Suspicion and Three Cases of Mistaken Identity

On one of our neighbourhood walks when we stopped to admire this building, a black man lounging against the fence eyed us warily. Big Joe flashed him a grin and said, "Hey, how're you doin'?" Big Joe's friendly gregarious nature usually wins the locals over, but this guy wasn't buying it.
The man stood up a little straighter, "You lookin' to buy this place?" he asked.
Often on our walks around the neighbourhood, I'm so involved in observing every detail around me, taking pictures and chatting with Big Joe that I forget how we might look to others. But I suppose in the Age of Gentrification, that a youngish white and Asian couple strolling around Bed-Stuy on a Sunday afternoon with a child in a stroller might look like house-hunting evil gentrifiers. Which, we weren't. House hunting, that is.
"Is it for sale?" Big Joe asked.
"Maybe," hedged the man.
"No, we just liked the look of it."
"Yeah, it's beautiful," I added enthusiastically.
"Well you're welcome to it. The roof leaks," said the man.
"It's still beautiful," I said.
"It's old. We want someplace new," the man said, still looking at us with suspicion.
We nodded, wished him a good day and went on our way.

A couple of weeks ago, I was standing outside the brownstone where Little Joe's best friend, Daisy and her parents live, not far from the methadone clinic, watching the kids while Daisy's mom ran back upstairs to fetch a forgotten item. I was absorbed in strapping Daisy in her stroller when a voice behind me said, "Hey there." I looked around and saw an older dark skinned Latino man standing by my son's stroller with an empty slightly crushed paper coffee cup in his quivering hand. "Hi," I answered guardedly.
"How're you doing?" he asked, smiling. His words came out slurred.
I stared at his coffee cup. "Fine," I replied with a tight smile and turned my back on him to finish buckling Daisy in. Giving him the leave-us-alone vibe.
To my horror, he proceeded to lean down into Little Joe's face and said, "Give me five!" Which Little Joe, to my relief, refused to do. Then he patted my kid on his knee and slowly straightened up. "Your husband working today?"
"Yes," I answered, thinking, is he going to give me a spiel about how he's out of of work and needs money for his next meal?
"Well tell him I said, hello," he said, not quite as friendly now and shuffled off to rejoin a younger woman standing at the corner. That's when I realized that this man whom I mistook as a homeless drug addict, was our neighbour, Julio, who must have just returned from his six month trip to Panama to recover from his chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. The shaking, the shuffling, the slurring, must all have been because of his illness, his advanced age, the drugs from the hospital. Then I felt terrible, for my rudeness, for my mistaken assumptions.

Strangers have made mistakes about my identity. At various times in my life I've been addressed as "Sir" in stores when my hair was cut short; at a gay party in Greenwich Village when I was dressed to the nines, a woman asked me if I'd like to be interviewed for a video she was making about transvestites; and a black girl in the bathroom at a club in the East Village told me she liked that "Chinese girl look you have goin' on." But can there be anything more offensive than being mistaken for a homeless drug addict? Besides the fact that I came to a similar wrong conclusion at our laundromat only last week.

I called Big Joe immediately explaining my faux pas and asked him to apologise to Julio on my behalf if he saw him first. And then when I did see Julio the following day, I practically got down on my knees and flagellated myself. He just laughed, "So you recognize me today, huh?"

A week later, I was walking with Little Joe to the subway station when I saw a former neighbour, Freddy, standing on the street corner. Freddy is a tiny hunched over black man who always seems skittish and a little scared. There are a few men from our block who regularly hang out in front of the bodegas near the subway station. Freddy is one of them. I stopped to greet him and we chatted for a bit. As Freddy put a friendly hand on my arm, I heard a deep voice bark out, "Leave the lady alone!"
"No," I said quickly, "he's not bothering me," and turned to face our Jamaican neighbour, Reggie.
Freddy got quite upset and his already rheumy eyes looked like they were going to spill over with tears, "She's my friend. I'm not bothering her. She's my friend."
"Okay, okay," said Reggie smiling and then bent down to shake my son's hand. I don't know if Reggie knew who Freddy was and was just joking or if he was serious, but he clearly hurt Freddy's feelings. I didn't know whether to feel happy that Reggie was looking out for me or bad for Freddy. How could he not know Freddy when both of them have been living here far longer than me?

They say that when you 'assume' you make an 'ass' out of you and me. Need I say more?