How I Became Edgecombe Lenox
Edge has been a character in most of my D Hunter mystery novels. Here's a bit of his backstory growing up in a very noir part of Harlem, USA. [Fiction]
BEFORE HE WAS EDGE
I know Harlem formed me, but there was nothing about it
that made it any more special than any other brother
from Harlem. I didn't grow up in a world with all the
opportunities people have now. I knew there were
limitations on where I could go physically and even
mentally. To dream of being a big man in the white
world was just that -- a dream. We had Willie Mays
and Wilt Chamberlain and Sammy Davis, Jr, but none of
them made the money Jordan, Puffy and any of these
young ass multi-millionaires get now. Back then If
you were black and wanted to make steady money you
became an undertaker. That way you wore a suit
everyday, met lots of widows and were never short of
work.
Willie and Bertha Robinson were my parent's names.
They named me Leroy. But that's not who I saw myself
as. Leroy. There was not a more common name out there
than that, except maybe Willie. Leroy Robinson. Shit.
I got my new name in the place that raised me -- the
streets outside my window. I remade myself as
Edgecombe Lenox. You see I was truly raised by Harlem
and it kills me to know I will never see it again.
Everywhere you went on those avenues and boulevards
you felt the limits of what white people would allow
and what black folks expected. The school teacher
expected failure; the grocery store owner expected
you to steal; and the minister expected devotion and
offerings and prayer. Far as they were concerned your
future was laid out before you like the asphalt
streets. My father sure hadn't exceeded anybody's
expectations. He was a mechanic when I was born and
by the time I was nine, he was running numbers -- a
steady gig for sure, but tough for him since counting
wasn't his strongest suit. By the time I was 11 the numbers banker had let him go and
we were nightly fishing him out the drunk tank.
Back in his mechanic days my father had been a big man --
230 or so -- most of it in his shoulders and legs. By
the time Wild Irish Rose got up in him the man was
gaunt as a refugee. Around my 15th birthday he got
run over by a speeding Caddy on St. Nick but I figure
it was the limits finally killed him.
Ma never had that problem. She just took what life gave her. For most of my childhood
she worked at a cashier at a liquor store on Broadway near 125th Street right
under the elevated IRT. The place had a real mixed
clientele -- local black folks, students from
Columbia University you'd run up there, and drivers
heading uptown and to the Bronx.
For pocket change I'd do deliveries. During the
holiday season I was always making runs over to
Morning Side, Riverside, Haven -- all these little
streets over by Columbia to give the students and
teachers a taste. Ma thought that exposure would make
me wanna go to college, but all I was thinking of was
how torn up white folks got and how easy it would be
to rob these fools blind. I took a thing or two, but
never anything heavy since I didn't get my Ma in
trouble.
Wish I had more warm and fuzzy stuff to say about my
parents. Something sentimental. Some advise my father
gave me; something my mother taught me about love. That
kind of heart warming mess that makes people go, "Oh,
how'd that boy go wrong?" Or even some of that
terrible, abusive shit you see on T.V.
But that's not what I'm about. I wouldn't tell if
even there was something to tell. My parents were not
dramatic people. My father was the quietest drunk in
Harlem. No cursing. No singing blues at the top of
his lungs. He'd just get sad and then sometimes he'd
cry and then he'd fall asleep. That's it. Ma was
quiet too. I mean at dinner all you heard at the
Robinson table was the sound of sucking on neck
bones.
Anyway, the Harlem I grew up in was, I understand
now, a neighborhood in transition. There were still a
lot of jazz clubs around; the Apollo still had four
or five shows a day on weekends; plenty of well off
black folks still lived on Striver's Row. All that
romantic Harlem Renaissance groove was still around if you knew where to look.
But it was all sliding, sliding, sliding down. A lot
of it had it had to do with kids like me. There were
tons of us squeezed together on corners like rats or
inside pool halls or in schoolyards of buildings we
rarely entered. Now no kids had guns in the '50s.
Death wasn't random like it is these days. Only real
older hard types -- brothers with Caddys and silk
suits and fat rolls of money had guns. Some kids did
have zip guns -- home made, single shot contraptions
that were as likely to backfire on you as kill the
fool you aimed at. Brass knuckles were big. Some guys
had saps or lead pipes.
Mostly, though, kids had knives. This an era when you
got cut for the wrong word or look, for robbing
someone or messing with somebody's woman. Guys got
very proficient with that them and would spend hours
practicing pulling them out quickly and tossing them.
The coolest knife was the switchblade. You wanna
strike fear in a Negro? Let that blade pop out like a
lizard's tongue and see a man get weak in the knees.
For a kid who could handle a knife that switchblade
was a great equalizer, especially if a grown man was
messing with you. Now you could have had one of those
long ass straight razors but they required you to
slash to cut a Negro. Slashing could pull you off
balance and leave a side exposed that a good counter
cutter could eat up.
With a switchblade, which came to a point, you could
slash, stab and jab. So you had three points of
attack. I mean a straight knife with a flat blade was
great if you were attacking a stationary target. With
one big stroke you could cut deep and hard like a
butcher would beef. But, if who you were scrapping
with was moving with speed, the switchblade was what
you wanted in your hand.
Pee Wee Rollins taught me everything I know about
knives. Pee Wee wasn't really little but he walked
kinda slumped over. There was something wrong with
his back, I guess, so he seemed smaller than he
really was. But that brother had huge hands and when
he walked with his serious gangster lean Pee Wee's
knuckles almost dragged the ground. Those fingers of
his made him real nasty with a blade.
Pee Wee lived just up the street from me on 117th
with a family of seven in a tight ass apartment. He
told me he learned to cut niggers at the family dinner table. Told me, "Edge, that's the
only way I could keep my brothers from stealing my bread." However he came by his
knowledge Pee Wee was quick and accurate. Used to
spear pigeons on his roof.
He'd spot a bird, flick that son of a bitch and,
poof, right through the breast.
Pee Wee became my ace boon coon when I was 11 and he
was 10, and he'd run with me right through my glory
days. Maybe because of how he walked or because he
was from such a big family, Pee Wee wasn't very
outgoing but that black man was loyal. Whenever I
needed any kind of back up or something serious had
to be handled, I could always rely on Pee Wee. I miss
him. Think about him a lot even though, if he had his
chance right now, he'd cut me open and serve my liver
to alley cats.
When I was on the street there was a kind of style, a
kind of cool, even grace, you won't find anymore. It
was in the way we spoke. The way our threads laid.
The way we hung and laughed and made things happen.
All that style has been replaced by a lack of
brotherhood that disgust me. It's like world has no
center anymore.