Hello, Boy

Casey Jones. When most people hear that name, they think about the famous engineer, or maybe the Grateful Dead song. I think about a man I once knew. A man who lived a simple life, born in small Mississippi town, worked his way to Phoenix, Arizona, survived one wife and then another, nearly drank himself to death. A man who, for whatever reason, befriended me and showed me a simple side of life.

Casey came into my life, or maybe I came into his, when I was a social worker at a nursing home. It was quite possibly the toughest job, mentally, I've ever had. SunCrest Nursing Center was situated amongst the "inner city" of South Phoenix. Many of the staff who worked there were former gang members. Some of the residents even. They all had the stories and the bullet hole scars to prove it. People who lived there didn't have the means, financially, to live in a nicer place. Sometimes, residents were simply dropped off at the front door, and left for us to care for and about.

Casey was never a gang member. Not that he ever told me, at least. He was a delivery man. A truck driver. Casey was a man who loved people, really, and driving a truck from shop to shop, delivering whatever goods he had in his possession, was simply an excuse to put a little money in his pocket and engage in conversation.

Casey's downfall was his penchant for the hard stuff. Whiskey, I think it was. He drank himself silly most nights. People who live with less money in their pockets, often find a way to feed their addictions. Casey was no exception.

He had a house, a younger woman he called his girlfriend, a step-daughter, and a job, until he lost all of them--minus the dutiful step-daughter. Casey drank so much one day, that when he passed out on his front lawn, no one was able to get him to wake up. An ambulance was called and he spent a couple of weeks in the hospital.

They put a feeding tube in his nose. They put him on IV's. They started him on physical and occupational therapy. They sent him to a nursing home.

When Casey arrived, he was a mess. We couldn't engage in meaningful dialogue. He couldn't relate his history to me. He didn't know who the president was. I concluded that he wouldn't make it out of SunCrest alive. Casey was just that bad.

But I didn't know him that much yet. I didn't know he was a man with determination. I didn't know he was a man who deserved another chance. He wanted to get back on his feet. He wanted to eat food again, be with friends again. He didn't want to drink.

As his therapy progressed, Casey became real to me. Being a social worker in a nursing home, where people die almost every day, can make a person numb to personal relationships. I was at that point when I met Casey. I cared about the people I served, but I kept most of them at a distance. Casey wouldn't let me do that.

Every morning after breakfast and before therapy, Casey walked into my office and sat down in a vacant chair. Every morning it was the same, "Hello, Boy!" "How you doing, Boy?" "So nice to see you, Boy!"

As I write the words, I hear his voice. He had a way of speaking that can really only be described as "old Southern black man." The word "boy" always had two syllables.

Casey liked to talk to me. He'd talk about the regrets he had in his life (a son he never met, never flying in an airplane, drinking too much, losing his sight, not loving enough). We were 50 years apart, but had a deep connection because he liked to talk and I liked to listen.

I remember the day Casey left the nursing home. He wasn't going too far. A lady who worked as a bookkeeper at SunCrest opened an Adult Foster Care Home in the neighborhood. Casey was going to be one of the first residents there. He was excited to get "out of that place" and even though he was never going back to his old life, he was happy. Happy that he beat whatever demons were inside of him. Happy he made a new friend. Happy he was breathing.

Casey is the only nursing home resident I ever kept in touch with over the years. When I moved back to Chicago, I'd call him on a semi-regular basis. When he picked up the phone and said, "Hello, Boy," it would always make me smile.

A year before Frederic was born, Cyndi and I went out to Phoenix for a vacation. We took Casey to Red Lobster for lunch and bought him a couple of nice shirts for his birthday. He took an immediate liking to Cyndi and even though he never met Frederic, he made him something at the Senior Center for his baptism.

It was a ceramic lamp with a Bible verse on it.

Life got away from me several years ago and I didn't keep in touch with Casey like I used to. When I realized I missed his birthday, something I hadn't done since we met, I called him. But I was too late. Casey had died months prior to my call.

He was buried in a cemetery far away from South Phoenix. The government paid for the burial, as they did for most things the latter part of his life. There wasn't a big celebration of his life, I was told and I felt guilty.

I often think about Casey. I wish I had more than the one photograph of him, which was taken during the time in his life he was less proud of.

I wish I had him on camera, or on tape. I'd love to hear him say the words, "Hello, Boy" over and over again.