A Man is a Toaster

I recently ran into an old friend, Henry Jackson, who has to be crowding 70. His face was unlined, his limbs loose, and he looked no older than fifty. When I told him that he smiled and said, "That's because black don't crack."

He rubbed his face when I asked him about his four kids. When I knew him as a super in the Bronx 25 years ago he claimed he was a bachelor who'd had four kids with three different women.

"I got six kids now," he told me, "and can't support the two youngest. Not that I supported the others. So I guess papa was a rolling stone. The others, the older ones are all doing real good. I get no credit for that. I was nothing but a sperm donor. Threw them a twenty once in awhile but I was no father. Lucky they all had good mothers."

We hadn't seen each other in a while but our paths seem to cross every few years-a street corner in Brooklyn, a deli in Manhattan, a stoop in the Bronx.

"So how you doing now that you're all grown," he asked. "You a damn tree now," he said, not waiting for an answer. "You tall. You tall men can't take pain as well as a shorter man. You got more muscle, skin, and nerves to hurt."

I told him I had beautiful eight-year-old twin girls and figured that was enough progeny for me.

"That's smart. A good gardener has to know when to put his hose down and roll it up. Me, I sprayed my hose all around this city and did nothing to make those flowers grow."

A quarter century back Jackson was on his stoop with a six pack of Schaeffer when he called over three black kids and three white kids who'd been playing ball across the street at St. James Park. I think we went over in the hopes of a beer.

Instead he asked the black kids if they knew that Jamaicans and Africans hated their black asses: "You black boys think that just 'cause you brown, we all down. Newer immigrants hate American blacks. Think we lazy and lowlifes."

One of the white guys laughed.

"You think that's funny, white boy? I know Italian and Irish and Jews all fight, but to the average black you ain't nothing but a bunch of whites. They ain't thinking, 'That a Jew, that a Mick?'"

From there he began telling us how to differentiate amongst Asians, who had just started to move into the Bronx and who he claimed would one day take over the world.

"The Chinese are like the Jews here, smart and good at business. The Koreans are Irish. They like to drink and fight. The Cambodians and those Viet Nammies are Mexicans. They real small and like to work. The Japanese and the Indians are Wasps. They are very proper and think they all that. Take this knowledge and you can travel the Far East successfully."

There was, of course, not a chance in hell that any of us would be world travelers.

"I know you boys think you know women but you don't. See, a man is a toaster. You press one lever and he gets hot. A woman is a space ship. There are more knobs, handle and buttons than you ever seen. And you got to touch most of them just right. You got to keep moving with a woman. But when you do it right she can go all night."

We laughed when I recalled his old advice, but his eyes got sad when I asked him about money.

"I had a good run but I'm running out of energy," he said. "Social Security goes only so far. I sell batteries on the trains but I am old and broke. Not a good combination."

I asked where he lived and his face lit back up.

"You know a black man my age has his choice. I got six different women going. Keep a little of my stuff in each house. I always told you a rat needs more than one hole to run into."

We said goodbye as Jackson walked away to one of his six apartments. That apartment's woman was making him pot roast and that seemed to make him happy.