"Hold back a bit on the water", I yelled down to him, "I can re-temper the mix as I need it."

Cy had an unusual way of bending , with his knees locked and his torso straight ,so he avoided flexing his battered knee joints. An old football injury, and earlier career as a Cop chasing punks through the parks at night, put the final touches on his knee cartilage.The stretching ritual that he performed in the middle of the sidewalk  each day consisted of a series of gyrations that  were hard to ignore. Forever loyal, we worked together for many years ,and although it was a contentious relationship, whatever disagreements we had during the day were forgotten when we drove away from the job site.                 

The buildings of Boston's South End were erected in the mid 1800's.The stone used to face the wooden structures came from the quarries in Eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut. Brownstone named for its continuous color, is a soft sedimentary stone of the Triassic era  ,that was plentiful and easily cut. Originally home to the wealthiest Bostonians the "rowhouse", a European design housed many of the early immigrants in tenement like neighborhoods that joined buildings together in entire city blocks. The brownstone used in the district was a redish -brown stone called "Portland", named after its source in Portland ,Connecticut.Each building had a defining motif, revealed in the carvings on lintels, columns, and roof brackets, while others employed the use of red brick to cover the exterior, focusing the Brownstone to the lower section and lintels.

Today, the larger concentrations of these neighborhoods in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Boston are designated "Historic Districts", and are controlled by city government commissions. The area we worked in represented the outer perimeter of the district , and the site of the  most recent "boom to bust" cycle.The changing face of the neighborhood was caused by the surge in property value exerting pressure on the aging, disconnected ,and underfunded family groups. 

Two blocks up, a major roadway served as the dividing line to which the most respectable and law abiding civilians would not cross.What lay ahead was a neighborhood in transition,, awaiting a brave new investment strategy or creative urban plan to jump start the area. Gone are the colorful nightspots like the High Hat and Louis Lounge. There was "Skippy White's" record store  and "Baby Tiger's" boxing gym. Nearby was Clinton's Market ,where you could buy your traditional southern favorites of collard greens ,chitlins and, ham-hocks. The intersecting boulevard divided the so-called "hood", visually obvious due to its lack of a controlled aesthetic ,with buildings  in disrepair, a lack of commerce, and home to the poorest groups of people statistically more affected by crime. As the availability of housing shrinks and rents creep  higher, the occupants  get squeezed out by developers renovating for a wealthier group of people.It was in this setting ,rippling with the excesses of urban life, that we worked and came in contact with a daily barrage of characters that shaped our world.                       

Cy, my ground man, was supposed to be keeping a look out for the meter maids and police officers who roamed the street , ticketing illegally parked cars. This included  anyone parking without the approved resident decal or workmen without signage on all sides of the vehicles.

I heard Cy calling out, "Hey Blatey"! a name he just invented for me as he often did ,and was only understood  by his personalized logic.

As I looked down I saw one female officer or "meter maid"  and one male parking officer. The woman was  scribbling numbers onto her "violators parking pad" and in a flash I  withdrew the boom of the work basket and was on the ground hovering over them. Since it was not his vehicle ,Cy stayed away. The "Meter Maid " continued to ignore me until I asked her what the problem was?

"I can't see your business sign on the rear of the truck," She blithely replied.

I was  astonished by her answer ,considering  that the truck lettering was concealed as it usually was by the opened tailgate. The extended  flat surface served as our work station and gave us  ready access to all the supplies that were stored in back.

I moved in front of both of them, lifted the back tailgate with my shoulder, sending buckets and tools flying in all directions.

"How's that ''? I said, "Can you see them now"?

 "You don't have to cop an attitude!" She replied  with an unrefined, whining tone.

And with that ,she flipped over the cover to her violations book, and continued down the road to catch up with her embarrassed associate  whom was already half a block away.

Cy emerged from the sidelines.

"Yeh Blatey", he sighed  summarizing the event, "It's the full weight of the government bearing down on the people", 'It just ain't right".

Being on the street came with its privileges. We became more demonstrative, indifferent to the proper laws of conduct, passing gas, singing aloud if we chose or uncovering an absurd interpretation of the traffic laws by a clueless civil servant.

It was a small example of what we were capable of. Any display of resistance that we could perform on the street was all that we needed  to retain some kind of hope that change was possible.

A large yellow truck equipped with two large circular brushes mounted near the rear wheels readied at the beginning of the road for the  designated odd numbered day of  street sweeping. Several parking officers exited a white van and  descended on the few cars that ignored the signs indicating" street sweeping on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month, except holidays". The ticketing and towing process was performed with expert timing and precision. As soon as the police officer placed the bright red violation notice under the wiper blade of the targeted vehicle, a truck backed up to the rear bumper, retracted the towing rig ,and after  a few quick connections towed the car away. After the block had been cleared of the offending vehicles, the sweeper truck surged forward ,glancing off the curb, snagging cups, cans, leaves and condoms before continuing on to the next  towing expedition.

Not a minute had passed, when a bewildered Pakistani girl appeared wandering around the area. Unusually composed, after having been violated by the ruthless city tactics ,she listened as Cy offered a few clues to her cars whereabouts. After she got the information that would lead to her impounded vehicle ,she pulled out her cell phone and paced back and forth while Cy made his way back to the job site. Depending upon the length of time it took her to find the car, the tow could cost hundreds of dollars and hours of wasted time and frustration .

I returned to  the work platform while Cy disappeared inside one of the vacant condo units  to relieve himself of the coffee he drank for breakfast. The last remaining unit was a spacious ground floor apartment with a stairway leading down to a subterranean kitchen overlooking the  parking lot  in the back alley.

Returning to the street he yelled up ,"Hey Blatey!". "Did you smell that in there?"I think we have a problem."

The unmistakable odor of a decaying rodent pervaded the apartment. Somehow a  rat found its way into a cavity and died  after ingesting the poisons that were set out before they closed up the walls . The pungent mix of ammonia and animal feces was  strong enough to sting your eyes. 

"I wonder if anybody's on top of this problem"? Cy continued.

"Go into the office and tell them to  call an exterminator", I shouted back.

Back on  top at the work site ,I sized up the extent of the next repair. The brownstone lintel is a large structural stone that spans the top of the window frame .The original lintels were grand displays of artistic achievement; carved borders, suggesting a crown moulding detail with a coat of arms or  centralized  pendant with mirroring scrollwork, cascading around a clump of  grapes, each one a showpiece in its own right . Now you would be hard pressed to find a fraction of the original  detail  still intact. Residents without the knowledge of the proper restoration techniques and  historical significance allowed the character of these buildings to fade. Sometime during a previous repair an owner instructed a repairman to chop off the detail then flatten  out the  surface with a coat of cement rather than replacing or recarving. Several large masonry suppliers have come up with products that suit this purpose, devising a compound of  light pigmented sand with a secret binder that mimics almost perfectly the structure of the older stone. Now a skilled installer can rebuild details and return the beauty of the stone elements to their original form.

      Cy was making exaggerated coughing sounds on the ground signaling that something of interest was happening below.This time, it was  a woman dressed in a low cut tee-shirt strutting toward our work area. From a distant she seemed unusually pretty for a "street walker", but her slight limp and turned in toes added more clues to her vocation. As she came closer, we noticed that the dark lipstick and eye shadow she wore splayed well beyond its  boundaries. The nearer she got ,the  more  exaggerated her movements  became, as she began honing in on Cy , who continued to concentrate on his mixing duties  without losing sight of her from the corner of his eye .After making a quick assessment of Cy's intentions she proudly cocked her head away ,  then continued on with her "neighborhood John patrol."

From my sky-top view I could see nearly an entire block in each direction . An airline attendant with a blue cap  pushed open her front door, bounced her suitcase down the entire run of stair treads and loaded into a waiting  taxi. A fast moving  throng of medical  employees emerged  from around the corner , wearing  the standard loose fitting  hospital garb that offered no clues to "rank or status". They chattered  cheerily as they walked  along the brick sidewalk and roadway, some straddling the curb to avoid  the light poles and fire hydrants  they passed. They were on their way back to the city's busiest hospital and  emergency room that catered to a horrific assortment of injuries, from drug overdoses to gun shot wounds. Across the park on the other side of the block, a young woman wearing white sneakers and spandex  guided a carriage with her newborn down the stairs ,backwards .Carefully pushing against the weight of the handle ,she descended until she completed her morning introduction, gave a reassuring peek  into the opening of the carriage then was off  pushing her baby with a short bouncing step ,initializing her daily exercise routine.

I returned to the job of restoring the lintel detail while the circus atmosphere in the street continued. A truck pulled up in front of the work station where we  placed our brown and white buckets, small grinding machines , trowels, chisels,and a wide assortment of custom made knives that we used in shaping the detail into the stone. A tall guy around 40 years old,  wearing a safari style hat, stepped out of the truck cab. 

"Hey" !,  "How's it going"?  "I'm the Rat Man".

Cy turned to listen as the man took center stage.

"Yeh, you've  probably seen me on House Doctor. Well I,m hear to deal with Rattus Norwegicus."

 "Who"?  Cy chuckled , in a way that both engaged the newcomer and promoted our healthy skepticism.

"The Norwegian Rat!", he replied , completing the punch line to his opening phrase."They have burrows and passages everywhere. We need to find the point of entry and close off the hole. Did you know that there is one rat for every human being in the world ?", the Ratman decried .

I heard his pronouncements from my perch as  Cy followed him around the building, uncovering  ground penetrations to a forgotten coal chute and abandoned pipe chase.

"Two rats can produce 15,000 descendants in one year", the Ratman continued.

"What, no way" Cy replied combatively, but was eager for him to continue his rant.

Cy listened as the " Ratman" extrapolated, humm, well, you see if  two rats can have up to 12 offspring in 24 days and  then if each has another litter ... and so on he continued  until he proved the permutations. After watching the scene for some time I  attempted to extricate Cy from the "Ratman", so they each could continue the jobs they were paid to perform.

"Cy!, I need another mix !" I yelled down to him. "Come on, I need help here"

Loquacious and easily distracted ,I reflected on the nickname that Cy was given by his comrades while serving in the  the army. "Talky" they called him, and "talk" he did. Click to continue