I Live in a “Neighborhood” Neighborhood

I have posted a few paeans to my block. I love where I live and the apartment I live in. I love my neighborhood. This is the first place I’ve felt at home in many, many years. Because a post earlier this week tracked my path from my mother’s home to this one, I was remembering my experience of finding this apartment … and that got me thinking about David.  While it’s true that I loved this apartment the moment I saw it, it’s also true that it wasn’t the only really nice place I looked at in Crown Heights.

I saw another apartment first, a big two-bedroom with great light that cost about $300 less a month than where I live now. Why don’t I live there? Part of the reason is that this lovely block and the surrounding blocks felt better to me than that other apartment’s immediate neighborhood … but mostly the answer is David.

David is the man who showed me the apartment, the man who did double duty as realtor and building manager, the man with whom I would have had to interact on something like a regular basis if I lived in that apartment. David failed “The Test.”

I saw David’s apartment on Craigslist and called to learn more. David was pleasant. Gave me lots of information about the place, happily set up a time for me to see it. So I took off on a super-cold, “wintery mix” kind of day … only to find that David had given me lousy directions, had told me to get off at a subway stop four long stops too soon for his apartment, had told me to walk the wrong direction once I came up from the subway. I kept calling him to figure out what was going on, to find out where I was supposed to be. He finally admitted that he was a driver and wasn’t sure of the directions. (Seriously. Where they do that at?)

So I finally got directions from someone who actually knew what they were talking about and got myself turned around. On my way to the building from the train, I called David one last time to let him know I was almost there.  He said he was right outside the building entrance, keeping warm in his car. I got to the building and looked around. There was a man parked right in front of the building, sitting in his car. He wasn’t stepping out and announcing himself as David, but he was the only guy anywhere near the building, so I walked up to the window. He made a half-glance at me then quickly looked away. He turned his body slightly toward the passenger side of the car, clearly bent on not acknowledging or interacting with me. I knocked on the window and he turned an angry face to me.

“What do you want?” This comes muffled, through the glass because he hasn’t put his window down even the tiniest bit.

“Are you David? It’s me, Stacie.”

“Stacie who was just on the phone?”

“No, some totally random other Stacie who just happens to be showing up outside your building knowing your name, you jackass. Yes, that Stacie.”

He still didn’t leave the car.  He opened his window … I finally got that “tiniest bit open” I’d been expecting from the start. He put down his window seemingly to get a better look at me.

“Stacie who called about the ad?”

“Look, it’s cold out here.  Are you going to show me the apartment or not?”

“You’re the one who just called.”

“Yes, you completely hideously annoying man.“

You know the big, you’re-a-loser “X” that flashes on Family Feud? Imagine that coming into play now, except in this quiz, you only get the one strike. It’s all I need to count you out. David had completely and utterly failed The Test. He heard my voice on the phone and thought he knew who would be coming to see his apartment. I showed up, and he needed to process that he had been talking all that time to a Black person without realizing it.

And up to that point, I’m not angry with him. People regularly assume I am a white person when they hear me but don’t see me. And I can be fine with that, depending on where you go once you realize that I am, in fact, a Black person, once you know that I’m the person who comes with the voice you profiled. The fact that David couldn’t manage to process the reality of me — or at least take himself through his slow and painful process in some way that was vaguely graceful and not so obvious — is where he went off course.

Yeah, the fact that processing reality ended in him being quite clearly displeased to discover my Blackness makes that big, you’re-a-loser “X” glow in a hot, red neon.

(Of course, it’s my fault, you understand. His displeasure. It’s my fault. I should have warned him. Should have said, within seconds of greeting him on the phone, “I, as a Black woman, would like to see the apartment you’re renting on Union Street.” See how simple that is, how completely normal and like actual human conversation?)

I still wanted to see the apartment.  I knew I didn’t want David to be my landlord, but I’d come all that way, through the wintry mix and everything. I wanted to see the apartment. And it was as nice as it sounded online: big rooms, lots of sunlight, new fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen. Lots of closets. A large entrance hall (with a coat closet!). I think there was even a laundry room in the basement. Lovely. Too bad I wasn’t going to live there.

I decided to waste a little of David’s time and asked him to tell me about the neighborhood, asked him who lived in the area. He gave me an informative description of the Orthodox Jewish community … and stopped. Please remember that we’re in Crown Heights. Yes, there is a large Orthodox Jewish community here. But they are not the only folks this neighborhood is known for. There’s a reason the Caribbean Day Parade is held over here, after all. But he talked about the Hasidim and stopped.

“Ok. So that’s the whole population?”

“No, no, there are other people.”

“Oh, ok, great. Who else?”

“…”

Please know that here he could, really, have said anything. He could have told me there’s a large Caribbean community, could have said something straight to the point like, “Oh, a lot of black people,” or something a little more “cute” like, “Oh, a lot of people who look like you.” He couldn’t do it. He just stared at me for a minute then looked away and hemmed and hawed for another couple of minutes.

“Oh, you know … oh, there are … oh, a lot of … you know … neighborhood people.” (his emphasis)

Neighborhood people? Neighborhood people?

Oh, I could have played with him a little longer, asked him to explain what that meant. But he’d already failed the test, forcing him to add glitter and blue flame to his “X” was pointless.

Neighborhood people.

What, really, could be his problem? (Not an actual question.)

Let’s play compare and contrast. The morning after seeing that beautiful apartment, I rode back over to Crown Heights to see the place in which I am sitting to write this. I had been on the phone with the woman who would be one of my landlords. She had given me directions and asked if I knew anything about the neighborhood. We’d chatted a little and then scheduled my visit. I followed her clear, accurate directions and walked down the block toward the house. As I got closer, I saw a couple standing half on the sidewalk and half in the driveway of a house. A woman, a man, two small girls. I figured they were who I’d come to meet. As I walked up, the woman smiled and said, “Stacie? Hi, I’m L____.”

See how easy that was? It’s pretty much 100% likely that Leah (we’ll call her “Leah.” I’ve always disliked those “L____”s) made an assumption about who I was going to be when she talked to me on the phone. When I walked up and turned out to be me instead of who she imagined, she said hello and kept it moving. Like. a. normal. person. would. Like a not-racist person would. Yeah, of course I went there. That was the only “where” we were every going to go.

I’d have saved some money renting from David. I’d have had to pay for basic utilities, plus heat and laundry at his place, so the $300 difference in rent would really have been more like $100, but that would still have been more cash in my pocket. But no. That place wasn’t an option. I was never going to live in David’s building, and that was clear as soon as he didn’t greet me outside the building, as soon as he couldn’t wrap his small, racist mind around the fact that I was me and not whatever version of a white woman he’d had in mind when he’d talked to me on the phone. I had no intention of saddling myself with David, of having to do regular business with a man who didn’t trust me based on nothing but what I look like, a man who acted as if he was afraid to be alone in the apartment with me the whole time I was looking at the place, a man who turned his back when I walked up to his car so that he wouldn’t have to interact with me. No. So much wiser to rent from a family for whom my Blackness wasn’t cause for alarm.

There are plenty of things that make this apartment the better option: the back yard, my own washer and dryer, space in the basement to store my too-much-stuff and set up my sewing table, a full-on pantry closet in the kitchen … and just the general feeling of coming home that settled into me the moment I set foot in the door.

Leah and her family passing The Test wasn’t the only reason I wanted to live here, but it was one of the important reasons. The fact that they have turned out to be nice, intelligent people who I like talking to and knowing is an excellent bonus. Getting to watch their kids grow up, getting to sometimes hang out with their dogs … bonus, bonus.

I joke about David’s inability to name Black people. Mopsy and I talk about “neighborhood neighborhoods” sometimes, or whether or not there’s a good mix of neighborhood people at an event. It’s silly, and we sound silly saying it, and that’s why I like it. But David? Nope, not getting any love from me.

I save my love for Crown Heights. I’m super happy to have wound up in this neighborhood neighborhood. ❤

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It’s hard to believe that the 10th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge is almost over!
How does March go by so fast!
Head over to Two Writing Teachers to see all of today’s slices!