The Canonical Penguin: Characters of 215th Street – Brief Case Lady

This next character I am going to tell you about is the one I am the most uncomfortable with. The images I have are haunting and scary to this day, the sort of things that nightmares are made of. Sure, I mentioned being afraid of Mrs. Perkin’s blue veined hands. Sure, Witchy and Mo across the street were creepy too. But these were the kinds of things that lost their fear factor as I got older. The woman with the brief case still creeps me out to this day.

Before I start, let me just say that I am in no way now or did I then make fun of her. I think even as a kid, I realized that she was “off a bit”. Today, I would say emotionally handicapped or possibly schizophrenic. But there she was and then we were all scared of her.

She dressed the same each day. A man like suit with a shirt and tie, light tan overcoat, umbrella in one hand, brown leather brief case in the other. She wore a hat but her longish hair showed out the back. She had on white cotton gloves. And she wore make up, lots of it, caked on pretty thick, pancake makeup, with no lipstick or eye shadow. It gave her an almost ghostly appearance. Could it have been my first experience with a transvestite or with a cross dresser? Yes it could. But my parents were of no help in this matter answering questions about who she was with answers like “leave her alone.”

This was one rule we did not break. We saw here every day, walking up the block most mornings and down the block most afternoons, across the street from where we lived. We did not know where she lived or where she was going to or coming from but we were always caution just the same. When we were younger, if we were playing in the street when she approached we sort of drifted to our side of the street, to our stoop or sidewalk until she passed. When we were older, we would continue to play baseball or football or whatever we were doing but always kept an eye on her as she walked past.

We did not interact with her in any way whatsoever. We did not say hello as we did to most other pedestrians who walked by. We did not approach her. One time I remember a ball we were playing with bouncing toward her. Whoever was close to it made a move toward the ball as it came to rest a few feet from where she was approaching. She raised her umbrella as if to indicate she would hit that person but did not attempt to do so. She simply kept walking by at the same pace and the kid waited until she was past in order to retrieve the errant ball.

In my mind’s eye I can still see her raising her umbrella that day, not in fear of her but astonishment. It still creeps me out to think about her today.

(These are stories about things that actually happened with plenty of witnesses. It has passed from the apocryphal to canonical in nature. Wiki says of canon – “material that is considered to be "genuine", "something that actually happened", or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator.”)