Sparky’s Place

By Chanuga Rollins

 

I hated the night shift, but because of the way my work schedule fell it gave me a lot of free time during the day, I guess technically it wasn’t even really the night shift. I worked three 10pm to 6am shifts, one 2pm to 10pm shift, and one 7am to 3pm shift, it was dirty factory work but relatively easy you just had to be quick and put up with very hot conditions.

The good thing about it was I got to work with a cool black guy by the name of Mike, I grew up around black folks most of my life, but I never socialized with them. Mike was a little different, and by different I mean he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder about the white man like many do. If you wanted something in life you worked for it plain and simple, Mike was raised by decent middle-class parents, nobody in his family collected welfare or food stamps they worked for a living.

Another black guy we paled around with was Kirby, he was different than Mike, Kirby was more militant, he wore his hair in a big afro, and everything was the white man’s fault, Kirby also liked skin popping (shooting heroin but not into the vain) but we got along ok.

When the three of us worked the night shift we liked going to breakfast at least one of the three mornings that we worked. Kirby always complained about the cost of eating out, but he always came with us. Another thing that I’ve noticed is that the two black guys never picked up the check, I have it was no big deal to me. But when that check came they avoided it like the Klan.

So, one morning after work we were trying to decide where to eat when Mike had a suggestion, why don’t we follow him, he knew the perfect place, it was cheap, and you got plenty of food. So, we all hopped in our cars and Mike lead the way. At first I was put off and thought that this was a joke, Mike brought us to the ghetto.

 The three of us parked out on the street wherever we could and with Mike leading the way we went through an alley that had cars parked everywhere, to my surprise only Kirby was a little nervous. Hey man I’m from the East Side this is the North, I don’t belong around here.

Supposably there is a territorial thing going on between the East and the North side blacks, Kirby if you’re worried think how I must feel being the only white guy, we all laughed. This neighborhood was bad, more murders happen here than anywhere else in the city. But Mike assured us that we would be fine.

This place was right in the middle of the block, it was a fucking row home, and the guy converted the downstairs of his home into a restaurant. He even had his daughter as a server, his wife did the cooking, and Sparky the owner played hostess, there of course was no sign because he operated illegally. In my wildest dreams, I could never imagine a place like this operating in a white neighborhood, it would have been raided in less than a day.

Maybe because I was white, or because I’d never been there before, we got the best seat in the house and his daughter catered to our every need. “Sparky’s” had an interesting menu of eggs any style, pancakes, home fries, grits, bacon, sausage, fish, beans and rice, fried chicken, shrimp, and pork, it was a smorgasbord of  Southern cuisine and all for a very low price, the place also served lunch.

This was seven o’clock in the morning and the place was packed, I asked Mike how long has he been coming here and he said maybe a year or so.  

How do you like it, are you comfortable Mike asked me, I’m good I answered, it’s definitely something different, the one drawback was Kirby, he was complaining of course.

I went to “Sparky’s” a few more times with Mike but sadly, as with everything in life, it ended. They closed down our department and I got transferred to days, Mike also got switched to days, but he got sent to the other end of the factory, so I rarely saw him anymore.

A couple of weeks after my first visit to ‘Sparky’s” they found Kirby dead from an overdose, and a white cop shot some black kid after he committed a robbery, so it wasn’t safe for me to go to Sparky’s anymore.

Almost a year later the factory announced that they were closing down. It was at this union meeting that I also ran into Mike, we talked about working together and how much fun we had. I asked if he still went to “Sparky’s,” no he replied, just like the factory “Sparky’s” closed down.

The end

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