Country's story, his journey to homelessness, emerged over many conversations--a recap of his thirties one day, his fifties another, a story from his time in the Marines, a reference to his time in the South. It took me a long time to get the timeline right, but I think I've finally filled in most of the gaps:
Country was born to two loving, hardworking parents in Tallahassee, Florida. His mother gave birth to twenty-one children, all by the same man. And his father was kind--last December I listened as Country told of his father's love for Christmas and gift giving and of how the holidays are mostly sad for him ever since he passed away.
Country's late teens and twenties were filled with activism and activity: he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery and met a woman along the way, he made that woman his wife (and she was white, which was significant in the South in the 1960's), and they had eleven children. He joined the Marines and describes the birth of his eleven children as surprises that he came home to after long stints at sea--I'd come home and see another one in the cradle and say, what the hell is that?
But when he was forty-five, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Her death devastated him. He had poured his savings and his credit line into treatments that didn't work. And now he was a widower. He remained in Florida for a few years, until his youngest child, a son, was out of the house, but then he moved up to Brooklyn, to reconnect with friends and look for a new start. If my math is right, this was around 1991 or so, and Country was in his early fifties.
During the time in Florida after his wife's death, Country picked up some bad habits. He started drinking too much and hustling for extra money, committing minor crimes to make ends meet. So when he moved to Brooklyn, he wanted a new start, but he also needed a new start. And for a little while, he found it.
I'm going to stop here for a second and be honest--Country's love isn't always communicated with jokes and laughter. There's a side of him, a side that shines bright with the help of a little liquor, that communicates love through violence. When an apartment in my building was broken into, he slept on our stoop to prevent it from happening again, but he also said If I see that mother-expletive-er around here one more time, I'm gonna kill him dead right in the street. When his fiancee's brother gives her trouble, he threatens the old man's life, making reference to the skills he learned in the service. When the girl on Franklin Avenue got mugged, he kindly walked me to my door, but he also reminded me each time that he had my back and would break the neck of anyone who laid a hand on me. Especially when he's been drinking, the smallest conversational infraction can set him off against even one of his friends. Normally, it ends with the two men butting their chests against each other in loud, but harmless, competition, but the verbal threats are real-time and specific.
It's this kind of love, if we can keep calling it that, that brought Country to lay his head night after night in the space beneath my next door neighbor's front stairway. Country had moved into a one-bedroom apartment about four blocks away from where I live now. He had begun working a construction job and lived here happily for four or five years. One day, while standing on Nostrand Avenue Country witnessed a young guy, around 18-years-old, run up to an elderly woman and grab her pocketbook out of her hand. The guy took off running, and Country followed. The guy turned corners, but Country outran him, tackled him, and got the pocketbook back. When he told me this story, Country's voice was solemn, and his tone was hushed. He wanted to tell it, but he didn't enjoy thinking about it. He described it something like this: When I stood back up, the guy's neck was broken. I had killed him.
He was charged with manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison. He was let out after seven or eight, and he's been homeless ever since. That was about ten years ago, and he's now 74 years old. His kids contact him by calling his friends' apartments that live nearby. They call to tell him when someone is getting married or when his youngest son passes away from a shooting or when his daughter passes away from a car accident or when his brother passes away from old age. They call to ask if he needs money or to try to convince him to move back to Florida and live with them. He tries to convince them that he's not homeless, that he's doing fine, that soon he'll be sending them money again.
About two months ago, Country proposed to the most angelic human being I've ever met. He saved up to buy her an engagement ring for $97 and sent in a request for copies of his birth certificate and social security card. Jerry is 65 years old, and she rolls her eyes at Country as he jokes and yells and laughs, but always concedes that she sure does love him anyway. They're planning to get married in the courthouse in December and move down to Georgia near her family sometime after that. Sometimes, when I come home late at night, they sit on my stoop as I walk by and don't even see me. They whisper sweet nothings to each other like this: It's just me and you, and nobody can't do nothing to change that. From here on out, it's me, and you, and I'm not gonna let anything happen to that. You hear that? It's just me and you, and we've gotta stick together.
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