Chief Crazy Hair

Maribeth and I made muffins for the neighbors to introduce ourselves as the newest Purple House residents. Our second stop was a dilapidated, unpainted except for an ornate paneled door, boarded-up house. I had assumed it to be vacant, but on a whim we tried the archaic buzzer mounted on the door. To our surprise we were invited in by a very deaf old man in baggy work pants held up by suspenders. He ushered us down the narrow front hall of raw plywood, past the pickle buckets of rainwater, into the kitchen with Haint Blue cabinets and what used to be a parquet floor. The gentle man proudly showed us the two pans of microwaved cornbread he had just made himself. The pans, one slice gone out of each, sat under an adjustable reading light, as if they had been undergoing an exam before we interrupted.

The next few minutes we marveled at our eccentric neighbor as he yelled (out of deafness, not anger) about everything from Moses to Hitler. He pulled his drooping right ear forward as he spoke to better snatch any sound waves. We tried screaming a few comments or questions into his cupped ear with little result. We did gather however, that this name is Marshall something or other aka Chief Crazy Hair. He is descended from the Native Americans (one of his relatives was buddies with Geronimo) and African Americans, and he does possess quite unusual hair. Despites his age, his long locks are white, fluffy, and curly. We wears them in a careless bun so that they hover around his head in a sort of aureole.

Chief Crazy Hair grew up in an orphanage on Memorial Drive, before it was Memorial Dr., and moved into his current abode in the 70’s. He says it was built in the 1890’s. Perhaps, but from the plywood and rafter shell that is left it’s hard to say. After about 15 minutes of nodding at his ramblings, we excused ourselves as delicately as one can by screaming in another’s ear.