Can You Make It Up to the Dead?

My dad read my Movies Make It Better post and emailed me to let me know this truly amazing fact:

Bumpy Johnson, the much-revered Harlem gangster who mentored Frank Lucas, was my great aunt Gloria's boyfriend! I know!! I'm not sure if this was before or after her six-year stint on the arm of Sugar Ray Robinson, but one thing I am sure of is that great aunt Gloria must've been one hot cookie. Sugar Ray and Bumpy J?

You'd never guess any of this, because looking at great aunt Gloria now all you'd see is her eighty-something, church-going, sweet grandma self. You'd never guess she burned up Lenox Ave, owned her own nightclub, and draped her windows in black because she hated "for the sun to catch me up." Kyle and I met her for the first time only two Thanksgivings ago and watched in awe as she flew up and down her daughter's steep staircase like it was nothing. In our last conversation, Kyle told me about how he was going to visit her down in Atlanta later that summer, and then maybe head up to New York to stay with me a few days. Maybe go to the corner where her nightclub used to be. Take a few pictures, even though none of it would look the same anymore.

I should do that for him. The last time Kyle was in New York by himself, I never got around to taking him to CBGBs like he wanted. He didn't even see that much of Manhattan. He stayed with me in my Bronx apartment. It was summer and sweltering, and I still refused to let him share my bed in the air-conditioned bedroom. He sweated the night out on the couch, his legs hanging off, an oscillating fan set up inches from his face.

I feel really bad about that.