The Death of A Doorman: Otis Smalls
How one man’s spirit salvaged my self esteem
Last Saturday while I was driving down a Memphis, TN street, my Harlem neighbor and friend called my cell phone in tears. Through whimpers and gasped breaths, she managed to muster, “Otis died.” I kept my eyes on the road, but my heart skipped a beat.
Otis Smalls was our doorman. Ephrat and I were “his baby girls.” And when we heard he died, unexpectedly from complications from a COVID-19 related illness, a small part of us died too.
You see, Otis Smalls wasn’t just any doorman or person. Every time I entered or exited 345 West 145th Street, Harlem, NY, for 15 years, his smile, his words and his warmth comforted this single woman with no immediate family in NYC. He was a balm, a wise man, a gift.
There are millions of people who move to New York City with starry eyes dreaming of a better life, and some even of a great life. I am one of them. A Memphis native, I moved to NYC from Chicago in 2001, with the goal of becoming a more comprehensive marketing professional, building upon my 6 and a half year advertising agency career. I had two cousins, and an aunt & uncle in NYC whom I didn’t know very well. So, I was faced with two opportunities: 1) Building a life for myself in NYC and 2) Doing it with a small support system.
And that I did. I worked, I saved, and I bought my co-op in Harlem’s Hillview Towers in 2004, two years after my mother’s passing. I was 31 years old, motherless, homeless so it felt, but with my whole life ahead of me. I married in 2007. Al, my then-husband, moved in with me and Otis accepted him as my husband, but I was still his baby girl. So, me and Al lived in the apartment until we saved enough collectively to buy a home in Newark. The night after Al and I moved to Newark, I snuck back to the Harlem abode citing needing to clean the unit before tenants moved in. And found myself rolling around on the apartment floor crying. I wasn’t ready to let Harlem go, but it seems it was time for me to grow up and become a housewife, of sorts, and have a home with a front and back yard to tend to. Ummm, that didn’t work out well. 3 years later, I returned with head held down. I gut reno’d the kitchen to make it feel like a different place, but I had to face it. I was a failure. I’d come to NYC all alone, and I’d tried marriage, but failed at it. So, although I’d returned to Harlem, I kept to myself, hoping no one would notice that I was single, and just tried to come and go unnoticed to avoid questions about Al’s whereabouts.
But one day, Otis, always alert at his station rocking his portable music player, saw me leaving the building hurriedly, perhaps with a sense of sadness. He was prompted to ask, “what’s the matter baby girl?” I said, “I don’t know. I guess I’m embarrassed. I left with a husband, and I came back without one. Al & I divorced.” For many women, there is no greater shame than divorce. Once divorced, will another ever marry such a scorned, blemished and unsuccessful woman? Thinking back to those days and thoughts, I now see how harsh I was being. But at the time, I thought I deserved all the side eyes I imagined I would get. I initiated the divorce in my quest for freedom, so to me, I was to blame.
Otis replied to me, “Listen baby girl, stop that. It’s his loss. You’re amazing.” I looked at him with tears in my eyes holding hope that he was right. But, what bolstered me was that he saw through to my heart, to my spirit. And that someone didn’t judge me, didn’t blame me, and thought that I was salvageable, maybe even good still.
With just those words, my self-esteem was magically restored. I would live. I could enter and exit the building now with my head up high. No longer ashamed of my past. A new day could begin because Otis said it could.
So, I began my life anew in 2015, dating at 40+ years old in NYC. Oh my. What a mess that was. I shortly realized that I’d married after five and a half years of dating, but that he was one of only a handful of men I’d dated in NYC period. So, I was CLUELESS on how to date.
Living in a doorman building has tremendous advantages, especially for single women like me. So, after a few poor judgements, I enlisted Otis. On the nights he’d be on duty, we had a deal. He would pre-screen the suitors (and there were many because my sense of judgement was completely off post-divorce and in my quest to revalidate through a man’s choice of me), opened the floodgates. Only the ones who passed his test could come up to my unit. Once finally making it past his screening process, he would tell me, “your doorman sure is nosey,” or “your doorman asked your full name,” or “your doorman gave me a hard time.” And I would thank God silently for Otis. I was comforted in my dating process knowing that if these men were not suitable that Otis would have intercepted. A day of so later, Otis would tell me what he really thought of the guys. And then in one instance, he waited until the entire courtship to tell me he didn’t like the guy, but wanted me to choose. Sigh. There were also nights when I’d get super dolled up thinking I could scootch out of the building to go on a date, only to be stopped by Otis to ask, “where are you going baby doll?” He would impress upon me the importance of the guy coming to meet me at the building, then implore that I must call him once I got to my destination. Yes, Otis was a girl dad, who LOVED his own daughters and grands very much, and I was blessed to benefit from that his ability to love girls in the special way we need it, consistently.
There was never a time in which I needed something, and I needed a WHOLE lot more than dating advice in my 15 years at Hillview Towers, that Otis did not deliver for me. Even when I moved away or was traveling, Otis would text me to let me know that “baby girl, you got a package.” He helped me with my moves, he helped me with life, and most of all, he helped me with my heart. I spent hours on end in the vestibule talking with Otis. I watched him amazingly greet every single person by name AND recall their apartment units as he expediently grabbed their packages. Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you that this building is ginormous, with three towers with 12 floors each, and 6–7 apartments per floor, totaling over 250 units, most with multiple occupants, some long-time residents, some temporary tenants and lots of delivery men. But he treated EVERYone humanely and with respect.
So, I count it joy that my life in NYC was bolstered by the agape love of a man who was not a blood relative, but who related to me and my plight to find my way all the more. And as such, I invite everyone from today forward to never snub your nose at or dismiss your building doorman, groundskeeper or anyone who you think has a less significant job than you. We all are inclined to subjugate another to propogate ourselves. It’s human nature, However, the very person who opens the door for you, may hold the key to something much more than your home, maybe your heart.
I will forever miss my doorman, the one and only Otis Smalls, who opened the door for so much more in my life. May he rest and take a load off those feet.
Love, Baby Girl.
