The Obituary of B

You could almost forget by looking at him that he was smarter than you. Invariably his shoes were untied and his shirt was untucked. You could be fooled to think that he was harried because papers and folders and files would be peaking from his bag, he would misplace his keys, and he lost his his cell phone with astonishing regularity and creativity. But he wasn't harried, he was thinking about what was next. What was next was often figuring out how better to educate children, or how to get you money to pay your rent, or how to challenge and provide for his own family, or how to justify watching music videos at his age. OK, sometimes he was just harried.

When B laughed with you, he made you feel like you were funny---and that you should learn the Heimlich maneuver. His laugh was deep and real and would entice you to laugh with him, but sounded quite damaging to his chest cavity. No movie or episode of "The Wire" without his outlandish comments and insights were as good as those with them. I mean, Jeffrey Wright was on-screen in "Casino Royale" for all of nine minutes, but B must have talked about Bond's "cousin from Langley" for days. In fact, Wright was often the subject of B's bad impersonations: how many times did I hear "Tiger Wooooooooooooooos"? But that was the thing I loved most about B: he couldn't impersonate, but impersonated; he couldn't dance, but danced; he didn't rap, but rapped; and he couldn't sing, but Lord he sang. As far-reaching as B's impact on his community was, I can't stop focusing on the small facts about his life that impressed and inspired me. Like the facts that he carried a wallet in his bathrobe, he beat-boxed to his children, he dug a big-ass hole in his backyard in a t-shirt that would fit a second-grade girl for absolutely no reason, he constantly reminded you that he could knock-out any living person, he looked at you like you were less-than-a-man if you didn't have beer in your house, but the man never finished a whole beer in his life, and he only got off the phone when he was good and ready.

B was always my friend, but I didn't like him as much growing up as I did once we grew up. My father, being a life-long soldier, got up almost everyday of my adolescence to run/walk two or three miles. When he would come home to rouse me for school, my dad would always comment that he saw B out in the early-morning air delivering newspapers. Gumption, hustle, initiative, drive, focus, disipline were some of the words my father used to describe B, while trifling, lazy, and soft were his choice adjectives for me. When B scored well on the SAT, he came to my house to tell my dad what he got; it was about 900 points higher than what I got. (Whatzupwitdat?). I'm not sure how, but B's paper route became the reason for his high SAT score, his admittence at a good college, and certification of a wonderful life. My dad died a long time ago, and he died wishing I was a little more like B. More and more, as I settle into manhood I am embarrassed to learn how many things my dad was right about. And he was right about B: many of us would do well to be a little more like B.

When we were teenagers, I told B he should run for president. He laughed, but I was serious. I said this because B had a way with people. When you went somewhere with B he knew people, and people knew him. When you left a restaurant with B, you left knowing your server's name, the names of the people sitting next to you, and with two to three half-finished glasses of beer on your table. America probably isn't ready for a president who could recite whole Public Enemy songs, or would insist on driving his own car, or who would have his whole family, all his boys, and the pastor of his church up in Air Force One, but he would have gotten a lot of votes. People would have voted for B because he cared about other people more than he cared about himself, because he loved to see people happy, because he did what he said he was going to do--even if it was late, and because he knew how to listen without getting too preachy. Unless, of course, you needed him to preach, then you got a sermon.

It took me, literally, a lifetime to learn that my dad was right about B. Sometimes I chuckle to think about B out on that bike in the morning and my dad marching down the streets of our hometown with his stick and the two of them crossing paths. I see them nod in acknowledgment of each other and keep it moving---both have deadlines to meet. They shared innate qualities that I have tried over my life to cultivate. And, now, I know that my father's attempts to make me more like B (in fact, I had a paper route for an insanely inferior publication for about a week) were veiled attempts to make me more like him. It goes without saying that I have failed at both.