*photo of Matt, taken by me in West Oakland.
I pulled into the gate surrounding our house as the spotlight from the ghetto bird went right through our yard... They must be close, I thought and went inside to find a young, black man standing in our living room seeming frantic.
I had moved to Oakland a month prior into an old victorian house in a rough part of town. The house had been rented out by the room, so I lived with my friend Matt, who had also just moved there, 2 other white guys, and a slightly older Brazilian man. The frantic guy didn't live there.
"Just listen to me! Just listen to me for like 5 minutes...!!!" he was saying to someone in the room. I thought we were being robbed. And, I tend to think I'm much bigger than I am, so I was about to tell him to get the f*** out of my house when I heard Matt say, "...okay."
Oh, he's with Matt, I thought, which meant he's okay. So, I went upstairs to put my stuff away.
A few minutes later, I came downstairs with a bunch of key chains from my temp job. I walked into the living room and Matt introduced me to Lewis.
"Kristen, this is Lewis." he said, but with no further explanation -- which was strange because Matt would always explain people. "This is Lewis from work", or "This is Lewis who knows so and so" -- but, this was just "Lewis".
Matt was eating spaghetti and he and Lewis were both sitting on the couch. I said, "Hello," to Lewis and offered him a key chain. He took one and so did Matt, and then Matt started telling me about his day. Matt said something like, "I was riding down California Street, and... oh, (to Lewis) I'm a bike messenger... and then, you know how in Colorado... oh, (to Lewis) we just moved here from Colorado... " It became clear to me, fast, that Lewis didn't know much about Matt, because if you knew anything about Matt, you'd know he was a bike messenger and that he was from Colorado.
There was an older Chinese man named Calvin who was always there working on our house. He would bring us snacks that his wife made, and I was told that he would always say, "Make sure the girl gets some." That night, he was somewhere upstairs repeatedly yelling for Andy (Andy was the Brazilian guy who lived with us, who also did a lot of work on the house.). "[heavy Chinese accent] Andy! Andyyyy!"
"So, how do you know Matt?" I asked Lewis. "Oh, my brother lives in this neighborhood," he said, "and I was hanging out outside waiting for him to get home when Matt pulled up on his bike. We were talking for a while...and then Matt said I could come in and hang out until my brother gets home."
Matt would totally do that.
Lewis said he was from Sacramento and was just down visiting for a couple of days. He seemed like a nice guy. He said he worked for UPS and he showed us his badge.
Finally, Calvin stopped yelling and came downstairs. "Andy not here. We have no power. I call for Andy, but Andy not here..." Calvin spoke broken English on repeat and I had a hard time understanding him most of the time, but I really liked him. He wanted me to click him out of the gate so he could go home, so I walked him to the door and I waited to click him and his van out of the gate.
While I was standing there, Lewis came to the door and said he needed to leave too. So soon? He walked into the yard toward the door in the gate and wanted me to lock it behind him. I told him I thought it would be okay, but Lewis seemed to disagree and grabbed Calvin and asked him to lock the gate behind him. Calvin locked the gate behind Lewis and then got into his van. I clicked Calvin out of the gate and went back inside.
When I sat down, Matt looked at me and said, "So, Lewis came running in through the backdoor..."
*blink*
Apparently, Lewis had robbed a store nearby, and then ran into our neighborhood and was jumping fences to get away from the police. Calvin left the backdoor open while working on the house, so Lewis just ran right in. When he saw Matt sitting on the couch eating spaghetti, he said, "Do you want to make $50?" Matt said, "What...?" Lewis said, "Just listen to me! Just listen to me for like 5 minutes...!!" Matt said, "...okay." That's when I came in and went upstairs. Lewis said, "What's with the girl, is she cool?" Matt said, "Yeah, she's cool." Lewis told Matt that he had robbed a store and the cops were after him. There were police all over our neighborhood and the helicopter spotlight had just gone over our house. He had a bag of money he had thrown into a yard nearby, but the yard had a dog in it, so he couldn't get to it...but if Matt would let him hang out for like 20 minutes, he would bring him $50 when he could get to his money. Matt said Lewis didn't pull a gun, and seemed desperate but not threatening, so he told him it was okay... and offered him some spaghetti.
It took me a minute to register what I had just heard and then I was like, "Whaaaat-the-hell-are-you-serious!?! !!! We-were-harboring-a-criminal-and-need-to-lock-all-of-the-doors-RIIIIGHT-NOWWW !!!!"
!!!!!!
We locked the doors.
Matt went upstairs to take a shower and Aaron went up to his room... I was sitting in the living room trying to soak it all in when someone started beating on the side of the house.
Most of the houses in our neighborhood had giant fences around them, with the exception of the house next door. Since there's no space between houses in the ghetto, you could reach the side of our house from our neighbor's driveway.
I went to the door and Lewis came around to the front of the gate. "Come to the gate," he said, "but don't open it." When he left, he was wearing jeans and a sweater, but now he had changed clothes and was wearing all black.
...
I was still freaking out about this an hour later, when Matt said, " Okay, let's think about this from Lewis's perspective...
Dude robs a store and runs into the ghetto looking for a place to hide. He happens to run into the only non-black house in the neighborhood (three white guys, a Brazilian guy named Andy, and a little Asian girl). I offered him spaghetti, you gave him a key chain, and Aaron offered him a beer, while a Chinese man yelled, "ANDY!!" every couple minutes, and by the time he left we were all best friends... "
Yeah, that is pretty cool...
And, no, we never got the $50.
...
A little while later, the locked backdoor opened.
"Jon, is that you?".
Jon said, "Yeah...it's ME!"
:D ...white guy number three.
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