Eddie

I remember sitting on his knee -- that's what I remember best, sitting on his knee . . . and the sharp, acrid smell of sweat that I associated only with him. It made my nostrils flare and as I smelled it, I always thought, "Oh, yes, that's the smell of Eddie." It wasn't a bad smell, it was just a sharp smell, a smell I can almost, almost imagine now, so many years later, hundreds of miles away, when for some reason the memories of Eddie come back to mind.
The sun was brilliantly white, as it always was in Alabama summer, and I never knew Eddie would be coming until he was there. Eddie the yardman.
How sad to me, now, a grown woman, that I never knew his last name. He was only Eddie.
Eddie came to our house periodically to do the yard work. After a hard morning's work, he knocked on the back door to ask for a glass of ice water and my mother always brought it in the faded blue aluminum cup she kept apart because it was used by "colored." And when Eddie sat and drank his water, I sat with him and we talked. We talked, really talked, and I thought he was wonderful because he talked with me as if I were a real person, worth his respect, not a silly little girl. We talked steadily, and slowly, and then we enjoyed silence. I remember how hot it was, my feet dangling in the air as we sat on the brick wall. The cup in his hand was cold and sweated drops of water like his brow and my upper lip. I stared at his face hard as we talked. I wonder now what he thought of the little girl who stared so intently at his large black face, as he spoke with his deep rumbling, gentle voice.
Eddie had a wooden leg that made a rhythmic thump, thump as he walked. My mother had told me about it and I don't recall ever asking him about it, perhaps as a point of respect from a little girl to an old man. Curious that in all our conversations, we never discussed the most obvious thing there was, the wooden leg I sat on.
As the years passed, his hair grew white and close on his dark brown head and I remember thinking how lovely the little curls were in contrast to his skin. When he walked through the gate, he stopped, turned, and slowly closed the gate behind him. I waited patiently, then put my little white hand in his big dark one with the large ivory square nails, and we walked to the brick wall to sit and talk.
Funny, I remember how much we talked, but I don't remember a conversation we had, but one, and that's another story entirely.
What I do remember is the faded cup, and the sharp smell of honest labor that was Eddie.

And I am so sorry I never knew his last name.