I make out half a dozen customers. All Black men. Sitting randomly around the small space, where their attention has been focused on the drinks in front of them. Now each one raises his head long enough to regard me. If the locals on the street regarded me with curiosity, here I get blatant suspicion.
In this neighborhood, I’m the minority. Then again, same with the past year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I’m used to the looks, though that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to take.
At least midday drunks have more serious matters to tend to. One by one, they return to their individual miseries, which leaves me with the dark wood bar, straight ahead, where a lone Black man stands, drying a tray of beer glasses one by one.
I head for him.
A trim figure, he sports gray hair and a groomed salt-and-pepper beard. His dark eyes are lined heavily and he has about him the air of a man who’s seen it all and lived to tell the tale.
“Stoney,” I guess.
“You lost?” He sets down one tall glass, picks up another. He wears a white apron tied around his waist and wields the dishtowel with practiced dexterity. Definitely the owner, and a long-term tavern operator at that.
“I’m here about the bartending position.”
“No.” He grabs the next glass.
I park my suitcase next to the bar, take a seat on a stool. His answer doesn’t surprise me. Most of my conversations start this way.
“Twenty years of experience,” I tell him. “Plus I have no problems cleaning, brewing coffee, or working a fryolator.” Fried food is the natural partner to booze—and this close to the kitchen, the air is thick with grease. Fried chicken, fried potatoes—maybe even fried plantains, given the Haitian community.
“No,” he says again.
I nod. There’s a second towel. I pick it up, select the wet glass nearest to me, and start drying.
Stoney scowls at me but doesn’t stop me. No business owner argues with free labor.
We both dry in silence. I like the work. The rhythmic feel of twisting a glass, buffing it with the towel. Even dry, the top lip of the glasses bears a faint white line. Years of beer foam, human lips. They are clean, though. Which makes me partial to Stoney and his establishment. Plus, he has a room above the bar to let, at a price I can almost afford. I found it posted on a community board.
“I don’t drink,” I offer. The first tray of glasses is done. Stoney removes it from the bar. Lifts a second tray of wet half glasses.
“Teetotaler?” Stoney asks.
“No.”
“Here to save us?”
“You’re assuming I’ve been saved.”
He grunts at that. We both resume drying. From what I’ve dug up, a significant portion of Mattapan’s population, being from the Caribbean, speaks French, French Creole, patois, et cetera. But I hear none of that in Stoney’s voice. He has the clipped tones of most New Englanders. Maybe he’s lived in Boston his entire life or moved here from New York or Philadelphia to open his own place. It’s always dangerous to make assumptions, and yet nearly impossible not to.
“Friend of Bill’s,” I volunteer after we finish the whiskey glasses and that tray is replaced with dozens of shot glasses. We both get back to work. Quick, brisk, thoughtless. The perfect meditative exercise.
Stoney doesn’t answer. He dries faster than me, but not by much.
“Water glasses?” I ask when the shot glasses are done.
He raises a brow. So, not an establishment big on nonalcoholic beverages. Good to know.
“You have a room to rent,” I continue, folding my arms on the heavily lacquered bar.
“Go home.”
“Don’t have one. So this is what I’m thinking. I work for you four nights a week, three p.m. to closing, in return for free board.”
Stoney is a man who can communicate volumes with a single eyebrow.
“You’re worried that I’m white,” I fill in for him. “Or that I’m female. Or both. You think I can’t handle myself.”
“I’m a local business. Frequented by locals. You’re not local.”
I make a show of twisting around on the barstool. “Funny, because I don’t see too many locals lined up for the open position. And you’ve been advertising for two weeks. Room’s been vacant even longer than that, which must mean something given how desperate everyone around here is for housing.” I regard him curiously. “Did someone die up there or something?”
He shakes his head. With no more glasses to dry, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks me straight on. He still doesn’t say a word.
“I work hard.” I tick off a finger. “I’m on time, especially because I’m going to be living upstairs, and I won’t siphon your booze. I pour fast, I know how to change out a keg, and I’m an excellent listener. Everyone likes a good listener.”
“They won’t like you.”
“Neither did you, but you’re coming around. Give me a month. By then, no one will notice my white skin or superior gender. I’ll just be another fixture behind the bar.”
He raises another eyebrow but doesn’t say no. Finally: “Why are you here? Plenty of other neighborhoods in Boston.”
“I have something to do here.”
He stares at me again.
I hold his gaze. I like Stoney. A survivor. He’s my kind of person—and sooner or later, he’ll come to see the same about me.
“Five nights a week,” he says. “Three p.m. to close.”
“Rent includes utilities,” I counter. “One free meal a day. I keep my tips.”
He regards me a moment longer, then abruptly extends his hand. We shake. Definitely my kind of person.
“Room comes with a roommate,” Stoney informs me.
“That wasn’t in the ad.”
“Now you know.”
“Male or female?”
“Feline.”
“The room comes with a cat? And that’s why no one will take it?”
For the first time, Stoney smiles. It wrinkles his salt-and-pepper beard, softens his weathered face. “You haven’t met the cat yet.”
* * *
—
Stoney leads me upstairs. At first glance, the tiny, single-room setup is exactly what I’d expect from an apartment in an overcrowded, economically depressed neighborhood. Double bed shoved against the far wall. Lone nightstand to one side, tightly drawn black curtains on the other. A metal rod bolted to the wall serves as a closet opposite the bed, while next to the front door is a small kitchenette with a European-size fridge and a microwave. No oven, but a coffeemaker and a hot pot, which suits me fine. On the other side of the door is a plain white curtain wrapped around a curved rod attached to the ceiling, much like a hospital room setup. A quick look behind the curtain reveals a bathroom with the world’s skinniest standing shower and a minuscule mounted sink. Again, City Living 101. Not much space or privacy, but priced right.