Andre Chappelle - The KING OF THE ROAD FINDS A HOME At Last

By Nadine Thomas-Brown



Andre Chapelle is quite a character, comedian/mechanic/poet/ landscape artist and friend. while he will always be those things one thing he is no longer, is homeless. Yes Andre has left the building, well technically he has left the streets.

Many knew him for the 20 years he wandered the street as the homeless white man in Oaksfield who was more intelligent than the average person. As the reporter who wrote the first accurate account of Andre it is from a place of great relief that I write this update.

Over the years we had cul

tivated a friendship from the first moment he gave me a flower at the stoplight on JFK Drive. Over the years that flower became a metaphor for Andre, a resilient creature who never let his circumstances defeat him. We sat down behind the dumpster in the shell gas station and discussed his fall from Lyford Cay to the mean streets of Nassau. There were tears in his eyes back then for his deceased parents...and no talks of reconciliation with his older sister Colleen, his only sibling. That interview was later printed in the Nassau Guardian.

Andre and I again Sat down for an update on our first interview back in the second season of Roots & Culture... he had begun to write and had become somewhat of a celebrity when photographer Scharad Lightbourne used him as the face of his photo exhibition Kinesis...

The transformation was stunning...We talked about him leaving-his sister had contacted me and I became a sort of liason between the two. At one point or another i was the k

eeper of Andre's birth certificate and became his sometime confidante .

He began performing at Express Yourself and soon became accepted in other poetry circles around town. This I think forged a link back to a normal life...

I missed Andre for about two months before I realised he had finally left the country. I contacted his sister and found out that he had finally gone home to her. He now resides in the United States. Since moving there, Andre has been baptised, and is working on his drug addiction. He has also received some dental work which has totally transformed him. What's next for Andre? Hopefully a full and happy and normal life...stay tuned for updates....