The Mean Man Who Wasn’t

I’ve known Jefferson Brown for ages. Sometimes people remain in your memory for years. Jefferson was one of those people who only act tough when they are needed. He was part black, part white, and part Chinese with perhaps something even more in his heritage. I met him when he was painting a house with our son. My wife and I had purchased an old house in poor repair, but fixable. The price was great, the neighborhood wasn’t. Dicky, our son went out looking for someone to help him replace some windows, take care of some plumbing problems, fix some walls and update a couple of rooms, paint the two stories and the garage . . . quite a a bit of work for one person. He saw Jefferson on the corner about three blocks away. He pulled up beside Jefferson, who nodded his head at Dicky. They had known each other from second and fourth grade.

The two just renewed old friendship and went to work on the old house. Within two days they were making good headway. Jefferson was in the garage cleaning up trash and making a list of repair needs. He walked out the door and then carefully came forward to see what was going on. Dicky was cornered in some blackberry bushes he had been hacking away at. There were four tough looking teenagers blocking Dicky from getting out. Jefferson quietly went back into the garage and found an old baseball bat and then silently approached the blackberries. “What’s new?” he said holding the baseball bat in hand and resting on his shoulder. The foursome slowly turned their heads to Jefferson.

Although, just standing there, with twice as many bodies, the foursome was thrown off kilter a bit. “You boys new to the neighborhood?” simply asked Jefferson. Dicky made a couple loud snips with his garden tool and all four turned his way. “You boys just playing around or do you want to get interesting?” asked Jefferson. Jefferson’s eyes never opened wide. They simply gave out a mean . . . really mean look.

The foursome tucked tail and left. Dicky and Jefferson went in the garage and just laughed and laughed. Jefferson joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a nice time just chatting. The two friends were close for a couple years until Jefferson, we never found out what name he really went with, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Somethings don’t have to make sense and yet friendship and memories can last a lifetime. Thanksgiving is for memories and more.