Growing Up

Lucy moves Doris and Baker to a second-floor apartment on West Lombard Street in Baltimore across Union Square from Aunt Sister. Aunt Sister marries Harold Sharp, who Lucy calls “a good man,” shortly after the Bakers arrive. Harold introduces Baker to the work of H. L. Mencken, who lives two houses down. Harold speaks reverently of Mencken’s work, though Baker does not believe Harold has ever read it.

In 1917, Harold, an uneducated country boy of fifteen, joined the Marines. He fought in France during World War I and stayed in the Marines for sixteen years, eventually leaving to marry Aunt Sister. He works for a cemetery cutting grass and digging graves. This increases his “romantic aura.” Baker is becoming fascinated with “the Gothic aspects of death” (124). A young relative of their landlord is an undertaker who uses their parlor when his establishment is full. Walking through the parlor to his apartment, Baker often sees embalmed corpses in their coffins.

Baker admires Harold. He wears “suits pressed to razor sharpness” and is a famed liar (125). In response to his embellished stories, Aunt Sister repeatedly tells him, “for God’s sake, Harold, quit telling those lies” (125). Though he is entering a skeptical age, Baker is inclined to believe Harold’s outrageous tales—of being shot between the eyes during WWII, of almost being buried alive, and about Franklin Roosevelt (Baker’s hero) compelling White House visitors to pay to speak with him.