Friday, December 19, 2008

A Postcard from the Inner City

Every morning, there’s a little guy who comes walking up our inner city street in the dark.  He’s about 3 feet tall, maybe 7 years old, bundled up with a red backpack.  He shuffles along slowly, like there’s nowhere to go, no room at the school he’s walking toward.  He stops, and looks at his feet.  Then he’ll start forward, stop, and rotate slowly like a maple leaf fallen onto a zen stream to nowhere.  Maybe he’s expecting his feet to leave a trace, a footprint or two on the concrete.  Some evidence that he’s real, more than a little ghost gliding down a street many white folks avoid in broad daylight.

You can’t blame little guy for keeping his eyes down.  When it comes to aesthetics in winter, the inner city can be as ugly as a bloated diaper frozen to a vacant rental porch.  Over in Windingbrook neighborhood, this very evening children with married parents will idle past gaily-lit homes in cars with matching tires and all glass windows, not duct taped plastic ones.  They’ll pass tens of thousands of dollars worth of colored outdoor lighting, plastic Santas and caroling Christians sloshing with hot chocolate and cider.  But over here, the streets are mostly dark.  One house does have a mesh of lights draped over a shrub.  But they’re not lit up because the house has been vacant for four years.  Mr. Leroy’s porch is decorated, not with blue lights, but with blue plastic-wrapped Marketplace classifieds ungathered since he died.  Even the trees are messed up, their bare limbs grown in palsied angles after years of utility crew amputations.  Little guy passes back underneath the trees after school.  Doesn’t bother him, that’s what trees look like.

Little guy drags his backpack up his front porch.  But just as he pulls the door shut, there’s movement in the darkness behind him.  Unnoticed, a tiny white shape parachutes down, missing a power line and a broken satellite dish to rest upon his front step.  One by one, more delicate shapes meander down, perching lightly on the fractured curbs, warped plywood, flattened Burger King bags, and the frozen diaper.  The flakes land in Windingbrook, and all the picturesque properties throughout the St. Joe Valley.  But they fall with equal care on our streets: on William, on Sherman, on Harvey and Rex; on Cushing, on Lindsay, Van Buren and Blaine.  Throughout the night, the snow swoops down while little guy sleeps, his backpack hung by the screen door with care.

The next morning, I open my front door to 8 inches of jaw dropping beauty blanketing every shape and structure.  The low sun sets off a billion crystal prisms from every rooftop, branch and yard.  In six hours nature has hidden all the scars, forgiven all the neglect, all redeemed by this unmerited gift that fell equally on the homes of the carolers and the drug cornerboys, on the condos and the Section 8s.  Even the rheumatoid knuckles of the trees are swathed in a white gauze of comfort and care, each branch reaching out with a sparkling load of ice jewelry, scarred washerwomen now elegant head-turning Cinderellas flaunting diamond tiaras.

And up to his knees in frozen joy here comes little guy, shuffling backwards and bewildered to see each of his steps magically remain.  Each one received by the snow, imprinted, accounted for, framed and priceless.  He looks up, and the entire glory of this twinkling mystical field stretches out before him.  All the way to the bus stop, past the schoolyard, and beyond.

Broadcast by Jeff Nixa on December 19, 2008
Community • Customs & Rituals • Home & Garden • Nature & Outdoors • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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