Black cops in particular seemed to like her. She dated two that I remember: an uptight light-skinned dude named Arnold, who was the first black in his precinct, and was intensely conflicted about his job; and Ben, a big, brown, easygoing gent, who used to stop by our house for bowls of soup on winters’ nights when he was supposed to be patrolling Brownsville’s mean streets. Not all the men who stopped by apartment 6C were boyfriends. Post-Nelson Elmer, Ma built a network of relationships with men who became surrogate big brothers, men she could count on, who became role models for me and possible boyfriends for her girlfriends. In the midsixties she befriended a group of groovy guys called the Afrodisiacs 3, who promoted parties. They were all tall, lean, cool as the other side of the pillow, and wore shades as comfortably as tigers wear stripes. One of the crew was named Gary. He had a radio DJ deep voice, bedroom eyes, and a luxuriously laid-back manner. Every other word out of his mouth seemed to be “groovy,”
