The Man in the Basement

He wasn't someone we saw very often at my grandma's house in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago . We knew he was there, down in the basement, doing whatever it was that he did all day. Occasionally he'd shuffle upstairs in his slippers to get a drink of water, but those times were few and far between.

I never thought much of John; he was just that guy who lived in the basement. But now I think he was more than that.

After my grandmother died, I found a box of old photographs. All black and white, they offered a glimpse into the lives of people I never knew.

Here were pictures of my grandfather, who died when I was just a baby, with my grandma and with John. They looked like best buddies. Evidently John had no family, and lived with my grandparents in an apartment in the basement. In the old pictures he looks happy, dapper in suit and hat.

The John I remember had a stubbly face, was short and kind of tubby, with black-framed glasses and a mop of messy brown hair, and always seemed to wear the same brown checked flannel shirt. For some reason his tongue was always sticking out, which as a child I found very strange, and he made strange sounds. He was deaf, like my grandparents, and we kids never learned sign language beyond things like 'cookie', 'tea', 'coffee', etc. So communication was rather limited, even had we kids been inclined to speak to him.

It is one of the great regrets of my life that I never learned sign language as a child. I think the main reason was that my grandma could hear enough that all we had to do was talk loudly enough and she knew what we said. My dad of course was and still is fluent, but it is a mix of finger spelling and signing, different from the American Sign Language of today.

I guess the John I knew was basically a nonentity, which now I find very sad. From the photographs, he looks like a part of the family, holding my dad, playing games with him and my grandpa, things like that.

One of my favorite photographs shows my grandpa, his brother, a friend, and John K. posing by a car. I imagine the caption to be, "Bad Boys". It always makes me smile.

I like to think John was happy and that he had a pretty good life. It must have been hard, though, being dependent on others for room and board. I'm sure there was an agreement, rent paid, things like that. Still, I never will forget the man who lived in the basement.