This fall marks Tommy Tate’s twentieth year as a crossing guard for the city of Washington, DC. On the first day of school at Ross Elementary on R Street and New Hampshire Avenue, he assumes his post.
Tommy ensures that children safely cross the road and counts the number of passersby for a report on urban traffic. Tracking each pedestrian with a clicker, the avuncular octogenarian offers a personalized greeting, wielding his trademark power of bending time and space to make all feel seen. “Have a blessed day now.” Click! “Morning! Morning!” Click-click! Some parents reciprocate Tommy’s salutation, but many are focused on chasing after kids to snap first-day pictures in front of the school—its bulky brick nestled among the embassies, think tanks, and gay bars that line the streets of Dupont Circle. Meanwhile, bleary-eyed businessmen and government workers plod toward the Metro unphased, already taking calls.
Having moved to Washington in the summer to work at a nonprofit, I adjusted to the city’s culture: Work hard, play little. Young professionals wear busyness as a badge of honor. In a town of organizations driven by ideology, I am cautious of the risk of appearing to waver in allegiance to the cause. Thus, my morning commute, once a time to meditate, has become a time to answer emails. Tommy’s crossroad greeting jolts me from my digital fixation.
“Morning!” He cups his hand around his mouth, leaning in like he has a secret to share. “You have a blessed day, young lady!”
“Thanks,” I mutter and speed off to the train. With so many spreadsheets awaiting my scrutiny, I do not have time for an attempt at human connection with this saccharine “safety technician,” as Tommy’s badge specifies. Next morning, I spot his neon vest from down the block. I reroute.
Over the next few weeks, I work at a pace so untenable that I commit the cardinal corporate sin: counterproductivity. I take time off to reset. I go to bed early. I indulge in light exercise. Returning from a jog through Georgetown, I forget to circumvent Tommy’s terrain.
Hark the refrain.
“Morning, morning, Everybody!”
Behold the orange vest.
The urge to disappear down another side street surfaces, but my sense of indignation prevails. I march over to the man.
“Sir, why are you so happy?”
Tommy grips my shoulders—he has been waiting for someone to ask this very question. “I’ve got to be. To do this job, I’ve got no choice.” The way he says “this job,” it is not clear whether he means being a crossing guard, or simply, the occupation of living.
“What if this is false optimism?” I press. “Maybe the glass really is half-empty.”
“Child, I’ve outlived both my daughters. Two of my wives died. My current wife is sick. I’ve been married five times, twice to this same woman—the woman of my dreams! How’s that for a full glass? At home, it can get dark. Out here, you people keep me young. The children keep me young. This is the sweetest job I’ve ever had, and I’ve got to share the good news with the world, whether the world is ready or not.”
Smile lines crease his mouth and crows’ feet, his hooded eyes, yet Tommy’s complexion is radiant. Freckles decorate his brow; prizes won from mornings in the Washington sun.
Tommy rises before dawn to bathe, dress, and feed his wife. He drives her to 5:30 AM dialysis treatment. Despite being his wife’s caretaker, Tommy insists: “The kind of women I’ve had, I never had to lift a finger. See, I did other things for my wives. They always dressed in mink coats.”
“And you?”
“Alligator shoes. Two-thousand-dollar shoes.”
Today, Tommy’s uniform consists of mesh and reflective tape. He wears fingerless gloves with STOP sign patches sewn on the palms. He has added his own accessories. A skeleton key dangles from his neck—“The key to my heart, Sweetie!” Tommy laughs and claps the STOP signs together.
In the 1970s, Tommy was a menswear tailor for actors, athletes, and megachurch pastors in thriving echelons of black DC. “When we rolled up to the church and the pastors seen how I was dressed, they had to get them some!”
Tommy’s then-wife was a gospel singer who was “beautiful, jealous, and a religious fanatic.” Of their divorce, Tommy concludes: “She regrets it. I was the best she ever had.”
I attempt to shift the conversation away from religion and relationships back to music and culture.
“Besides church, where were you going all dressed up?”
“Shows. Gospel music.”
“Where did you hear gospel music outside of church?”
“All kinds of places. The groups we heard was coming to the White House.”
“Why were there gospel musicians at the White House?”
Tommy recoils with disdain. “Girl, you don’t know nothing about politics? How old are you?”
“Twenty-five—I need you to teach me.”
“Mm!” Against his better judgment, Tommy continues. “There’s all kinds of musicians come to the White House, don’t you know? Some is classical. Jazz. And gospel. Nowadays there’s even rap musicians come to the White House.” He squints to check if I register this fact. “These gospel groups, they were known internationally. Not just in America.”
It was September 9, 1979 and King of Gospel James Cleveland crooned before an audience of picnickers on the White House lawn.
Can't do me like the Lord
Can’t nobody (can’t no body) do me like Jesus
He’s my friend
President Carter described gospel music as having “both black and white derivations. It’s not a racial music…it’s a music of pain, of longing, of searching, of hope and of faith.” The thirty-ninth president accurately observed that sentiments of pain and hope transcend racial divisions, but it is an oversight not to acknowledge the legitimizing effect of the White House gospel concert for black culture in particular. Cleveland concluded his set with appreciation for Jimmy Carter, adding “gospel musicians have stood on the sidelines for many years and watched others enter the gates.”
For Tommy as a tailor, clothing himself, his wives, and his community leaders in finery was his ticket through the gates.
In the course of many crossings, Tommy taught me more about his world. He first learned the importance of etiquette from his childhood church. At Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Georgetown, Washington’s oldest black congregation, Tommy also learned the importance of tradition and romance.
Technically, Tommy has been married more than five times. As a boy, he was a frequent participant in Tom Thumb weddings staged by the congregation, where he donned a tiny tuxedo to escort his bride down the aisle.
In 1863, General Tom Thumb was the most sought-after performer at Barnum Circus. When the dwarf announced his wedding to same-sized Lavinia Warren, a crowd of 5,000 flocked to attend the ceremony at Grace Church in Manhattan. Just one month after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the country was still embroiled in war, yet for three days the whimsical union overtook newspaper coverage of the conflict. Meanwhile, the couple visited President Abraham Lincoln in the White House. In subsequent decades, communities across America engaged their own children in the burlesque re-creation of this miniature matrimony.
It is not rational that the president should pause to celebrate the marriage of circus dwarves with a war underway. It is not rational that a man can love again after death, or that a gospel singer can express gratitude at entering the gates instead of resentment at having once been outside them. There is not a rational answer to the question: Why is Tommy so happy? In his wager, Pascal insists that in the 50/50 tossup between whether or not God exists, it is advantageous to bet on the possibility of eternal life. Rather than a calculation of utility, Tommy’s approach to living in optimism is a compulsion. “To do this job, I’ve got no choice,” he told me. From the doldrums of counterproductivity, Tommy reminds me of the importance of loving one’s neighbor.