Late Friday afternoon on a whim I drove to Southside to see if I could find the man I’d seen earlier in the week sitting on his front porch in the pre-dawn darkness listening to a radio. The man had been wearing a white dress shirt, and I don’t know why but the image had stayed with me.
These past few weeks I’ve been getting up early and walking. This time of year the air is fragrant with wisteria and sweet olive, and the birds, untroubled by thoughts of health-care legislation and Supreme Court confirmations, are making their joyful noises.
Most mornings I head south into an area my family calls Deep Southside.
Rarely do I see anyone at this hour. The occasional car drifts by, usually a young person headed back to his or her nest after a long evening, probably.
The best thing about these walks, other than the above-mentioned sensory pleasures, is what goes on in my head. With all the clutter and interruptions put aside, my brain can run a course of its own choosing. It feels, well, therapeutic … like any exercise is, I suppose.
Not long ago, I read something about sleep being a time your brain uses to sort through and file away memories. Walking in the dark, you can watch that process in reverse. You think about the day ahead; problems you’ve been wrestling with seem to work themselves out; you pass places (a house, a tombstone, a childhood playground), the sight of which releases memories.
Friday afternoon a woman in a pink nurses uniform sat on the porch where I’d seen the man and the radio. She was watching a young boy ride a bicycle in the street in front of her. As I glided past, she waved and called me by name. I pulled over.
As it happens, it was Gladys Morris, whose husband, Robert, I’ve known since high school. Robert was a friend of a classmate of mine, Jackie Ball. Growing up Gladys and Jackie were next-door neighbors, a block away on 14th Avenue.
“Robert’s inside,” she said.
After high school, Jackie wrote soul music. At some point, he scraped up enough money for a recording session at Malaco Studios in Jackson. Robert was his vocalist. I went along and took pictures. I’ve got the 45 Jackie had pressed from that session.
I remembered Robert being a lot bigger. “Back then I weighed 300 pounds,” he said. That was before the two heart surgeries. Before that he was a fork-lift operator and receiving clerk at Ceco Metal Buildings. Gladys still works, as a care-giver at Collegeview Personal Care Home.
This October Robert and Gladys will have been married 50 years. They have three children, five grandchildren and one great-grand.
Robert, 67, still sings, though not the devil’s music anymore. He’s part of the male chorus at Zion Gate Baptist. They perform every fourth Sunday; they’ll be singing today.
Next to the chair I was sitting in on the porch was a table and the radio, a small battery-powered boom box. You take this in at night, right? I said. “No it stays here all the time,” Gladys said.
Robert said he’s on his porch every weekday morning from 5:30 until the school bus comes for his grandson, Preston, a fourth grader at Franklin Elementary.
We talked a while longer. “Hey, Robert,” I said, “You remember the name of that song you recorded for Jackie.”
Robert frowned, thought for a minute, then smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “One-Sided Deal.”
Somewhere in my stacks of stuff I’ve got that 45. It may take some time, but I’m gonna find it. That might be easier than finding a turntable to play it on.
Birney Imes is the publisher of The Dispatch. Email him at [email protected].
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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