Charity

Flash fiction. (2023)

The first time Leprechaun knocked on her door, Char didn’t hesitate to open it and respond to his inquiry. Having lived on the block for two years, she’d grown accustomed to former residents returning to see if their friends or family still lived in her home. Char assumed when Leprechaun, also known as Lee, came knocking he must've been a child of the previous tenants who resided in the home for over thirty years. 

Lee was a downtrodden, short, brutish man fitting of the ilk produced by the working class community of Kensington. The north Philadelphia neighborhood he was raised in and continued to cruise as an adult. Lee had lived on the streets of Kenzo, as it was colloquially known, off and on since being released from incarceration as a teen. His family home wasn’t the one Char currently resided in, but he did grow up on the block. He had never left Kensington because he knew there would always be someone around familiar with his face who would open their doors to him. Over the years of being on the block, Lee had attempted to educate Char and others new to the community about the history of his neighborhood.

Char was raised in the Mainline, far from the dense blocks of Kenzo. Throughout her adolescence, her parents vehemently told her to never venture into the neighborhood she now called home. Telling her she could be brutally murdered, or become addicted to drugs. The latter of the two was far more likely to play out considering her background. 

Like many of the Kenzo’s newer residents, Char was white, wealthy, and entitled. When she told her parents she was buying a home in the neighborhood, they ridiculed her, refusing to give her any money to help with a down payment. This confused Char, as her parents had taught her to always help those in need and to never discriminate based on a person's background. So instead, she asked an ex, who did well when Bitcoin first came around, for “a small loan”. This is how Char became a resident of what she and other transplants called East Kensington– a neighborhood where many of her neighbors saw her as a gentrifier. She brushed off that accusation because she felt she looked enough like her neighbors to fit in, and that her $60,000 a year salary made her lower middle class.

Peter and Lily were Char’s first friends on the block. Like her, the married couple was young, white, and relatively well-off compared to their neighbors. Peter was born in Spain and had relocated to Philly to become a professional skateboarder. They saw themselves as an integral part of the neighborhood because they had purchased an empty lot next to their home, which they turned into a community garden. Lily had hoped to give back to the community by charging less for produce than other farmers markets in the area, but in three years no crops had ever materialized and the plot of land sat tilled but empty. To establish himself in the community, Peter let the folks of color who lived around Kenzo call him by his birth name, Pedro, and took pride in the fact he remembered everyone on the block's name. After being informed of them by Lee. 

“Why don’t you go by Pedro all the time?” Char asked him. “Peter makes people feel safer with me” he answered, cheerfully. Lily embraced Peter from behind. “We live in a safe part of the neighborhood and we try to keep it that way” she told Char. “So, how much do you think you’re gonna get for your place?”

Towards the end of the summer, Peter and Lily decided to organize and host a block party. They enlisted Char’s help, hoping her background in marketing and communications would aid in the logistics of promoting and putting together the party. They attempted to contact all their neighbors, but quickly found out, to their surprise and dismay, that no one expressed much interest. Miladys, a Puerto Rican woman with two small children who lived in her deceased parent’s home, mentioned that the parties Peter had hosted in the community garden were often loud and left trash all over the street. 

“Well, the garden also doubles as a beer garden because I am growing hops for the brewery that’s opening down the block. You all are welcome to join. Everyone, including children, are welcome” Peter remarked. He asked Lily, who was fluent in Spanish, to speak with Miladys in hopes to resolve her concerns. Lily went to the other woman’s home and attempted to gift her a bottle of coquito while jokingly singing “feliz navidad” as Mateo, Miladys sibling opened the door. Lily tried to hand the bottle to them, but they handed it back to her. 

“Our father died of alcoholism,” they explained. “Neither of us drink. We’d also appreciate it if y’all would recognize this is a tight street and y’all’s double parking fucks it up for everyone else, gracias.” As they shut the door, Lily turned to her husband and looked him sadly in the eyes. “I don't know what we did wrong” she sighed, as Peter embraced her.

Despite this incident, the block party went ahead later that month. Char was excited to see her new friends Keegan and Seth, who had opened the brewery down the street, arriving with two kegs of their IPA. The two were Temple grads who, like Char, were also from the Mainline. They lived in East Falls, but were fond of Kensington because Seth’s cousin, Liam, who lived a few blocks from the party, was their weed connect in college. Liam was a proud resident of Kensington, and lived in a home built by his great-grandfather, though he was raised in Delco and was a graduate of Penn. He was also familiar with Lee, having developed a relationship with Lee through a drug dealer they shared. 

When Lee showed up to the party with his friend Ray, who he often shared a tent with, Liam erupted with praise. Keegan and Seth, however, looked at each other with disapproval. They claimed that they had to ban Lee from their brewery because he was hanging around without buying anything and scaring their customers. Lily asked Peter to escort Lee out, and Char watched passively as her friend strutted up to Lee, pretending to dance with him. As Lee noticed Peter heading his way, he began dancing. 

“What this party needs is some of our boy Benito, right Pedro?” he yelled. Peter stopped dancing and put his hand on Lee’s shoulder as he looked down at the other man.

“Luis, this is a private party, man. I’m still your boy Pedro and you’re always welcome in the garden. But this is a party just for folks who live on the block.” Lee looked up at Peter, breaking into unhinged laugher. 

“Pedro, primo, I am the block” he said as he danced away, still laughing to himself. Liam turned to Char in confusion. 

“Who the fuck is Luis? I thought Lee was Irish like me?”

____________________________________________________________________________

On a dreary evening in early December, Char was lounging in her living room reading a book on white fragility. It was gifted to her by a friend who was in an interracial relationship. A loud bang on the door caused her to jump, knocking over the IPA that was sitting on the edge of her table. Peering out the circular window in her door, she was surprised and slightly annoyed to see Lee standing there. She stood in the doorway, recalling what her parents taught her about always being considerate of those in need. When Char opened the door, Lee began ranting about how someone in the neighborhood owed him money and that he was starving. 

“How can I help?” Char asked, but Lee just kept repeating his story. Believing that he just needed someone to listen and help calm him down, she asked Lee to hold on for a moment. Char closed the door, making sure to not invite him in, and grabbed her purse.

“Look, I don’t have any cash, but what’s your Venmo?” she asked. Lee looked at her, annoyance wrinkling across his face.

“Venmo...hell no. Look, I just need some cash so I can get food.” Char held back a sigh as she shut the door again and went to her kitchen. She still had plenty of leftovers from thanksgiving, and quickly assembled a plate of potato salad and green beans. She felt especially good about the potato salad, assuming that since he was Irish after all, Lee would appreciate it. 

When she opened the door again, food in hand, she saw that Lee had been joined by his friend Ray. The presence of two men unsettled her a bit and Char hastily handed off the plate to Lee, trying to keep her voice cheery. 

“Here’s some potato salad and green beans from thanksgiving. I figured you and your people would appreciate it.” Lee looked at Ray with confusion as a large grin spread across the other man’s face. 

“I never got your name miss” Lee said, eying Char. 

“It’s Charity” she responded gleefully. Lee looked surprised, then collected his thoughts. 

“My people, they’re Mexican. Your people, they come and go. Thanks for nothing you Grace Kelly type bitch” Lee threw the plate of potato salad in the street. “These people, they just don’t get it” he mumbled to Ray as they walked off. 

Char stared blankly as the two men disappeared into the rainy night. She closed the door and sat back down on her couch. Unaware of the emotions she was feeling, she sat silently.

 “What did I do wrong? What does he mean I don’t get it?” she said. She tossed the book on white fragility across the room. Through clenched teeth, she began cleaning up the mess from the beer she spilled on her Ikea table. After she calmed down, she called her parents and told them what happened. Char’s father berated her for helping men he referred to as crackheads.

“That’s what you get when you try to help those people” he sighed. This made her feel even worse. Guilty, even. 

To soothe herself, Char started scrolling through Instagram where an ad for condos being built in Fishtown caught her eye. There was a brewery on the first floor, a beer garden on the roof, and 24-hour security guards. It was set for completion in six months. The relief she had been searching for washed over her. Char cracked open another IPA, sat back on her couch, and smiled.