Hope Street

“Only two kindsa folks in this life, boy. Thems with a conscience, and thems who ain’t got one.”

Then my grandpa would suck on his pipe, chuckle a little, and finally rock back on his chair.

After another couple of minutes, he reaches over to me and ruffles my hair. I’m sitting on the steps of his wonderful home, just getting ready for the night, getting for the rest of my life, getting ready for a way to my dreams.

“I know you got a conscience, boy. Just like me. The only downside is that you have to pay for it all your life. Those lucky folks who don’t think they need a conscience, well in a strange way the world belongs to them. They just go about their little lives hurting and hurting without a second thought as to what they is doing. Us, on the other hand…”

And this is where he points the end of his pipe at his chest and over to me.

“Us, well we gotta pay every day for caring. Every day forever. All on account that we was born with a conscience.”

He cleared his throat, then swallowed some.
“You need a few more bucks, kid?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to look at him, as I knew it might start the tears – for us both.  He’d brought my brother and me up when my folks perished in a bus crash just outside Atlanta. My brother had since moved up to Massachusetts, where he’d started a little business. I was going to follow him up there. My brother had only been back a couple of times since he’d left and I guess that was what was going through my grandpa’s head as I sat there looking at the sky.

“I want you to know; you’ll always have a home here, boy. Always. And if you don’t make it back anytime soon, well, I’ll know you and me are thinking about each other. I loves ya boy. You know that — more than life itself. I know losing my daughter in that bus crash felt like the end, but bringing the two of you up, well – that was like the start of something new. You gave me hope boy. You and your kind-hearted brother. I wish the two of you well, and perhaps sometime I might just take a little trip up there and see how you are doing.”

“Sure grandpa. You’ll always be welcome.”

I still couldn’t look at him, and I could hear an emptiness in his throat.

“I want you to stand up boy, when you’re ready and walk up that street and just keep on walking.”
“What’s out there, grandpa?”

“Whatever you want it to be. But that street, well that’s your first step boy. That’s hope street.”

I stood and waved without looking around.
I never did see him again.

bobby stevenson 2019
photo: Larry Morgan Photography.