09 September 2006

Luckie Street

I walked down Peachtree to Luckie, and the building loomed above me like a white yacht, bearing down at speed. The narrowness of its white flanks conveyed a sense of speed, or all its rooted entropy.

I had seen this before, not this way, somewhere else. I was dumbstruck and had to stop and look. Which is how I wound up spending some time with Eugene Hall, the unofficial ambassador of Peachtree Center, recently released from jail on a trumped-up drug charge.

That is getting to the point too quickly, but it was the building that caused my urban defense to be down. Normally I move fast, stay to the curb when I am walking, swing my arms with determination and stop for nothing.

Atlanta confounded me. I tried to examine its bones, and its homeless got me each time I stopped.

I was bushwhacked at the wait sign next to the liquor store near the hotel on Peachtree; I had been trapped, waiting for a cab outside the Ebenezer Church, and then there was the encounter with Mr,. Hall.

Atlanta has been in a frenzy of re-invention since Sherman burned the place to the ground. Constantly changing, morphing into something new. Railroad Gulch became the Underground. Dr. King's boyhood neighborhood became a national park.

This building was not in keeping with the rest of the changing city. It was old, and so striking in aspect that it took my breath away. It looked like the Flatiron Building in New York, the link between generations shaped like one of the old fire-heated pressers that Great-grandmother had the servants use on her shirtwaist. It was the very first skyscraper, constructed with an iron frame that permitted the masonry to be cloaked around it, liberating the structure from the old rules of gravity.

Fanciful window treatments protruded from the side, studding the narrow flanks of the building like ornamental frosting. Maybe it was not a yacht, I thought, more a slice of wedding cake impossibly tall.

I was astonished to discover that there was real history in the wedding cake. It was properly known as the English--American Building when it was built, and at eleven stories is Atlanta's oldest standing skyscraper. It pre-dates the taller Flatiron Building in New York by five years, though it is ten stories shorter. It still takes the breath away in its daring.

The Flatiron anchors the central business district, which is becoming a trendy district. During the day, throng s of suburbanites clog the streets at their jobs, and students throng the area, headed for the MARTA underground station up the street.

When the business day is done though, the city empties out and it is only the tourists and conventioneers like me who wander the streets, looking up, and of course the panhandlers looking at us while we are distracted.

I had ventured out the night before, rebellious about the prices at the hotel restaurants, since the company is sensitive to travel expenses these days, and to do my but forgo the normal per-diem on the road. So I was out looking for architecture and a sandwich to take back to the room.

Or at least I was until I wandered across Luckie Street and into the Fairlie--Poplar Historic District, looking up at the fantastic building that marked the great change in the cityscapes of the world.

I missed his first approach, since I was looking toward the delicate ledge that marked the separation of the three decorative bands of the Flatiron, and the remarkable Beaux-arts façade. I heard the words, but did not see him.

It was just as well. I was tapped out for small change or single bills, and I don't like panhandlers. I like to look them in the eye when I shake my head, as I do on the street of the District. The homeless back home have stake-out positions at the traffic lights that time the traffic coming downtown in the morning there, and at the freeway entrances.

Some of the poor tired ones just stand abject on the street, shaking Styrofoam cups. I normally steel myself and walk on by, arms swinging.

The District's approach appears to be to ignore them. It is not like the Capital of the Free World is going to go out of business, and bad as this problem is, it is nothing like when the downtown was a wilderness of abandoned buildings.

Atlanta has a different approach, and they need it. Their panhandlers are much more personal, approaching and speaking. The ones who hit me up had specific goals in mind, and the plea for alms was phrased more as a business-case about dinner. It was difficult to deny the importance of the matter, and really a buck meant nothing to me, one way or the other.

I walked to the end of the block, unsettled by my failure to respond adequately to a solicitation, either yea or nay.

I circled the block. there were a couple cute restaurants where I could have stopped, but I was hoping for take-away of some kind. There were plenty of shuttered lunch places, but the sun was going down and they were shuttered against the night.

I turned my feet back up toward Peachtree and the Hyatt, tired of being approached, and preferring the solitude of my room after a day of glad-handing.

Apparently Atlanta has noticed they have a problem with panhandlers. I don't know if their approach to running them out has evolved with their experience of hosting the Olympics or not, but ordinances have been passed to restrict public begging, and at least in the areas near the hotels, police and para-police presence is visible. It does not seem to have reduced the presence of the Others, though, the ones who are looking for an opportunity.

The crackdown on begging is not limited to the presence mission. There is a pro-active component that extends to active enforcement against those who beg in certain places, or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Violators can be ticketed, or fined, or thrown in the hoosegow.

I had crossed Luckie Street again, wondering at its symbolism near the Flatiron Building when I was nailed. I was waiting to cross the street when the soft voice came over my shoulder.

“I saw you before, walking the other way. You didn't react. Where are you from, man?”

I turned to look at the voice. It was a slim man in a large white T-shirt. A fringe of white curly beard framed the face, which featured dark lively eyes darting in a rich dark face. The beard said he was old. His skin was unlined.

“DC,” I said curtly.

“I could tell by the way you walked,” he said. “I'm Eugene Hall, and I am homeless. My wife and I live under a highway bridge,” he said, gesturing in the direction of I-85. “I am not begging.” He seemed assertive on that point.

“I'm tapped out,” I said. “I only have a ten, and you can't have it.” I sighed. I was trapped in this madness now, and there was no way to get clear without running. Eugene clutched a couple of pink flowers. He gestured with them.

“I sell flowers,” he said. “But I don't think you want them. Let me offer a riddle and see if you know the answer.” We stepped off together across the street as the light changed. Construction forced us out into the roadway. “Which Presidents are on the Twenty and the hundred dollar bill?”

That got me. I stepped over some concrete. “Grant is on the fifty- Jackson is on the Twenty. Franklin is on the C-note.”

Eugene's eyes were merry. “Yes, they are. But that was not the question. Ben Franklin was no President.”

“Neither was Hamilton, on the Ten.” I answered. I knew that old question, but I had not been strolling with a homeless man in a long time. “You got me, but you still can't have the Hamilton.”

“Don't necessarily want it. I am the man on page 16 of the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, the flower man. They gave me a whole page. Did you see it?”

“Nope.”

“Well, let me ask you this one, and it is not a trick question. What is your favorite Nation?”

“That's easy. My favorite nation is one where a man can rise according to his abilities, and liberty is a natural state.”

It is close enough to what I really believe, and it seemed to put him off script for a moment, then he smiled. “Right on,” he said. We crossed Peachtree near a steakhouse that had a pleasant balcony above the street, where the diners would not be bothered. Mr. Hall felt comfortable enough to wax philosophical. We talked about the killings so long ago, Doctor King and Brother Malcolm and the others who had to be put down. I agreed that they were spiritual men, and that Elisha Mohammed's men were reprehensible thugs.

“It wasn't the Fruit of Islam men who gunned him,” said Mr. Hall, gesturing sternly. “It was the CIA.”

I shook my head. “I don't think so. We know exactly who pulled the trigger in the Avalon Ballroom that afternoon,” I said. It was not Langley that did it.”

Mr. Hall shook his head knowingly. “No, behind all that. The ones who are responsible for it all.”

I noticed two unformed beat cops approaching from behind as we approached the Hooters on the corner near the Hotel. One of them leaned between us, looking Mr. Hall in the face. I squared my shoulders, as if I was walking with a colleague from the office. The cop was disconcerted, or perhaps he had done his job.

The last place to get anything before the hotel was a McDonalds that had seen better days. I turned in. “Only place to get change, I said. You earned your buck. Or would you prefer a hamburger?”

“Orange Blizzard would be better,” he said. “I do not eat the flesh of animals. That is why I look so young.” I translated his requirements to the counter girl, who informed us the Blizzard machine was broken. Mr, Hall allowed as how a glass of ice water would suffice, and folding money.
I got change and handed him his water and a buck.

On the street again, he said “They got Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, too. He was shot before the plane crash in the Balkans. They had to do that to kill his killers,” he said.

“There was a lot in Ron's life that was unraveling,” I responded. “It would have been embarrassing if it all came out in a trial.”

“My point exactly. In fact, I just came from jail. Those rookie cops? They planted three rocks of crack on me last to get me off the street. I had to appear in court this morning. Those fools. They couldn't get their stories straight and they had to let me go. I do neither alcohol or drugs. I am a businessman.”

“An entrepreneur,” I said, and he nodded in agreement.

We parted at Ellis Street, just before the hotel. “Gotta go” he said. “Got business.”

“Be safe,” I said, glad that evening I did not have to work Luckie Street for a buck. I forget sometimes how lucky I am.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com


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