chapter five

a dark netherworld

I drove north on Grand Avenue past the lush Gateway University campus and its many contemporary buildings of higher learning, beyond the fabulous Fox Theatre and Powell Symphony Hall. It was late afternoon on a fine spring day made for soaking up the sunshine; I had the top down and an old Jimmie Spheeris CD playing. A couple eye blinks later, I crossed over to the dark side of the moon. Manicured landscapes disappeared and in their place, empty weed-filled lots vied for prominence with abandoned and boarded-up buildings spray painted with gang tags. Inhabited homes, some tidy with yards fenced off as if the owners were trying to hold back the steady march of decay, barely outnumbered the decrepit remains people once called home. I passed a chop suey joint, tavern, church, and two quick loan stores. A vendor sold jewelry and trinkets from the hood of his old beater parked on an empty lot. The number of cars on the road decreased; small clusters of people loitered or milled about outside what appeared to be one of the area’s only open businesses, a yellow mini-mart/liquor store, while some pedaled bikes or waited for buses. An old Bondo-primed Riveria with tinted windows sped past me and cruised with abandon through a series of red lights.

I passed Grand and Dodier, where Stan the Man Musial patrolled the outfield in old Sportsman’s Park fifty years ago, which later was renamed the first Busch Stadium. No building remained, though there was a baseball field. Too many vacant buildings and businesses from a bygone era now reduced to empty shells with broken windows and buckled parking lots overrun by weeds and glass. Before Natural Bridge Avenue and Fairground Park, I made a left off Grand onto Hebert Street, where some of the mostly brick bungalows sat vacant and dilapidated, one next to another, block after block. Every so often the burned-out shell of a house stood in an empty lot like a desiccated skeleton. Postage stamp yards revealed bare spots interrupted by crabgrass, broken glass, and discarded fast food wrappers. Hebert Street looked to be one of the worst maintained streets in a badly blighted neighborhood.

If Lonnie Washington was printing money like there was no tomorrow, he certainly didn’t seem to be spending it on his mother.

LaKeesha’s small brick and wood A-frame appeared almost as bleak and Godforsaken as the jail. Shortly after I’d parked my Solstice at the curb, two young boys nearby began fighting and throwing chunks of broken bricks at each other from the scattered rubble of what I assumed used to be a house next door. In the interests of peace (and my cherry red Solstice), I called the boys over and gave them each five dollars to watch my car while I spoke with Mrs. Washington. The smaller one named Ty had a wry smile while DeAndre was taller, darker, and carried more meat on his frame. They grabbed the bills and took their positions.

I peered up at the house and noted that the brick faÇade needed tuck pointing. Warped wooden steps leading to the front porch were nearly void of paint and one stair was missing altogether. The screen door nearly fell off when I rapped on it—it hung suspended by the strength of two screws, silver duct tape, and a prayer. A short, hefty black woman opened the door a crack. She grimaced, her tongue protruded, and she repeatedly smacked and puckered and pursed her lips, while her eyes blinked rapidly. The involuntary and purposeless movements persisted as her fingers moved clumsily up and down the door jamb while she struggled not to move.

“You the po-lice?”

“No ma’m. Are you Mrs. Washington?”

Her nod became a grimace as her tongue shot out like a snake smelling the air. Her lower lip jutted as her head bobbed and weaved. “You with the television peoples?”

I introduced myself. “ I met Lonnie for the first time last week. I'm a social worker trying to help him. He asked me to check on you and see how you’re holding up through all this.”

“You a white man in this neighborhood knockin’ on my door … and you ain’t the po-lice or a reporter?” Her tongue stuck out again and her head bobbed like a turtle’s. She seemed confused. “What you say you are again?”

I tried another tact. “I'm a social worker, and I talk with Lonnie five days a week about his problems. May we talk for a few minutes?”

Behind me, near my car, the two boys resumed yelling and fighting. This time the smaller Ty had brought reinforcements—a scrawny German shepherd now joined in the fray, barking and baring his fangs at DeAndre. The escalating tension in the street appeared to transfer to LaKeesha.

She smacked her lips and the trembling increased. Her expression softened, but then her tongue protruded, her lips smacked, and her head resumed bobbing. She looked in all directions as if for guidance. She seemed to be having an internal dialogue with herself or someone else. She said, “Oh my, I don’ know what to do, Skinny. I can’t talk with no one unless I check with Lonnie first.” When she at last stood still for a brief moment, I noticed she had a lazy right eye. She blinked her eyes, jerked her head, and looked at me. “Sorry, Mister, but I gots to go. His only problem is he shouldn't be in no jail!”

She slammed the door so hard in my face that the screw holding the lower screen hinge bounced onto the porch landing, rolled between the weathered and warped planks, and disappeared into the dark netherworld below.

The same could happen to Lonnie.

His mother was borderline mentally challenged, but her socially inappropriate bizarre gyrations, movements that would lead the average person on the street to conclude she was crazy or psychotic, didn’t faze me in the least. I’d seen the symptoms hundreds of times. But if I didn’t want Lonnie to fall between the cracks, I needed answers, and it appeared I wouldn’t be getting any from LaKeesha. Who the hell is Skinny?

I turned back to the car and realized the boys had run off, oblivious to their duty, the shepherd chasing DeAndre with Ty bringing up the rear, giggling and happily smashing a brittle stick against a row of gnarly tree trunks.

It was time to go to work on the answer man.