#41: “Communication occurs only between equals." — Hagbard Celine.*

I miss Melvin. Part 2.

*Hagbard is a central character in the 1970s magnum opus The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

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Graffiti in an alleyway off Eliot Street in downtown Brattleboro.

Melvin is my best friend on the street. He’s been gone now for about six months, and I miss him. I’m not the only one. Many people around here—artists, lawyers, teachers, shopkeepers, and even his fellow sidewalk hustlers have told me they kind of miss him. Even if they never had a conversation. Because all it took was Melvin asking you, “Whazzup, Whazzup?” to feel an immediate kinship.

I first met Melvin around 2018. After being here for a while, he disappeared for three years (he says nine months). Then, one day, I was walking towards the parking garage and saw him standing against the railing of a low wall smoking a cigarette (or a joint), acting like he’d been there all along. We both broke into big grins and hugged. I think we were a little surprised how happy we were to see each other.

I should acknowledge up front that I doubt Melvin would consider me a friend, per se. But he did call me his “white daddy.” Close enough.

Throughout our relationship, my real coin was, well, real coin. In exchange, he contributed the kind of insights that are not readily available in my town…mainly because Melvin grew up in Mississippi (or maybe Georgia), is black,^⁠¹ a little bald with straggly short dreadlocks and a wispy goatee-like thing—not a common look here in Southern Vermont. He sees the world very differently from me. As far as I’m concerned, new perspectives are worth their weight in gold.

Still, Melvin could be annoying. He’d stroll up alongside me when I was in a hurry. (He always seemed to stroll, no matter how fast I walked.) Before he even asked, I’d tell him I was too busy to stop and talk (i.e., give him money). When he realized I was serious, he’d say, “C’mon dad”—a final plea for at least a few bucks—delivered in a perfect blend of feigned whining and inchoate fondness that only a 45-year-old black “kid” from Mississippi can pull off when dealing with a 71-year-old white Jewish “kid” from Rhode Island.

When I still didn’t reach in my pocket, he’d keep walking with me all the way to my car and lean against it as I got in. I’d close the door, roll down the window, and smile at him, shaking my head again. “C’mon, dad…” he’d repeat or “money money money,” as if he were some bookie demanding payment. “Stop whining. Go away!” I’d reply. And we’d both laugh.

“Maybe you be back later…?”
“Maybe.”
“What time?”
“Melvin, time ain’t exactly your strong suit. Even if I told you I doubt you’d show up.”
”So what time would that be?”
”Bye Melvin…”

As I backed out, he’d sashay away slowly, smiling and shaking his head.

One day I had an idea. “Hey Melvin,” I said, “From now on, I won’t give you money unless we have time to sit on my stoop and really hang out for a while.”

And that's pretty much what we did after that. My stoop was a little bit out of his comfort zone at first, but it didn’t take long for him to incorporate it into his, uh, I guess you’d say, “energy field.”

When we got there, he’d wait while I went up to my place to get some wine or beer. He only likes bad beer and good pot. (He made a face the one time I gave him an IPA.) I don’t tend to have bad beer, so, instead, I’d bring him a little tequila or a vodka with an ice cube.

We’d sit there and talk for an hour or more as people walked by. Sometimes, they joined us for a bit. Sometimes, they shared a cigarette or a little pot. Sometimes, they simply handed him their leftovers from the restaurant down the street.

It wasn’t like he was taking a handout. More like receiving his just desserts.

What would we talk about? Well, you gotta understand I only really heard half of what he said. Partly my hearing, I suppose, but more the way words rolled off his tongue so lazily it was hard to tell where one word ended and the next began. He got annoyed if I asked him to repeat himself too much—considering it another pitiful manifestation of how old, white, and clueless I was. So, I’d just catch the gist and the emotional drift and occasionally say something that cracked us both up—the way that two buddies sharing an inside joke laugh, bump fists or shoulders (“You got it, dad”) or raise their glasses to toast a good one.

For a long time. whenever I asked him anything more personal about himself than his name, he’d just answer, “There you go asking questions again.” Since my life is spent asking questions—of myself and others—the answer always froze me like a good old-fashioned Zen koan.

But over time, I got some basics. That he was about 45. That his birthday was in May (20^th or 21^st). That his mom and sister lived back down south with her two kids—Melvin’s niece and nephew. I ended up with his sister’s phone number at some point—maybe he’d used my phone to call her—and she texted a couple of times when she had to track him down. Since he left, I’ve texted her once or twice, asking for her to have him call me so I could tell him something I’m pretty sure he’d want to know. (He never calls back of course…he wouldn’t want to give me the impression I have the power to get him to do something.)

Eventually, however, he did tell me some stories about his life down south—always beginning with one of his other favorite phrases: “Back in the day.” Once, for example, he told me about picking tobacco and hanging it up to dry (allegedly when he was 8 or 9). I doubt he was that young, but he knew a whole lot about the process, including how heavy tobacco bales were, wet or dry, and how many people it took to lift them.

But most conversations went something like this:

For some reason, we were on the subject of “demons.”

M: You don’t got no demons. I got demons. As long as my demons are still intact.

D: Your demons are doing just fine. Your demons got nothing to worry about. They got you to play with. They want something more than that, they’re too greedy.

M: Right. Exactly. They doin’ too much. Too much of anything is a bad thing.

D: Too much liquor, cigarettes, pot, girls…well I doubt you’d ever say you had too much of girls…

M: Welllll, I don’t want to catch AIDS.

D: I thought you didn’t believe in that sh-t…like Covid and AIDS.

At that point he got distracted looking at my phone—or the phone I got him that he lost, I can’t remember. He handed it over and told me it was a picture of his mom.

D: That’s your mom? I can’t imagine you standing up to her.

M: Right, right. [Laughter]

D: She musta beat the sh-t out of you when she caught you at something. That’s why you’re up here. You’re as far away from her as you can get.

M: Yes! Yes!

D: You’re running away from home.

M: [Big laughs ’til he’s almost choking]

D: Don’t die on me now.

M: You see that about her, huh?

D: I can see you 15-years-old coming home late, her saying “Melvin? Where you been?” with that look on her face.

M: Exactly. Exactly.

D: What a look. Phew.

M: Exactly. Exactly. [Big laughter]

At some point, a girl would walk by, which immediately put the conversation on hold. Now, Melvin is pretty much a gender-blind flirt. In fact, he was always particularly charming to little children who walked or were stroller-ed by, greeting them with a big friendly smile and his patented, “Well, all right, all right,” as if they were the most wonderful being on the planet.

But, when Melvin started talking to grown-up women, he cranked it up a notch. One time a woman I know walked up to say hi to us and saw he was holding some kind of new-fangled vape pipe. She said, “What’cha got there, Melvin?” Without missing a beat he said, “I got you babe.”

Not to worry…she and most of her cohorts could easily sass Melvin back and raise him one.

When he talked about women, however, he regularly crossed the line into the immature gutter talk that gives men such a bad rap. When it got really bad, I’d tell him to shut up. One time, when it got gratuitously vulgar, I asked:

D: Would you talk to your momma the way you talking to me?

M: No ‘cause she’d already f-ing know.

D: Well, I wish your momma was here, she’d smack you on the side of the head.

M: Uh huh uh Huh.

He says it in a way that sounds like something between a grunt and a guffaw. He’s tried to teach me but I just can’t get it right. It’s his highest compliment.

I miss Melvin.

1. Melvin wouldn’t want to be called “African American” or “person of color.” In, fact he laughs when I threaten to call him the N-word (which I do) if he keeps referring to “that stupid white sh-t I say or do.”)