middle of the back lawn. Clarance’s house was a small af-15
fair, built in the midfifties. His family had lived in the 16
Harbor for at least a hundred years, but they came from 17
slaves down in Georgia. He still had cousins in Atlanta.
18
He saw me through the window and waved a turkey 19
drumstick at me.
20
Once outside I hailed him. “Hey, Clarance.”
21
“Charles.” He used his drumstick to point out an iron 22
chair, which I dragged to the table.
23
“You want some food?” he asked me.
24
“No, thanks.”
25
“You look like you could use somethin’, man,” he said.
26
“You losin’ weight?”
27 S
That was what was different about my image in the 28 R
mirror.
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 165
The Man in My Basement
“How are you, Clarance?”
1
“Can’t complain. Athalia had a
school and they kicked her out. Can you imagine that?
3
Here they had lawyers holding up the president’s dick on 4
TV every night and they wanna suspend a girl for buyin’
5
a magazine off the rack.”
6
“Sorry if I was rude when I saw you at the train sta-7
tion,” I said.
8
That raised Clarance’s eyebrows a notch. It might have 9
been the first apology that I ever gave without being 10
forced into it.
11
“That’s okay,” he said. “You okay?”
12
“Been thinkin’. Been thinkin’.”
13
“About what?”
14
