Amysterious stranger and other heroes who walk among us

Mrs. Harris lived across the street from us in Denver Heights in a house where bandleader and Keyhole Club owner Don Albert once resided and received visitors like Nat King Cole. In her 90s, she was incapable of caring for herself. Her mind wandered, and she’d go weeks without bathing or changing the clothes in which she’d relieved herself.

I was in college when my grandmother started making dinner, every day, for Mrs. Harris. Each afternoon, around 2 p.m., I’d walk across the street to deliver the meal.

Usually, except in winter, Mrs. Harris would be waiting on her front porch, always grateful for the meal and asking if I belonged to some organization that did these kinds of things. She’d known me all my life, my grandmother having moved into the neighborhood in 1944.

The only part of taking Mrs. Harris meals I didn’t like was the smell. On the porch, in the open air, it wasn’t so bad.

But when she’d been closed inside and opened the door to let me in, a warm stifled stench hit like a wave and buckled my knees. I’d hold my breath until I got into the living room, where I placed the food on the table. The house, lit by the dim dining room light, had the odor of ungraceful aging and decline.

Mrs. Harris had an explosive temper, which she’d unleash on anyone daring to give her advice, including on her hygiene.

She’d say that she’d already shot one man — her father for beating her mother — and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot another.

Her husband, dead for more than 20 years, had worked on the railroad. Once, I saw him sprawled on his back, like a knocked-out boxer, in front of their house as ambulance workers attended to him. He and Mrs. Harris had gotten into a fight, and she’d pushed him down the steps.

Mrs. Harris’ mind often drifted back to her youth, where she was at her happiest, talking about the white family she worked for in Duluth, Minn., and the French she spoke.

“Parlez vous francais?” she’d ask me, saying other words whose lack of meaning affirmed failure in the French I studied in college.

One day, someone named Gene appeared on Mrs. Harris’ porch, talking with her for hours before moving in for four months, the latest in a series of boarders to whom Mrs. Harris rented her front room. None stayed long, usually driven away by her temper, verbal abuse and, I assumed, the awful odor.

A pastime in the neighborhood was guessing Gene’s gender. We weren’t sure if he was man named Gene or a woman named Jean, but we assumed he was a man.

Gene wore a short, always uncombed Afro and baggy men’s clothes, had a feminine voice and manners, a unisex name and insisted she was a woman.

I continued delivering my grandmother’s meals to Mrs. Harris and noticed that, thanks to Gene, who was regularly cleaning, the house was looking and smelling better inside.

But Gene was cleaning up in another way.

Every day, Gene would leave the house with a Hefty trash bag. Gene was stealing items and selling them at the pawn shop on East Commerce Street.

Once, Gene asked me to lend him a dollar. I did, but didn’t believe him when he said he’d pay me back when his check came. Four days later, I was surprised when he gave me two dollars.

“But I only lent you one,” I said.

“That’s OK. Next time I need a dollar I’ll know you’ll have it.”

When it was discovered that Gene was cashing Mrs. Harris’ Social Security checks by forging her name, Mrs. Harris’ nephew came down from Houston to kick Gene out.

“You mean I have to leave?” Gene asked through tears.

“That’s right, Gene. Auntie trusted you and you abused that trust.”

Three days later, Gene was found dead of exposure behind Hardy’s Funeral Home. His body was held by Lewis Funeral Home, where my grandmother and I went to view him.

Gene was dressed sharply in a dark suit, his hair neatly combed. He’d been a decorated World War II veteran.

Heroes don’t always trumpet their deeds or look and sound the way we think they should look and sound.

Shortly before Gene was asked to leave Mrs. Harris house, I did loan him a dollar. We were even, I thought.

But standing before the casket of this decorated hero, I knew

I’d always be in his debt.