Memorial

Gene was an older, gay alcoholic. When I first arrived at Fifth & High in the Short North, he was one of the first street drunk I came across. Huddled, curled and wet, reeking of alcohol and urine, he was blocking the front doorway to the building where I lived on North High Street. Buzz kill.

"Hey dude!" He smelled too bad to be dead. "Dude!" Eyes opening slow. A blood grey blur. "You're gonna have to move, dude!" He sort of sat up and shifted to the far side of the stoop, barely leaving room to get around. Buzz kill.

Gene was always around, in this or that doorway. The hope of a well meaning Good Samaratian coming through with enough change to buy the next Cobra or bottle of Richards kept him stationed near the carryout, where the owner might have pity on him if his jingle was a bit under what he needed. He survived through the charity of the churches in the area. Better Way Ministries served meals three or four times a week and New Life United Methodist was there every Sunday morning for breakfast. Pastor Jennifer, at New Life, also offered clothing three times a week, so Gene might get a change of drawers when his became soiled enough to offend even his sensibilities. His lot was shared with with a number of other locals who appeared, drank what they could within their society of like destitutes, and disappeared at some appointed hour. At the time, I didn't know where they went when they vanished from the block, who took them, or why. But I noticed that regularly Gene would appear shaved, clean, and in better condition than before.

High Street has been a draw for me since I was a teenager. Back then, the campus area was the hub of street activity. In the block north of Seventeenth, there was an all-night resturant where all the good heads went for coffee, burgers, hallucinogens and other such psychic expanders. White Ozley, purple haze, peyote, and the full range of illicit substances were all to be found there, waiting for any non-believing, nonconformist, experimental test run dreamtime baby. Try everything. Experience for the pure sake. Eventually dreamtime came home to rest, claiming the cerebial territory of the soul part and parcel. So it was with Gene, claimed as a member of the sad brotherhood of drink, partaking as often and as much as possible. His member card privledges extended into the trousers of his black comrads of the street, High Street. Everything happens there, was and will, beginning and end. High Street united us.

I spent a good deal of time there, on High Street, when I was using, and getting sober. If I was using, I'd hang at the stone sofa, a piece of community art carved from limestone and placed in the pocket park at Fourth and High, drinking and panhandling. If I was sober, it would be long, nightly walks down High to Goodale Park, watching the hunt. I understood what it was with Gene, how he came to depend on the community, the neighborhood to meet his needs, his attraction to the black men he preferred to trick with. I came to know him better when I ran into him at the support group that met nightly at New Life.

I was surprised to learn that Gene had a nursing certificate and plans to renew his license. A few weeks off the sauce, he was as amicible and interesting a person as anyone in the rooms. I respeceted what he had done for himself: reinvented his very existence. No more panhandling, no sleeping in vacant doorways. No more street boozing. How would the neighborhood survive? Though I doubt that any of the hustlers he favored had more than slight realization of the transformation he'd accomplished. However, there are no guarantees in life, no real happy-ever-afters. I was too well aware of the temptations involved with staying sober, the difficulty an unhealthy environment presents, and was extremely concerned when I saw the fall. Back on the booze it didn't take long for him to return to his old habits. The street was what he returned to, sort of a homecoming. The street gives; the street takes. There was very little real communication when I tried to talk to him then. I felt a certain betrayal by the support group, that, as far as I could tell, did nothing to pull him back into the fold. Someone should have done something. I was soon very sorry that I hadn't done more.

When I saw Gene with Roan, going into the yellow brick turn of the century low rent apartment building on the corner, I knew he was in trouble. Roan was trouble. When he wasn't in jail for fighting with the woman he lived with, he was occupying a bench in the bus stop at the corner. Perhaps it was his crazy eye that never looked quite at you with its milky gaze, perhaps his imposing stature, but there was something evil about him. Something about his nature challenged anyone who might want to occupy his haunt at the stop. Roan didn't live in the building, but Hank did. And Hank hung close by him when Roan was there, on the street, in the park, or at one of the area churches offering dinner. Hank and I talked when he was hanging out alone, but I knew to stay clear of Roan and the collection of junkies and crack-heads Hank's building harbored. I was in Hank's room once. He was planning to move and offered me a lamp if I wanted it. The air in the hallway leading up to the room filled my head with the smell of untended food, old furniture, and people. I didn't like being there. I couldn't fathom staying in those cramped, unwelcoming quarters.

The last tine I saw Gene it was a day or so later, he was being led upstairs by Hank, Roan, and another young black. The next morning, the rear entrance to my apartment was blocked by bright police tape, officers on the porch, and detectives. I was told to stay inside, away from the porch. Someone would talk with me later. I told an officer that I had to leave for work. Exiting the front of my building, I walked around to the alley to see what was up. There were police cruisers behind Hank's building, along with TV news wagons. The alley was roped off with more police tape. None of the officers would say what was going on. I had to rush to my day job. Late that afternoon, attending to New Life trustee duties, I learned that a body was found at the base of the fire escape, an old guy named Gene. I became horribly sickened within. The police believed he had been beaten to death.

I had lived in the neighborhood for several years. Active in the church, I knew nearly everyone who came for breakfast, for clothing, and those attending the monthly dinners. Still, at first it was difficult to get anyone to talk about Gene's death. Hank swore he wasn't in the building, that he had moved his things out earlier in the day, and was aleady staying with his mother a few blocks over. Generally, there was no noticeable difference in the neighborhood. There were always a few locals on the block. Gene had been there, now he wasn't. Eventually a few of my questions were answered and it wan't pretty. The murder had taken place in Hank's room. An arrest had been made, the suspect was a fairly young fella called Stace. Odd thing was, according to the talk going round, Stace wasn't even there when Gene was killed, or when his body was thrown down the fire escape. He wasn't the one bragging and showing people the corpse.

I wasn't happy with myself or with the neighborhood. I had to do something. One call to the police and I connected with the homicide detectives handling the case, got a machine and left a message. It wasn't long before the call was returned and I was talking with someone. We agreed to meet at New Life and discuss what I knew. At the appointed time, I met with two detectives from Homicide and offered up the information. Subsequently, both Pastor Jennifer and I met with the public defender assigned to the fella named Stace. Jennifer had been contacted by him and had visited Stace when he was in custody, so naturally she was determined to see that the right person was punished for the crime. We directed an investigator to the witnesses we knew of and prayed for the best. As things turned out, the best that could be was that the charges against Stace were dropped. No one was ever prosecuted for Gene's death.

Occassionally. I still see a few of the people involved. We nod when our pathes cross, and go our seperate ways. Could I have done more? I'm not sure what that would have been. The only person I can pull back from such struggles as addiction and self hatred is me, and even that and all else depends upon a force greater than myself. Nothing good ever comes from needless tragedy, but at least the wrong person wasn't punished. And good or bad, memories last a life time.