JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Let me tell you about my trip to Tulsa.

It’s a meandering sort of story — the kind that, if I’d come across as an editor at The Star, I would have told the reporter, “Let’s get on with it!” But I think you’ll enjoy it for what it is, the story of a father helping his 20-year-old son get set up in his first house. 

Charlie and I left Kansas City about noon Tuesday — two hours behind schedule — with the goal of getting him settled in the house that he and a classmate, Eric, are renting a few blocks from the University of Tulsa.

They’re both juniors. Charlie lived in the dorm his first year and in a fraternity house last year. Eric found the house over the summer, on South College Avenue, while driving around looking for someplace to rent close to campus. 

I had this crazy idea that I’d drive down there Tuesday, pick up a bed that a store owner was holding for Charlie, buy him some supplies and drive back to Kansas City Tuesday night. Nice and neat…Not to be. My plan went awry by a full 24 hours. There were trips to several stores — including big box, furniture and grocery — and a battle to get the bed set up.  

The overnight stay was sealed within an hour of our arrival in Tulsa. We got to the Affordable Mattress store — run by a guy named Malik — at 5:20, only to find that the store had closed at 5 and would not reopen until 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

I decided to try to learn more about the neighborhood Charlie and Eric would be living in. So, when we were outside the house, I jumped on an opportunity to interview Charlie’s next-door-neighbor, Paul, who had gotten in his truck and was preparing to drive off. 

I already knew that the houses on either side of Charlie had been owner-occupied for many years. Those two houses are well maintained. Across the street, however, is a boarded-up house, and to one side of that house is another where a couple of young pit bulls stand guard in a fenced-in front yard. 

I’d seen the dogs on an earlier visit, when we were checking out the rental property. The pit bulls looked friendly enough — tails wagging, no snarling –but I always give pit bulls a wide berth, regardless of their apparent disposition.

I already knew, of course, that that house was one to keep an eye on, along with the one that is boarded up. One house I hadn’t noticed on the earlier trip was a partly burned-out house two doors from Charlie. Paul, who lives between Charlie and the house where the fire occurred, said the house had been torched — a reported arson — about six weeks ago. Some of the windows are boarded up, while others are broken out with jagged edges exposed.

Paul said he had called the Mayor’s Action Line more than once, but the city had not fully secured the property. (For good measure, I called the Mayor’s Action Line Thursday morning.) 

Paul also provided some other interesting information: A group of people who live on the other side of the street, next door to the boarded-up house, are panhandlers. “They’re the ones you see holding up the signs at intersections,” Paul said. “That’s their job….I told one of the guys I’d help him get a job where I work, but he said, ‘Oh, no,’ I make plenty of money.’ ”

At that point I realized that there were four problematic houses, not two, within a stretch of 75 yards of Charlie and Eric. The other houses on the block appeared fine, but four in a concentrated area is a bit worrisome. The picture that Paul was painting didn’t bother Charlie and Eric a bit, of course; they were too busy picturing themselves hosting parties and hoisting beers on the porch and in the living room.

Next morning, after a greasy breakfast at the Corner Cafe on historic Route 66, which runs right through Tulsa, we headed over to see Malik. Malik, a tall, smiling fellow who also is “Professor Malik,” a forestry teacher at TU, was holding, on deposit, an 84-inch mattress and box spring for Charlie, who is 6 feet, 7 inches tall. (A good editor told me early on not to make the reader do the math. That’s 79 inches. In other words, Charlie needs the 84-inch mattress — the longest standard size that is manufactured — to fit his frame comfortably on the bed.)

Malik sold us the mattress-box spring set for $100, plus tax. As a token of his appreciation, he presented Charlie with a small copper ashtray in the form of a woman’s shoe.  

The real bed trouble started when we got back to the house and found that the mattress and box spring were too narrow, by three inches, for the 39-inch standard-size Hollywood frame. Not to worry, I thought. We’ll just go to Home Depot or Lowe’s, have some slats cut to size and lay them horizontally along the bed frame at intervals of a foot or so.

Got that done, and it worked. But…another problem presented itself. The bed and box spring were too long for the frame, naturally, and when I would push on the foot of the bed, the head of the bed would pop up like a teeter-totter.

Solution: Get a piece of wood cut into smaller sections that could be nailed together and used as footings on either side of the unsupported end of the bed. Back to Lowe’s; got the wood; bought nails.

By this time, Charlie had grown quiet, and he was looking off into space as we plowed through our mission at Lowe’s. “Are you tired,” I asked.

“I’m thirsty, and I’m tired of all this driving around and getting different stuff,” he said, grimacing. “I just want to have it done and be at the house.”

“I understand, Charlie,” I commiserated. “I don’t like it, either.”

With the wood and nails in hand, we got back to the house about 6:15, and, clearly, it was time for me to leave. He gave me a big hug — his arms around my shoulders and mine around his waist — and said, “Thanks so much for all the help, Dad.”

I wished him luck and headed out.

About 45 minutes later, while I was stuck in traffic on Interstate 244, my cell phone rang. It was Charlie. He had nailed the boards together, but some had cracked…The nails were too big.

“I think it’ll be OK,” he said, reassuringly.

He was about to go, but his reportorial gene clicked in. “Oh,” he said, “there’s already been some action on the block…At the panhandlers’ house, a lady was down in the front yard, bleeding from her hand.” 

“What was it? I asked, “A stabbing?”

“Somebody said it was a suicide attempt,” he said. 

“Did the cops come?” I said.

“There were about seven cop cars,” he replied.

We signed off. About that time, the traffic broke, and I was winging my way back to Kansas City.

Charlie, meanwhile, was starting his new life in the 200 block of South College Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma.