3 Excerpts from Mr. Jefferson's Piano & Other Central Harlem Stories Read online

  MAVIS & CHARLIE

  In 1999, when Mavis Washington died, I couldn’t face the fact that one of my icons was gone. I didn’t go to her funeral. My friends told me everyone who knew Mavis through her job with the city was there but me. I think they were trying to make me feel guilty. Hell, I couldn't help it if Mavis represented the end of what was a good time in my life. At first, I didn’t know what to do about Mavis' death, then I thought somebody ought to write about her and so I did.