Bobby, don't tell anyone. You see how everybody thinks Mary lied....they won't believe you either."
I kept my mouth shut....but I knew....like Mary knew.
When I looked at Eddie I always thought I saw a slight, knowing look...maybe even a smile....daring me to say something.
I felt ashamed....soiled....
I was a coward.
How could I describe to my mother what Eddie had shown me? How could I tell her what he was and be sure there wouldn't be more war....or be sure that I wouldn't be called a liar.... like Mary?
The streets were safe.
Years later, childless, Eddie and Selma took in a young prostitute who was pregnant. They adopted her baby and named her April Lynn. Eddie abused and molested his daughter at will for years before she left home and became a prostitute like her mother.
The truth came out....but it came out in the streets, not at home.
April eventually gave birth to a baby that was born with no eyes, another that was profoundly retarded.
In her late teens, Mary married Alvin, a Pentecostal preacher, and traveled with him as he held tent revivals all through the South...proclaiming liberation and truth.
I spent my childhood in the streets escaping the horror at home.
It was in the streets that I found the wedding ring I gave my wife...found it while tripping out of my mind in the French Quarter.
It was in these streets that my wife and I sold our pottery
It was in these same streets that my wife and I brought our children to experience the musicians and clowns....the food and the funk....
Safe....