Up South In Akron 1959 (Page 5)

[Page 5]

When last call was announced on a Friday or Saturday night and people started filing out of those places of joy and merriment, I became the ultimate carnival barker: “Shoe Shine, Shoe Shine Can’t Be Beat/Shoe Shine, Shoe Shine, Give Your Soul a Treat!”

Here comes a pair and here comes another pair, pairs of shoes coming from everywhere. The bar signs flashing their electric cadence, the music coming from the car stereo systems, the horns blowing, the brakes screeching, the pimps and players talking shit to me, the somewhat slightly inebriated ladies of the evening playfully propositioning me, the police trying to maintain me. And I just kept sweating and popping those rags and clicking those brushes. And pocketing the nickels…the dimes…the quarters…the half-dollars… the dollars…GOD!

One night when I was late getting home my father came looking for me. I was sitting up under the viaduct counting my money in Spring Street alley. Grown-ups were warned never to walk thru Spring Street alley late at night – and I was a ten-year-old child. But that was the quickest way home. You came off Howard Street through the alley to the old projects, then to the new projects, where we lived. I could tell my father was mad because he walked real fast when he was mad. “Let’s go, boy, let’s go!” he commanded. When we got home, he looked over at my mother, and said, “This little nigga was sitting up under the viaduct counting his money, Barb! This little nigga's CRAZY!”