The Painter

Did you ever have an image from your childhood pop in to your mind?

Here's one from mine.

When I was a kid we lived in a ground floor apartment on Mulberry Street.  I hated living all the way on the bottom, my bedroom facing a brick wall, smelling of cat pee with little (no) direct sunlight. That's probably why my parents got us out to the country in the Poconos in the summers.

In the front of the apartment there were two alleyways.  The one on the right looked down on the Italian bakery in front.  The one on the left looked down on an empty alleyway.  I still see the painting some black man had sitting on a make-shift easel down there.  A very African-American looking painting of a woman, painting in progress.  This man wanted to be seen.  Why would anyone paint down there?

Soon I heard/realized that the man lived down there.  Basically, there were no black people living in Chinatown in the 60's so it was odd that he wanted to live down there.  Homeless?  No? Why would anyone live down there on an old thrown out mattress or sleeping bag?  Next to rats, mice, other disgusting stuff.  Working odd jobs with neighborhood restaurants.  Fast forward a few months later, my Mom told me he was FBI, or CIA or government informant or something or other:  spying on the Mulberry Street mafia.

I saw the man once or twice.  My first thought was how could anyone live down there, in the disgusting alley?  My second thought was, wow, how could anyone have enough courage to infiltrate mafia while living in the disgusting alley?