Read Online The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson - Free Book Online Page B

right here was it, she says, and goes on about how The Social Club was also the afterhours, the place where oldmen knocked dice to wee hours in a smoky back room, where they served the stiffest drinks you could find, where you could order a burger big as a dinner plate stuffed with sausage, eggs, and whatever else they had in the kitchen. They never had music or a dance floor, Mom says. But my oh my it always boomed with grown folks having the time of their natural born lives.
    The Social Club’s on the same block as the building that used to be Rose City Auto Repair. Mom says the owner (a freckled Creole named Mr. Black who wore clean coveralls with his name patched on his chest) must’ve fixed every knock and ping in Northeast. She says old man Black could keep your Chrysler or Buick or Ford running well past when your mileage turned over. Says he was loved for giving free car washes to customers and always quoting a fair price. And if he knew your people, Mom says, he might let you work out payments.
    We ride by what used to be Burger Barn. Gosh, you sure did love them burgers, Mom says. Just couldn’t get enough of them burgers but everybody else was stuck on the chicken baskets. Them and the desserts. Mom says half the folks she knew would’ve pawned an arm for even a teaspoon of their banana pudding or peach cobbler, for the thinnest slice of their sweet potato pie. She tells me twins (who pimped on the side and would let their prostitutes rest in back booths between shifts) ran the restaurant day to day, but that the hoes were only there on weeknights since the after-church crowd ruled the weekends.
    Figures, I say. You know how the Christians love their after-church grub.
    Those were the days, Mom says. Those were the times. She tells me we should ride by the mall, that if it’s about her day then we have to. We wheel down MLK to Weidler where I pull intothe underground parking, see mall security patrolling in a jeep, an old couple strolling for an entrance, wild kids rollerblading between parked cars. Remember those Saturdays after I got paid that we’d come and make a day of it? Mom says. That was everything. I’d shop all my favorite stores for clothes and shoes, then swing by the discount shop to check the ninety-nine cent specials. Mom admits that, while we thought a treat, the times she sent us to the ice rink were times she didn’t feel like being bothered. But least ya’ll got some junk out the deal, she says, and reminds me how we never left the mall without a trip to the Candy Shack and a blessing of our pick of cotton candy or an XL box of caramel corn or an XL box of caramel and cheese corn mixed or a just-the-right-ripe caramel apple.
    We take Seventh Ave up from the mall—past Broadway, Siskiyou, Knott, Monroe. Mom points at Irving Park and I circle an island and pull near the day care center across the street. Nothing doing on the courts but dudes playing a scrap-game of one-on-one. Talk about summers, she says. Me and my girls couldn’t wait for the sun. Couldn’t wait to put on high cut shorts, stroll up here, and make an afternoon of parading around the fields and courts, while the guys huffed and sweat through games. We’d traipse till our legs hurt then make our way to the street, where there was never a shortage of highsighting guys sitting on their hood or trunk with their eight-track blaring a Motown hit.
    We (Mom and me) have been how long out? Neither one of us have checked to see. She asks what I have planned for Kim.
    Oaks Park, I say. Gone hit the rink.
    Oooh, skate night, she says. Now that should be fun.
    It should, I say. You wanna roll?
    With these knees? No, you two enjoy. Enjoy yourselves justyou two. You need that sometime. Mom turns to me and flashes a seismic smile. Soooo, what about you? How about you show me a spot or two?
    What comes to mind first is MLK: the used car lots, the liquor store, the barbershops, the beauty supply,