Old School

Recently, I was driving to meet a friend for a drink at a bar in downtown Los Angeles. I was stuck in slowly-moving traffic. My car was in the lane furthest to the right side, aside from the parking lane. There was an ambiguous box truck parked in that lane. As I was sitting, waiting for the cars in front of me to drag their tires forward just a bit, the box truck started to pull back. The truck’s driver side mirror struck my passenger side mirror. Its mirror was much larger and stronger than my mirror. My mirror came halfway off. The driver pulled forward, and the truck’s mirror then ripped my mirror off entirely. The driver pulled ahead of me. This situation all unfolded so quickly, so much faster than everything else that was happening around me. I was in shock; I didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t much I could do—the box truck slid ahead and then pulled away, out of sight. So I just accepted life and kept driving to the bar.

The bar is right on the edge of Skid Row. It’s been around for ages. There’s never any parking near the bar, so I always park in Skid Row. I found a spot, easily. I parked my car, got out, and walked around to the passenger side. As I was inspecting the cables dangling from where the body of the mirror was once attached, a middle-aged black man appeared from a tent. He asked me what was going on with my mirror. I briefly explained what just went down.

He snapped, “Well, shit. You gonna be around here for a while?” I said I was just heading to a bar down the street for an hour or two. He said, “Okay, now listen to me—you have a good time. I got your back, son. Ain’t no one gonna fuck with your shit. Okay?” I thanked him and told him how much I appreciated him looking after my vulnerable vehicle.

I walked down the street to the bar, drank an Old Fashioned, caught up with my friend a bit, and headed back towards where I parked my car. On the way, a different homeless man called me Harry Potter. I laughed out loud. He laughed harder. To be fair, I am a skinny white boy with round spectacles.

When I arrived at the spot where my car was resting, its caretaker was still there. He proclaimed, “Hey, look—didn’t I tell you ain’t no one gonna fuck with your shit…?!” I said, “Yeah, man! You did! Thanks!”

He said, “Ain’t no thang, young buck! That’s what I do! You gotta have your people’s backs. Am I right?”

I replied, “No doubt.”

“For real, though. We gotta look out for each other. You do bad shit to other people, bad shit gonna happen to you. You do good shit for other people, good shit gonna happen to you.”

“I believe that,” I said.

He said, “That’s right, my brother. Now what’s your name?”

“I’m Keith. And you?”

“I go by ‘Old School.’ They all call me Old School.”

“Oh, word? Why’s that, Old School?”

“’Cause I can sing all the oldies, all the classics. All of them. You’ll see…”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, you’ll see. Now, all right…I ain’t sayin’ I believe in God or karma, per se, but I am sayin’ I believe in bein’ a good person. Or at least tryin’ to be a good person. And you know, I been thinkin’ about what happened to you earlier. I mean, what the fuck was up with that dude who hit you?”

I said, “Well, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. And to be honest, I don’t even know if he or she knew what had happened. I mean, their car was so much bigger than mine. Maybe they didn’t feel it? Maybe they didn’t notice? Maybe they were just exhausted from a long day of deliveries? Maybe they just wanted to get home to their partner or their kids? I felt it, because it happened to me. But maybe they didn’t, because it didn’t happen to them. You know?”

He said, “Nah, man. They felt that shit. Ain’t no way someone ain’t gonna feel that shit. They was drinkin’ or on somethin’. Or they was into some shady shit. You know what I mean?”

I said, “Ah, I don’t know…”

He said, “Fuck that. They was up to somethin’. They was up to no good. Why else they gonna pull off and not sort that shit out?”

I said, “I don’t know, but…”

He interrupted, “Man, come on…you should have followed their ass. You should have gotten that license plate. You should have gotten that company name. You should have reported their ass.”

I said, “Hey—I wasn’t trying to lose my other mirror in the process! It’s all good. Sometimes shit just happens, you know?”

He said, “Oh, hell yeah! Shit happens all the time! I know that’s right…”

Then he started to tell me about how his fragile youth. He told me about being raised by the women in his family. He told me about getting harassed by D.C. cops. He told me about how he flew out to Los Angeles when he was even younger than me to visit his older brother, who had moved out here while he was still in community college, trying to figure out his life. He said he wanted to be a journalist at the time. From what I could tell, he was a great storyteller. Maybe he could have been a journalist? He certainly could have been something. He told me about how he immediately fell in love with the city—the sunsets, the sunrises, the palm trees, the celebrities, the beach, the babes. He loved it all. He loved it all so much that he never went back home to the East Coast. He never went back to community college.

He never ended up getting around to how he ended up on the streets, though. And I obviously didn’t ask him. But he did tell me about what it means to be on the streets. He started to tell me about his fragile adulthood. He told me about his new friends, his new family. He told me about getting harassed by L.A. cops. He told me about how Mayor Eric Garcetti and his cronies sold the city, including him, on false promises of helping out the homeless, only to sell them out in no time. This was all information I already knew and, of course, found to be disheartening. But it was previously more in the abstract—stuff I had read in newspapers and online. But to hear it from this man, in real life, as opposed to reading about it in print or on a screen, was certainly more heartbreaking, exponentially so.

Apparently, city officials had been trying to get him to move to a shelter in Pomona. Why Pomona? He had no idea, and neither did I.

He said, “I don’t know nobody in Pomona. I don’t wanna live in Pomona. Do you know anybody in Pomona? Do you wanna live in Pomona?”

I said, “I don’t and I don’t.”

“Listen, I’m a person. I have rights. I’m a good person. Or at least I try to be. And I don’t think anybody has the right—the mayor, the cops, nobody—to take me away from my friends, my family, my people, my shit, and tell me I gotta go to some bullshit place I ain’t never been to out, like, on the way to the desert or wherever, or whatever…you feel me?”

I said, “I do, I do. For sure.”

“I mean, I ain’t tryin’ to talk shit on Pomona. Maybe it ain’t bullshit. Maybe it’s a fuckin’ cool place for some people. I mean, people livin’ out there, right? But I ain’t gotta be one of those people, do I?”

I said, “Definitely not. Nobody should tell you what to do or where to go.”

“Fuck no. I mean, fuck yeah. I mean, fuck that. I figured out my shit. This is my shit. This shit right here. These are my people. This is what I know. This is who I know.”

We kept talking; we kept getting to know each other. After he was done with his consecutive performative tangents, he eventually asked me about “my story,” which was essentially a brief Q & A session—he asked me some questions, I answered them. Sometimes he answered them for me. I didn’t mind. Not at all.

After about an hour or so, he asked me if I’d give him a few bucks so that he and his somewhat stoic friend, Jamal, could eat. I bought them chicken; they offered me a Modelo. I said I was good; Old School complimented me for being responsible. He listed off a number of times when cops hassled him for having an open container. He proudly described the ways in which he got off without being charged. Jamal chimed in, “Yeah, you never get in real trouble, Old School.” Then Old School complimented Jamal on his new haircut. Jamal proudly explained that he got it for free down the street earlier in the day.

A little more time passed and I realized it was getting late. I was having so much fun that time had completely slipped away from me. I accidentally skipped the rest of my loose plans for the night. It was okay, though. It was more than okay.

Nonetheless, I had to part ways with Old School. I said goodbye to both him and Jamal. Jamal nodded his head and ashed his cigarette. Old School said, “You know what? I ain’t never met a Keith who ain’t a nice guy. Goddamn, you ayite for a white boy!”

I laughed and thanked him and told him to have a nice rest of his night. Then, shortly after I turned the ignition, Old School approached the driver side window. I wound it down. He said, “Keith! I never sang you a song!”

I said, “Oh, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that, Old School.”

Old School exclaimed, “You bet your ass I do! That’s what I do!” and proceeded to belt out “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, trying to capture the soul of the late singer’s ghost. After he finished his performance, he said, “Good night and be good, my man” and tapped the hood of my car.