Eggplant Man Read online

  His fingers effortlessly tuned the instrument and soon fell into their rightful places on the expectant strings. Melodic jazzy lullabies filled the room and the sound waves wafted down the corridor. The first was Chet Baker’s ‘Chetty’s Lullaby’ followed by Miles Davis’s ‘Blue in Green’ from his album “Kind of Blue.” The employees, visitors and medical staff, fortunate enough to be on the ward at that moment, slipped into a bluesy calm. After his rendition, and exhausted by the memory onslaught, Eggplant Man fell into a deep sleep, still clasping his banjo.

  Chet Baker

  Chetty’s Lullaby

  Che Veglierò,

  Questa notteÿ solo per te,

  Dolce bimbo ti dirò che presto tornerò,

  Senza te,

  Sento gelo nel mio cuor,

  Cerco solo

  L’illusione

  Di averti qui con me…

  (English Translation:

  I will watch,

  This notteÿ just for you,

  Sweet child will tell you that I will return soon,

  Without you,

  I feel cold in my heart,

  I just try

  The illusion

  To have you here with me ...

  CHAPTER 27

  Moving On

  Ruby was in a miasma of devastation and confusion for the first two weeks following Eggplant Man’s disappearance. She attempted to stick to her routine of the past 20 years. Unable to sleep well, she would awake early, with dried salt stains fixed on her cheeks. She spent extra time under the cold single stream of water and punishingly scrubbed her private areas extra hard with her brown soap. Ruby would don her white tee and khaki pants uniform. She found herself unplaiting and re-plaiting her hair multiple times, often without the benefit of the coconut oil and the one hundred and thirteen strokes. Eventually she would slip out of her apartment, unavoidably noting the crude metal lock Eggplant Man had fashioned for her safety.

  Each day, Ruby would head up to 125th and Amsterdam to start her routine garbage rounds. Her eyes were always peeled for any sign of Eggplant Man. When she arrived at 125th, Ruby would furtively peek eastward towards Bubba’s Parlor. The empty space would starkly glare back at her. Often, Ruby lost track of time, and spent hours standing on the corner just waiting. Sometimes she missed the gray garbage truck passing by. Unknown to Ruby, she was being observed.

  Nearby, standing on the weathered brownstone porch, was the lady in blue. She was lazily taking long, pensive draws on her Virginia Slims’ cigarette. After two weeks of her futile search and wait regimen, Ruby stopped looking for Eggplant Man. As time passed and Ruby became more disillusioned, her behavior became increasingly erratic. Her ambulation became more jolted and her mumblings to herself were more frequent and louder. Her eyes took on a more feral stare.

  Ma’ Dear’s voice was crowding out any thoughts of her own. It was a cacophony of advice and warnings. Ruby could not turn off the switch. For the first time that she could recall, she started having pounding headaches. It felt as if her head would explode.

  It had been a month since she had last seen Eggplant Man. Ruby had a sense that an important part of her was slipping away. There was a void somewhere deep inside of her. She could not pinpoint exactly where it was. Her head felt separated from her heart. There was an unbearable combination of ennui and dispirited concern. The virtual sign hanging from her heart read, “Vacancy.” Her head was saying, “No room in the Inn.” Her appetite was gone. Her gaunt look was evidence that she was not eating.

  Ruby knew she had to end this agony or she would not survive. Her first action was to change her trash tour route to avoid passing 125th and Amsterdam. Since today was the thirty day anniversary of her romantic interlude with Eggplant Man, Ruby decided to make it her last time going back to Bubba’s. She walked with leaded legs back to 125th. This time would be different. Ruby felt she would have closure by standing directly in front of the parlor and sitting on the spot where he had sat, for the past twenty years.

  A cold sweat appeared on her forehead as she reached the structure. Her knees became shaky and Ruby could sense the molasses river starting to flow between her breasts. The Taiwanese owner wandered outside with his broom and began to sweep the area in front of his shop. He encountered Ruby standing there just staring at the ground. In a heavy accent, the man scowled, “You go ‘way. You no stay here. Bad for business. Things betta’ now tha’ man gone. You go ‘way.” With his broom, he made a sweeping gesture towards Ruby.

  She could not muster one word. She thought about the phrase the parlor shop owner had used, “tha’ man gone.” Ma’ Dear’s voice managed to slip through the myriad of warnings: “Men leave and people die.”

  She was still processing the thought of Eggplant Man’s leaving her when she felt a presence behind her. She turned brusquely around. Ruby found herself eye to eye with the lady in blue. She was close enough for Ruby to smell her stale cigarette breath and cheap perfume. Unprompted, the lady asked and answered her own question in a raspy smoker’s breath.

  “You lookin’ for the banjo man?” Her foul breath rested momentarily on Ruby’s face, causing her scar to twitch. “Ambulance took him to Harlem Hospital after that taxi hit him, about a month ago. He was hurt real bad, though.”

  The shop owner, overhearing the conversation, chuckled and mumbled something under his breath, in his native tongue. He then went back into his shop.

  Ruby was dumbfounded. The swirling in her head, combined with the knot in her stomach, caused nausea. She retched several times but it was unproductive. The cold sweat had now enveloped her body, in contrast to the hot syrup rivulet descending down her middle.

  The lady in blue took a deep drag on her Virginia Slims fag, then brusquely walked away, with swirls of cigarette smoke in hot pursuit. She felt pleased after releasing the information she had held hostage for the past month.

  Ruby headed uptown towards 135th and Lenox. Harlem Hospital had been the predominant health care facility in Harlem for many years, serving the economically disadvantaged community, primarily the African American population.

  When Harlem Hospital Center opened its doors on April 18, 1887, it was located at the juncture of East 120th Street and the East River. The hospital was a former Victorian mansion. Prior to the 1900s, the Dutch-founded Harlem served a very different population of immigrants, primarily the Eastern Jewish and Italian populations. Soon southern African Americans and West Indians began to migrate to Harlem. By the 1920s and 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing and Blacks in Harlem were flourishing. In 1907, Harlem Hospital relocated to its present location on 135th Street, and was therefore a facility well known to all Harlem residents.

  When Ruby entered the huge hospital lobby, she was awestruck by boldly displayed murals which artfully showed the journey of African Americans throughout history. Ruby had never seen anything like this. Two murals, Magic in Medicine and History of Medicine, held her attention. She looked deeply into one of these Charles Alston masterpieces. One of the painted figures in History of Medicine strongly resembled Eggplant Man. The painted man had similar ebony-colored skin, flaring nostrils and a crown of coiled hair. She divined that he was a part of that painting, a part of that history. It was an auspicious occasion for her, a good omen. To her, it meant that Eggplant Man was all right.

  She walked bravely to the front desk, but discovered she was unable to speak. She picked up the sign-in pen and a sheet from the adjacent hospital memo pad and wrote the name “Leroy Vaughn Reed” in large letters. She handed the paper to the clerk, who was already eyeing her suspiciously. The clerk had a rigid appearance, her hair tightly pulled into a severe bun slicked back with greasy pomade.

  “Probably Dixie Peach or Royal Jelly,” Ruby muttered to herself.

  The woman’s coif displayed an artificial wavy pattern, obviously achieved by sleeping with a tigh
t nylon stocking on her head all night. No wonder she appeared irritable, Ruby thought. “She probably has a headache.”

  Meticulously, the clerk searched her file book marked “Inpatients.” She was obviously apprehensive about Ruby. Several times, she furtively glanced up to look at her. After what seemed like an eternity to Ruby, she finally spewed a response, in a thick West Indian accent, “Nobody here wit’ dat name.” Her attitude was as stoic as her hair.

  Ruby’s scar started its nervous dance. The clerk was annoyed by the twitching lesion and Ruby’s presence in general.

  “There’s no loiterin’ allowed in dis’ lobby,” she snorted, with a meaningful glance in the direction of the security guard.

  As Ruby quickly exited the lobby, a floor clerk arrived with the updated register of inpatients and the list of discharges scheduled for the day. The lobby clerk noted that the last name on the alphabetical list of discharges was a Leroy Vaughn Reed, aka John Doe. She looked up but Ruby was well on her way back to 125th Street.

  Ruby’s mind could not encompass the death of Eggplant Man. She stuffed the thought into her secret cerebral closet along with her mother and brother’s death experience. Her plan was to discover a new garbage tour route for herself. Ruby needed closure.

  She decided to make a final visit to Bubba’s Parlor. She only wanted to sit where Eggplant Man had sat and played his banjo. Ruby needed to wallow in the memory for a short time and then have final closure to that phase of her life.

  CHAPTER 28

  Destiny’s Restoration

  Today was transfer day for Leroy. He had come a long way since the day he was admitted to ICU, a month ago. He knew he was being sent to a rehabilitation facility in Queens, called Franklin Rehabilitation Center, for another four to six weeks of therapy. He was able to ambulate with minimal pain and a moderate limp. Mentally he was still trying to place all the pieces of his life puzzle together. Many of his early life memories had returned fully. His musical recollection was outstanding. What his mind did not consciously recall, his experienced fingers remembered. The day surrounding his accident was still a blur. Sporadic flashbacks, with flickers here and there of faces and places, emerged involuntarily. The neurosurgeons said his very recent memories surrounding the accident might never return. There was a possibility, however, that an emotional event could trigger the return of his recall of events surrounding his accident. Only time would tell.

  The hospital staff had become attached to Leroy and his music. It had changed the atmosphere of the ward in a wonderful way. Only music, the universal language, can do this. Leroy sat in his wheelchair with the Daddy Grace mission’s donation clothes on his back. He was handed a plastic bag with the bloody torn clothes in which he arrived, and of course his banjo, his sole earthly possession.

  His hair was starting to grow back. There was now a half inch thick gray and black tightly coiled corona on his head. All of the staff came over to shake his hand and wish him luck. One nurse bent over to plant a kiss on his cheek. In the process, she scraped her own cheek on the top of his banjo. A small amount of blood oozed from the scar. The nurse pulled out a tissue, dabbed at the lesion, and pulled out her compact mirror from her pocket.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s superficial, and it certainly won’t leave a scar.”

  Leroy emitted a deep grunt and stared ahead blankly. A memory was trying to burst through. A flash of a woman with a scar on her cheek and piercing hazel eyes momentarily flickered and then disappeared. It was accompanied by a strong sensation in his groin. The unperceiving staff reassured him that the nurse’s abrasion would heal fine. For the length of his elevator ride to the lobby he tried to relax his mind so that the emerging memory could fully express.

  While he waited by the lobby clerk’s reception desk for the transport team, Leroy was taken by the beautiful murals on the lobby’s walls. He overheard the lobby clerk tell the ward clerk that some homeless lady with a horrible c-shaped scar on her cheek had been there earlier, looking for Mr. Vaughn. She released herself from blame by complaining that the floor clerk had not given her the updated patient list on time.

  Immediately, Leroy was in motion. He stood up, banjo in hand, walked across the lobby and out the front door.

  The two clerks called after him. “Mr. Leroy Vaughn Reed! Mr. Reed! You are leaving Against Medical Advice. You need to sign papers! Mr. Reed!” The clerk looked towards the security desk, but the guard was nowhere in sight.

  Eggplant Man did not hear them. He was too busy with the memories rolling into his head. Once on the street, he knew exactly where he was. The fog was lifting. As he headed downtown towards 125th street, one word popped into his head: “Ruby.”

  He could not remember where she stayed. But he had full recall of her. Eggplant Man remembered exactly how Ruby smelled and tasted, and the feeling of her lips pressed against his. He was moving so fast he did not feel any pain in his leg. When he reached 125th Street and Amsterdam, he headed east. He opened the plastic bag with his old clothes, searched the left breast pocket of his jacket. The now dried eggplant skin was still there. Even dried, it retained its color and texture. His sock still had three dollars and change in it.

  At first glance he did not see her; her slight figure was easy to miss. As Ruby slouched against the parlor wall, her head was hung low. She was watching a line of ants dutifully clean up the remains of some food item on the ground. She mused distractedly at the organized tiny creatures.

  Deciding she had wallowed enough, she decided to go back to her place. She would burn two candles, as part of her makeshift ceremony of closure. When she stood up, she noticed a male figure limping towards her. She did not recognize him right off. He had lost a lot of weight, had no crown and was limping. Ruby’s soul knew it was Eggplant Man.

  When he arrived at the parlor, the two souls faced each other, staring into each other’s eyes for a long time. As they embraced each other, tears streamed down their faces. Each could hear the other’s heartbeat synchronized to the same rhythm.

  Eggplant Man whispered softly in her ear, “Hungry?”

  Ruby responded in a honeyed voice. “Very.”

  He confidently took her hand in his. “I got you, Ruby.”

  Ruby’s eyes misted as her lips curved upwards, causing the scar on her cheek to tingle. Hand in hand, the couple headed toward the 24-hour deli on 125th Street.

  From her porch, the lady in blue watched, blowing perfect circles of smoke.

  END