House Call

(excerpted from Awaiting Identification, Fish Out of Water Books)

The glazed, beady eyes of a stuffed teddy bear stared up at Leaf Man as he hurried down the street on a chilly autumn evening, a battered, rolling suitcase trailing behind him like a lost puppy.

Steam poured out of missing manhole covers like spirits escaping hell.

The stench of dead leaves and smoke assaulted his nostrils. And then he remembered.

Devil’s Night.

He raised the volume on his headphones to Detroit techno legend Carl Craig’s “More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art”. This album not only always settled him down, but it was a reminder that as long as he continued to play his cards right, he would one day be up there with the DJs he had kept close tabs on since the 80’s, when his dream was born.

Though it saddened him to see so much abandonment enveloping him, he found beauty in the squalor. In fact, the industrial blight inspired his creativity as much as did any of his musical heroes. More significantly, where most saw a city on its death bed, Leaf Man saw a blank canvas.

A phoenix emerging in the form of his dream.

A couple of blocks from his destination, the wheel of his case became lodged in a crack, almost pulling his arm out of the socket. After a brief struggle, he wiggled the wheel free and continued on his way until he reached a dilapidated ranch, which one could easily assume was uninhabited, as suggested by its shattered windows and rusted bars.

Leaf Man knew otherwise.    

Not only did he know exactly who lived there, but he had timed his arrival for when he knew no one was home—not by choice, but by court mandate.

He headed toward the back door, past a pile of putrid trash bags. The corroded handlebars of a child’s tricycle poked through overgrown weeds.

Leaf Man removed two-hundred dollars from his wallet and slipped the money inside a box of chocolates from his suitcase. He sidestepped the rotted wooden step that led to the door and placed the box inside the torn screen door.

He walked away, saddened that he couldn’t deliver the gifts by hand and fully cognizant of the fact that the intended recipient—his three-year old son, Marcus—might never even get it.        

Leaf Man’s desire to once again see the joy on his son’s face was the driving force behind everything he did. He was confident that day was only just around the corner.

Just have to make it through the night.          

Of course, he knew that one slip-up would mean losing everything, which is why this final deal couldn’t be over soon enough.

He wanted to make headlines someday.

But for the right reasons.

He arrived at an empty bus stop, en route to soon becoming free from his self-made prison. Leaf Man was never one to place blame on others for his situation, or for the choices he made. Blaming himself meant that he alone was in control.

As the minutes rolled by, his hopes for a bus diminished. He knew one was supposed to arrive, but he also knew better.  He could possibly reach his destination faster if he walked.  

He would give it ten more minutes. Nine minutes later, he was on a bus. As it rumbled over streets strewn with potholes, he twirled his lucky ring on his right ring finger—gold, with an embossed marijuana leaf on it. As he thought about Marcus, pangs of panic settled in.

Every day that he couldn’t see his son was a day he would never have back. Now that he was a father, Leaf Man had become fully aware of the importance of each and every day. His precious little boy was the only reason he was saying goodbye to the only life he had known for the last decade.

After several years dealing marijuana and, for a short time, heroin, he had turned his focus to the illegal distribution of legal prescription drugs and medical marijuana. In his mind, the pharmaceutical companies were the real criminals. Not him.

Robin Hood of the hood.

But none of this meant shit in the eyes of the law. As far as child custody law was concerned, it didn’t matter if the drugs he sold were legal or not. Sure, he had the financial means to support his child, but he had to find a legal way for it to count in the court of law.

Despite his illicit trade, Leaf Man took pride in his strong sense of ethics. His clients knew this. He saw himself as no different than any startup entrepreneur with legit business dealings. But it was no longer about his clients. It was all about Marcus.

In Leaf Man’s line of work, he couldn’t fear death. What he did fear, however, was leaving his child without a father. In many ways, that was already the case. But he had done everything he could within his legal limits. And he was trying everything he could to do even more.

Though the danger factor had diminished, the downside to his decision to point his moral compass toward pharmaceuticals was a steep drop in available cash flow. He still managed to turn a profit and—most importantly—could live without the guilt and fear of a harsher penalty if the time ever arrived for a long-delayed comeuppance. He could also sleep better at night in the knowledge that the prescription drugs helped keep his clients alive, unlike heroin. As for the ones who were dying, he could at least make their death more tolerable.

The magnitude of this night weighed on him like an anchor as he struggled to stay afloat as the bus rolled past his grandmother’s old neighborhood in the Brightmoor district (aka “Blight More”), where, once upon a time, he knew true happiness. Going home to one’s roots was bittersweet in ordinary circumstances. Returning after years of blight and neglect was downright tragic.

“Detroit turned out to be heaven, but it also turned out to be hell.”

Marvin Gaye, one of his heroes, knew what was up.

In fact, most of the neighborhood was not only gone, but had since been returned to nature; the wilderness rapidly reclaiming what had been lost.

The vast majority of the businesses that lined the edges of the old neighborhood had long been boarded up, including the toy store his grandmother used to take him to every Sunday after church. Though the church was now a burned-out shell, at least the embers of his faith that were fostered there were still burning.

Ten minutes later, Leaf Man disembarked at the intersection of 7 Mile and Greenfield and walked a couple of blocks until he reached his “legitimate” employer, the Ma & Pa Pharmacy—an unknowing accomplice to his illegitimate one. In a few short hours, he would begin his new, legit job.

And if everything went according to plan, this would be the only job he needed.

The Ma & Pa Pharmacy was a bygone from another era—one of the few that hadn’t been eradicated by the national, corporate chains. Unlike in most cases, it wasn’t so much a matter of time; it was more a matter of nobody else wanting to set up shop in this particular location.

Leaf Man entered to the sound of a laughing Halloween skeleton, and was greeted by a familiar voice behind the counter.

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” the elderly pharmacist exclaimed.

“What’s up, Doc?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m no doctor,” the pharmacist sighed.

Leaf Man simply shrugged.

“So, what brings you in here on a day off?”

“Just making sure I’m on the schedule for tomorrow. And while I’m here, pick up my dead presidents.”

“You always work Sundays. Why would this one be any different?” Leaf Man sensed a degree of skepticism.

“Just double checking. It’s gonna be a late night tonight, so if I ain’t on the schedule for some reason, I’d hate to be comin’ in for nothing.”

“You couldn’t have called?” the pharmacist continued.

“Yeah, well, I was in the neighborhood . . . and, well, I figured you could use the company, you know.”

“Well, it does get lonely in here, that’s for sure. Want me to take you off the schedule?” “No! No. I need the money.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing our customers want more than someone with little sleep filling their prescriptions.”

“No worries. I’ll be fully caffeinated and ready to go.”

“Trembling hands caused by over-caffeination, in combo with lack of sleep, is also low on any customer’s wish list.”  

“Have I ever let you down?” Leaf Man asked.

The pharmacist looked away, sighed, and changed the subject.

“So. You got big plans tonight?”

“Gotta work,” Leaf Man replied.

“What? I don’t pay you enough?”

“I landed me a gig. A big-time gig!”

“What kind of gig?”

“DJ.”

“Like a mix master? Wooka-wicky?” the pharmacist said, pretending to scratch invisible turntables.

Leaf Man chuckled. “You know it!”

“I know of it.”

“You should come down, Doc. Tonight. Saint Andrew’s.”

The old man laughed and peered over his glasses. “You know, I might have a pill for delusional thinking. If I can find some back here, they’re all yours.”

“I’m serious, Doc!”

“Let’s just say the last time I went to a club, they had a separate section for folks like us. And they also used all live instruments.”

“Well, then come see how things have changed.”

“Maybe next time. I better get your dead presidents before they start to rot.”

The pharmacist disappeared into an office tucked away in the back of the store. This was Leaf Man’s cue. He grabbed some empty bottles from his suitcase and filled them with stock from the shelves. Efficiency was key and he had mastered that long ago. He hadn’t been caught yet and he intended for tonight to be nothing short of business as usual.

Normally, he had numerous prescriptions to fill.

But tonight, he had just one.

His final curtain call.

Just as he managed to stuff the bottles into his coat pocket, the pharmacist stepped out of his office with a wad of cash and handed it to him. Leaf Man didn’t even bother to count it.

“Gotta roll,” Leaf Man said. “Can’t keep my fans waiting!”

“You mean the ladies?”

“Now you’re talking, Doc!”  

“Break a leg!”

“And I’ll know exactly where to come for painkillers afterward!”

“I’m sure,” the pharmacist said with a wink.

Does he know?          

Leaf Man could never quite figure out if the pharmacist was clueless, or whether he simply turned a blind eye. He leaned more toward the latter. The old man was way too smart. But if so, why so generous?

 “Alright, Doc. I’m out,” Leaf Man said.

“See you at the break of dawn.”

 Leaf Man headed back out into the world and looked at his watch. Still ahead of schedule. Barely.

He quickened his pace –also for his own safety. The sooner he could get to work, the sooner he could get his mind off . . . everything. His music was the only way to do that.

Leaf Man put Carl Craig back on his headphones as he made his way down Livernois and through yet another neighborhood dotted with more empty lots than homes. The homes that were still standing were burned out beyond repair, defiant shells of buildings, daring to be torn down, cocky in their confidence that it would probably never happen.

It begged the question: is a neighborhood still a neighborhood when there are no neighbors?

This particular tract of land at least had a pulse, faint as it were. And that pulse belonged to Mrs. Harris, his favorite and most tenured client. Though he wouldn’t miss much about his soon-to-be-former life, he would certainly miss her. Mrs. Harris always felt more like family and it was only fitting that she was supposed to be his curtain call.

Leaf Man approached Mrs. Harris’s well-manicured sidewalk, which seemed even more immaculate against the backdrop of its tumbledown surroundings. When he reached her warmly-lit porch, he noticed one blemish he promised to tend to: her broken mailbox, still lying propped up against her porch as it had been for months. He wouldn’t have time to fix it tonight, but at least he would have an excuse to visit again—not as her dealer, but as her friend. It saddened him that nobody else had taken the time to fix it. It was even sadder that he was probably the only one who would.

He gave three hard knocks. He knew the door would be unlocked and that he would be expected to come in, but he didn’t like to go in unannounced. It was no secret that Mrs. Harris kept a loaded 9 mm in her end table—a gift he had given her in response to her request. And it was also no secret that she had successfully used it to ward off intruders on a couple of occasions. He didn’t want to become an accidental third victim.

Though she was expecting him, it appeared to Leaf Man that Mrs. Harris was beginning to lose some of her marbles. He didn’t know what to expect anymore.

Leaf Man knocked one more time, but Mrs. Harris didn’t answer. He entered with caution and walked past a long, doily-draped table, lined with framed portraits of the disappearing act known as her family. Though still alive, they all might as well have been ghosts.

When Leaf Man reached the end of the hallway, he saw a familiar sight: Mrs. Harris sitting in the ragged, vintage orange and brown recliner she affectionately referred to as “the best seat in the house.”

In fact, Mrs. Harris’s entire home was a time capsule hearkening back to the city’s hey-day.

Before everything became lost.

Despite the immaculate exterior of her home, the interior was a lot more “lived-in.” It was cluttered, but not like that of a hoarder, but rather, in a warm and inviting sense.

“Throwing away old newspapers is like throwing away history,” she always said, with no evident awareness of modern media.

This same philosophy clearly applied to everything else in her house. In fact, Mrs. Harris had lived in this house for over sixty years, along with her husband who had passed away four years earlier. When they bought the house, the neighborhood was still fairly new.

Before it all changed. Before big industry had moved in and before everything became coated with a strange, colorful dust that many believed to be a cause for the upsurge in cancer diagnoses among Delray’s residents.

Though Leaf Man found it hard to believe, Mrs. Harris told him frequently that he was her favorite visitor. And it wasn’t a stretch to say that the feeling was mutual. She reminded him of his own grandmother, who raised him until she passed away when he was seventeen. Fortunately, by that point, she had taught him everything he needed to know about being a gentleman, with old-fashioned decency and respect.

With Mrs. Harris, it felt like he was making up for lost time, which was perhaps the main reason he dreaded telling her that he could no longer be her personal pharmacist.

“Is that the gigolo I ordered?” Mrs. Harris asked in a creaky, dry voice when she heard his footsteps.

“You wish,” Leaf Man said, laughing, somewhat taken aback by her uncharacteristic, ribald greeting.

“So, when you gonna start locking your door, Mrs. Harris?”

“The day I leave for heaven,” she responded, in the dry humor he was more accustomed to. Despite her frail frame and sunken face, her spirit shone brightly.

“So how you doin’, Mrs. H?” Leaf Man asked.

Before he had even finished his question, he already knew the answer. Although Mrs. Harris has been losing weight for some time, the change was now becoming increasingly obvious. Mrs. Harris was looking more like a living skeleton with each passing day.

“Still vertical,” she sighed. “Still living. Just ain’t livin’ too well.”

“Well, hopefully I can help with that.”

“Just having you visit me is all the medicine I need, sugar.”

Though she lived alone, she did have a son, a daughter, and five grandchildren, all living in the metro area. But in their minds, Detroit might as well have been on the other side of the world. While she remained in the family home, the rest of her family fled for a comfortable suburban existence the first chance they got.

Like so many others in post-rebellion Detroit, her family fled north of 8 Mile. As Mrs. Harris’s family proved, it wasn’t just “white flight” that contributed to population loss. It was a matter of who could afford it. Despite constant pressure from her family to join them across the 8 Mile divide—especially after yet another break-in—Mrs. Harris stood steadfast.

Over time, once the excuses had run out, her family simply stopped coming to visit.

“The only way I’m leaving my home is in a box,” she would insist, along with “my next home is in the promised land.”

Next to Mrs. Harris on a cluttered end table was an empty, stained, plastic camping mug—the only cup she used—and from what Leaf Man ascertained, the only one she owned. The only thing she drank out of it was water. No juice. No tea. No coffee. And certainly no alcohol. Never a drop in her life.

“Let me get you some more water,” Leaf Man insisted.

“My feet still work, honey.”

“And so do mine, Mrs. Harris,” Leaf Man said, taking the cup over to her cluttered kitchen, where a week’s worth of dishes lay piled up in the sink. He would wash them, as he always did.     

He turned on the tap. Rust-tinged water spurted out, so he waited several seconds until it became a light yellow, which was about as clear as it got. He filled up the cup, and brought it to Mrs. Harris.

“Thank you, honey,” she said. She took an extra-long sip. He wondered how long it had been empty—and how long she had been thirsty.

“We gotta do something ‘bout those pipes,” he said.

“Son, I’ve drank that water for over sixty years. Ain’t no reason to change the recipe now.”

“Is it possible it’s getting worse?”

Mrs. Harris shrugged him off.

“I’ll be right back.”

Leaf Man headed back to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Despite the time crunch, he was still in pretty good shape. He couldn’t help but wonder who would clean the dishes when he was gone.

“Glad to see you’re eating again,” he said, taking note of the dirty dishes.

“Don’t bother with them dishes, honey,” Mrs. Harris said from the other room. He ignored her plea.

He left the dishes in the rack to drip dry, and then made his way back to the living room. He paused to examine Mrs. Harris’s wedding portrait, which hung next to a picture of a little girl in a ballet costume. She appeared so vibrant—so alive—in contrast to the withered old soul whose emaciated frame barely dented the cushion of her recliner. But she still had that same spark in her eyes.

Leaf Man sat down on the sofa, adjacent to the recliner. It was time to get down to business. He removed a prescription bottle and a single blue pill. Mrs. Harris took it from him, popped it into her mouth and, with a trembling hand, took a large sip of water, nearly choking on it. Leaf Man had to tilt the mug upward to prevent her from spilling the water on her lap.

“Easy there, Mrs. Harris.”

She laughed, triggering yet another cough.

“Now don’t forget, Mrs. Harris. Three times a day, okay?”

“Haven’t forgotten once.”  

“And don’t take it on an empty stomach. Take it with your meals. You remember what happened last time, right?” She shook her head, confused. It wasn’t like her to forget details such as these.

“And avoid operating any heavy machinery. Or driving.”

“The only machine I’ll be operating is this old, knock-off La-Z-Boy.” Leaf Man laughed.

“Why do you insist on telling me all of this every time?” she asked. “Protocol, Mrs. H. I’m a professional.”

Mrs. Harris reached deep into her bra and removed a couple of twenty-dollar bills. Leaf Man was totally caught off guard.

“Here you go, sugar,” she said.

“Naw, this one’s on me,” Leaf Man said.

“Stop talking like a fool,” she said.

“Consider it my goodbye gift.”

No turning back now.

Mrs. Harris’s joyful demeanor sunk.

“Oh, Lord. My time is up isn’t it? And you’re really the Grim Reaper in sheep’s clothing coming to reap your just reward.”      

He couldn’t tell if she was serious.    

“You know damn well that you’re going to outlive all of us, Mrs. Harris.”

“Dear Lord, I certainly hope not. Now, tell me, son, what’s this goodbye business all about?” “Before I explain, please, put that money away.”

She stuffed the money back down her shirt. He expected more resistance.

“It’s time to finally go after what I’ve been chasing my whole life.”

“Music?”

Leaf Man nodded.

“Praise the Lord! About damn time!”

When her joy quickly morphed into concern, he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“And don’t worry. I already lined somebody up for you next month and beyond. He’s good. You’ll like him.”

“Nobody can replace you,” she said. “But I understand. Best get out while you still can. I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Harris. Can I get you anything before I go?”

 “Son, what I need, you wouldn’t want to give an old lady like me.” Leaf Man was thrown for another loop.

“Easy now, Mrs. Harris,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

She had never flirted with him before.

“Don’t mean I won’t be back,” Leaf Man assured her.

“Thank you. You’re one of the good ones, son. Lord knows you’re a dying breed.”

“For the sake of the planet, I hope not,” Leaf Man said. “On both counts.”

“You are. And you know it.”

“Take care of yourself,” Leaf Man said. “And remember, you were always my favorite customer. And not just because of all the business you brought me.”

“Whatever you do, don’t look back. Unlike me, you’re still writing your prologue. I’m finishing up my epilogue.”

“Like I said, you’re gonna live forever, Mrs. Harris.”

“Shiiit,” Mrs. Harris said. “Come give me a hug, you son of a bitch.”

Until tonight, swearing—like flirting—was simply not in her character. Mrs. Harris was a genuine Christian in all the right ways—his type of Christian. She even went so far as to watch church on TV when she could no longer leave her house. In fact, it was her stubborn insistence to go to church that led to an unfortunate slip off her icy porch. Fortunately, she suffered only a few scrapes and bruises, but she knew right then that God was telling her that the time had come to become an armchair Christian.

Leaf Man wondered if she’d ever leave her house again, especially with another long Michigan winter looming. He would see to it that he would take her for a stroll every now and then.

As they continued to hug, he tried to push back the tears swelling in his eyes, but it was no use.   

“You take care, Mrs. Harris.”

“It has been a true pleasure knowing you, you hear me now?” Mrs. Harris said, through tears of her own.

“Hey, come on, Mrs. H. Enough of that. I’m gonna be back. I promise. Somebody gotta fix your mailbox. And if you ever need me for anything else, you got my number. You take care, okay, Mrs. Harris.”

“Don’t you worry about me, son. God bless you. God bless.”

And with that, Leaf Man headed out into the cold, dark night, his back illuminated by the warm glow emanating from Mrs. Harris’ home—like the dying embers of a fire set ages ago.