Freddie

Freddie

My mother and I arrived at Gator’s home, late to the party. Typical for us, but still. I’m holding a cheap bottle of wine, and some dip. You can’t forget the dip. Inside we’re greeted, and I meet Gator for the first time. We have dinner, and after, sit around the bar stools in the kitchen, sipping wine and talking off our full bellies. In the upper left hand corner of my wandering eye, I catch a small glimpse of interest. I turn to see a colorful 2x2 blown up photograph, hanging on the wall. It’s a picture of a black man standing next to a white pickup truck. The contrast of the picture sparks my imagination in a way I never quite felt before from looking at a photograph. A desire, of sorts, to learn about its contents, and explore the story hidden within its mystery. Who is this peculiar man, standing there in my small town, proud and mighty? I wonder. Someone I’d never met before. Someone who I’d never get the chance to meet at all, it turned out.

He’s standing there, next to the driver side door of a white, refurbished 1953 F-100 pick-up truck, with his right arm resting on the rolled-down window, like one of those greasers waiting for their girl. The midday sky is clear, prideful in it’s pronounced blue, as it hovers above him and the shining white truck. He’s there alright, in the small parking lot just behind Joseph’s Buy-Right Market Place in the rural town of Bishop, California.

Like the truck, the red bricks of the old supermarket behind them are also something that haven't changed a lick since the 50s, it seems. It feels almost like it could be the 50s, except for the new 2017 cars in the background. And the new people that have replaced the old. People like Freddie.

It’s Freddie, who’s standing there next to his best friend’s sexy pick-up truck. Freddie’s wearing jeans, worn and faded, and above that a muddy brown t-shirt that accents his dark, almond colored skin. He’s 54 years old, but at this moment you’d never guess it. His vivvious dark skin and face, his young appeal brought on by his lively swagger and hip clothing, all work to make him feel no older than a rebellious young twenty-something-year old. He’s looking at his friend, Gator (who does look his age of 57), as he lines up his phone to take the picture of him next to the stylish, retro truck. There’s a car show going on at the local fairgrounds down the road and they want to get a good picture in, before everyone else kicks up the brown dust onto it’s perfectly white and clean paint job. Freddie puts on a smooth, collective smile, as he looks into the camera, as though he’s the coolest guy in this small town, and he knows it.

And at that moment, he probably was.

“Bishop wasn’t ready for Freddie,” Gator says to me, looking over at the blown up photograph on the wall. “Some people are just too big for a small town. And he was one of ‘em.” A single tear rolls down the side of his cheek as he relives the small sliver of time spent with his now dearly departed friend.

“It was seven years ago now, when Laura first met him,” Gator says. Laura was Gator’s wife for twenty-three years, a fact that came up at the dinner table earlier in the night. My mother and I settled into our seats, listening to him begin the story. Begin the mystery I was desperate to unwravel. But a mystery I would never get to know fully. Some mysteries were never meant to be solved.

“As you know we lived down south in Los Angeles at the time. My wife was a head nurse at the MLKJ Community Hospital, I was a doctor at another. She was…” He stops a moment to recollect the details. He still wears the ring.

“She was a special kind of person. There was warmth, to her. People are attracted to that, she could make friends anywhere. She met Freddie outside the hospital of all places. Freddie was a chatter, very loud, very boisterous. When they met, it was inevitable for those two to become friends. But rest assured they were only good friends, nothing more.” He chuckles.

“So Freddie, well I should tell you, Freddie was homeless.” He stops to take a drink of wine.

“Actually,” he carries on after his sip, the dark red staining his white teeth. “The same night Laura and Freddie met outside the hospital downtown, Freddie walked my wife the rest of the way home just to make sure she got there safe. She was in a more run down neighborhood, not that that matters, but being an older white woman, she didn’t really fit in, if you know what I mean. Freddie just wanted to make sure she was alright. That tells you the kind of man he was,”

“And Laura, well, she just had those feelings about people, the ones that you know deep down they’re good people. She heard one ounce of his story and immediately wanted to help him. That’s the kind of person she was. When she found out he was homeless, she offered him a place to stay the night with us. He had nowhere else to go, and it was the middle of winter. And that was the first time I ever met Freddie.”

Gator started rolling up a joint as he continued the story. Sixty-one and retired is the new twenty-one, it seems. “He really lived by his own beat of the drum, you could say,” he said between licks, rolling the paper up. “People around here would call him ‘Too many!’ because every time he was at the casino and the blackjack dealer went over 21, he would yell, ‘Too many!” Gator laughs again, then stops, taking a moment to think about what to say next.

“He lived a tough life. He grew up in the inner city, all that bullshit. But he was still one of the nicest guys you’d ever met. Charming, charismatic, always putting others before himself. He had seven sisters, God bless his mother, Martha is her name. He was the oldest. He knew how to take care of a lot of people, but just couldn’t get his own feet under himself.”

“Freddie, well he came to live with us full-time eventually. He couldn’t pay rent of course, but he would do chores, or walk the dogs, clean, those sort of things. He earned his keep.” Gator stops to sparks up his small joint and takes a drag, letting the smoke consume him, before exhaling. He takes another inhale after that to help settle him mind.

“Six months after Freddie came to live with us, Laura was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 cancer.”

Even after all these years, he still can barely get the words out. Some people just find their person in this life, and when they’re gone, it’s never the same. Gator found his.

“Not long after that, she passed away. Freddie was the pallbearer.”

Another tear. Another sip of wine.

“After everything settled down, I decided to sell the house in LA, and move here, to Bishop. Freddie was still living with me, so he decided he’d come too. That’s how we ended up here.” Gator looked back at the picture of Freddie standing next to the ‘53 white pick-up truck on the wall.

The memory still more fresh than the picture could ever hope to capture.

“When we first got here, we walked into Rusty’s Saloon. Such a cowboy, rustic place, of course you know,” he says. “And here we come in, this older white man with an older black man walking in together. Everyone thought we were a couple.” Gator smiles at the humorous thought, before his face shift to a more serious impression.

“You know, he really struggled here. Small country towns don't mix too well with people like him from the city. People coming up and calling him a ‘nigger,’ and whatnot. A damn shame,” he said with a small fire burning from his old, torched throat.

“A real damn shame. I was surprised he took any of it.. I guess since we were good friends and he came to support me as I was dealing with the death of my wife, it was less important... I hate to think he took any of it for me...” Silence filled the room.

“But we really got into a lot of fun and good trouble around here, too,” he carried on with a kick. “Can’t keep a man like that down that’s for sure. Just look at him. Some people are just too big for a small town. And he was one of ‘em. He really was.”