Goodbye, Cousin Warren
Cousin Warren was the younger of two sons of my mother's oldest brother Carlton who preceded his son Warren in death. Warren's older brother Bobby also died recently. But I had drawn a mental line through Bobby's name more that 50 years ago when I met him for the first and only time. It was the same day that I met Cousin Warren. I embraced one brother and rejected the other for life based on that one encounter.
It was in my grandmother and grandfather's Harlem apartment. I was 5. The year was 1954. As was our custom, the entire extended family gathered in the little Harlem apartment for Thanksgiving. The small kitchen was bursting with relatives, a turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, peas and rice, coconut bread, corn bread and other food that represented the Southern U.S. and Barbadian sides of our family. We all awaited the coming of Cousin Warren. There were many reasons for this. The main one being that he played basketball for Loyola University, so he was a celebrity on two counts: 1) He played college basketball, and 2) other than his brother Bobby, he was the only one in our family to be part of that fantasy world of higher education.
I remember how Bobby, a law student at some school on the West coast, seemed put out by all his little cousins running around behaving in a manner that I'm sure he considered to be obnoxious. He made some comment to the effect that he found "all the little kids and the noise they made to be annoying," and ";where did they all come from?" That statement and question coupled with the scowl on his face, rigidity with which he sat and spoke and the stiffness of his shirt with the tie pulled up tight against his Adam's Apple sealed his fate as a permanent member of my Least Favorite People's Club -- a fate that I'm sure he did not lose any sleep over.
The big table with the two leaves to make it longer sat in the middle of the living room. It sagged under the weight of all the food. Two card tables were set up for the children. The Mighty Sparrow -- a popular West Indian calypso singer of the day -- howled at the throng from the Victrola in the corner of the room and made even perpetually grumpy Uncle Wilbert laugh and tap his feet. Then there was knocking at the door. Aunt Marian shouted out "who is it?" The voice on the other side answered, "Warren." There was silence as Aunt Marian unlocked then removed the thick, steel police bar, then the other three door locks before opening the door to reveal a tall, young, handsome, clean-shaven Black man with eyes that shone like polished coal and a smile broader and whiter than the ivory keys of the piano that shared the living room with the table that held the Thanksgiving feast. Warren had arrived.
Adults and children circled him like he was the world's greatest storyteller spinning yarns around a campfire. The difference was that the stories were true. He had been to the exotic island. Like Odysseus, he had navigated his vessel between the swirling and powerful whirlpool of Charybdis and the knife-sharp jagged surfaces of Scylla, the massive glacier-like rock that lived in the ocean on the other side of the passage. He had survived the streets and the unlikelihood that he would ever venture beyond high school. He had navigated his ship past the Island of Sirens, listened to the captivating songs and still continued his journey. Like Odysseus, he had survived many perils and journeys. He had claimed his rightful place and was standing in the doorway of blinding opportunity. He was in college and he was on the Loyola basketball team. He talked about the terror and exhilaration of playing. The intersection of dreams and reality -- however you chose to define the latter -- is a scary place.
If good thoughts can result in good and wonderful things, is not the opposite also true? Do we have more power than we dare to put into play which leads to the question of to what degree are we architects of the bad things that come into our lives? To say that we and we alone control what our lives will look like is an existentialist discussion that fails to install God in the proper place and to my way of thinking, that place is everywhere and in everything. But, of course, I didn't think these thoughts on that Thanksgiving Day when I met Cousin Warren for the first time.
He told us that the coach insisted that his players eat burnt toast and orange peels as part of their diets. I surmised that real-life gods ate different food. I don't remember what else he talked about but I do remember the presence of the man and it was large and good. I punched him and ran away, punched him and ran away and ignored his urging to stop. I was afflicted with the disease that afflicts young kids -- pushing adults to their limits with predictably bad results. But the game could not stop until I got my feelings or my body hurt. I ran up to Cousin Warren again and pummeled him with my little fists. He thumped me in the chest with his middle finger as if he were were flicking away an annoying fly. I cried. No-- I wailed and went in search of my mother. She wasn't hard to find in the small apartment. She said, "He told you to stop ten times and you kept on. Maybe you'll listen now."
Many years went by before I saw Cousin Warren again, but I, more or less, kept track of his life through stories passed from one relative to another. The news was often months old -- as was the case with my learning of his April death in August -- but it was fresh enough. A few months' delay doesn't matter much when you haven't seen a person for decades. Here's what I know of Cousin Warren's life after that Thanksgiving so long ago:
His college basketball career wasn't what he had hoped. He spent much more time on the bench than he did on the floor. He did graduate from college but I'm not sure if it was Loyola. He went to law school, just like his brother Bobby, but he never managed to pass the bar. He took it over and over. Even in different states, if I remember correctly. But he never passed so he never worked a single day as a lawyer. Then he got into teaching and taught in a number of places in different parts of the country. I don't know the details, but he never got his full slate of required teaching credentials so he was a substitute teacher until shortly before his death. I think Indiana was the last place he worked and lived.
Cousin Warren was a brilliant pianist. This is no surprise because his father -- my Uncle Carlton -- was a fine piano player. He knew many of the musicians and other artists of the Harlem Renaissance. I know these things through stories told so often I feel as though I have listened to Cousin Warren play for hours and days on end when the truth is that I never heard him play. I don't know how he spent his time, who he loved, if he loved, what he loved. I don't know what dreams, if any, remained after basketball stardom took a nosedive. I don't know how it felt to repeatedly take and not pass the bar exam while his arrogant brother practiced law in California and made -- it was reported -- enormous amounts of money.
The last time I saw Cousin Warren was in New York. I was 19 years old. The year was 1968. I had my own apartment in the East Village at that time, and I was visiting my parents a few blocks away when there was a knock at the door. My father looked through the peep hole and asked who it was. "Warren" said the voice on the other side of the steel door. "Who?" my father asked. "Warren. Your Cousin Warren," was the reply. My father opened the door and it felt like only minutes had passed since that Thanksgiving at Aunt Lee and Papa's so long ago. He looked the same to me but maybe that's because my eyes grew older at precisely the same rate as Cousin Warren's face. I remember that Cousin Warren wore a felt hat with a narrow brim -- the kind that Thelonious Monk was famous for wearing. We chatted for awhile, then Cousin Warren asked me if I wanted to go to Slugs to hear McCoy Tyner play. Slugs was a little jazz club across the street from Tompkins Square Park. Many of the greatest jazz musicians in the world played there. Cousin Warren and I walked the short distance from my parents' apartment to Slugs. I felt as though I had been reunited with a long-lost older brother. We entered the club and sat down. Tyner entered the stage and sat down at the piano. In a few short seconds we were transported to another place. I never saw Cousin Warren again.
So wherever you are, Cousin Warren, I wish you a good journey and I'm very glad we met.
Love,
Your Cousin Kenny
September 5, 2007 Archives