The day breaks sweaty like the last. Like every day in summer. And especially in our neighborhood where there are no trees to block the sun. Only cement blocks baking like sand in the desert. Or like the dessert bars baking in oven pans in church basement after service. All we can do is pray for rain that won’t come until the fall.
Luther is in the alley selling guns from the back of his sedan. He will sell you a gun but he won’t sell you the bullets. The morning news is on, floating through open windows across the neighborhood, all channels report the same in a monotone chorus of violence and strife – the riots, the riots, the riots. When will order be restored?
Oh – so much violence. You see? It was never like this when Papa George was in charge…
Mama Yea fans herself with the church bulletin on her front porch as we pass by on our bikes. She rocks back and forth in her chair and tells us great change is coming – but not before great anger from those in power.
There is a mural of a rising sun painted on the south-facing wall of Osa’s Corner Store. A red sun rising over the garden and the city skyline against it. The word HOPE through the clouds. It was painted seven years ago after Mike Yellow jumped from the Washington Bridge downtown –
Mikey would have shot himself, Mama Yea said, her voice just above a whisper. But there weren’t any bullets in the gun Luther sold him. So he jumped from the bridge instead. Seven years ago today.
As Long As I Breathe, I Hope
Pastor Johns from the episcopal church has breath that smells like sour milk. He leans in close when he’s talking to you. He stands outside the church preaching to passersby – a message too important to wait until Sunday.
Gogo is the only thought on my mind. She lives three doors down. She knows I love her. But she has to stay inside (It’s too dangerous on the streets, her father says. Especially now.) I can only see her from the window. She waves to me from the window and smiles and pushes her hair across her forehead.
Ah – Pastor Johns says, leaning in close to me – but a life alone with your thoughts, with nothing but time to ponder… What a life this would be! This world has grown too noisy, every sound from one hundred years ago and every sound since. Soon there will be nowhere quiet enough to think.
I see Gogo in the window. She takes my breath away.
Ponder, Pastor Johns says. In silence.
But his congregation is dwindling. There are fewer and fewer people in the pews every week.
Gogo’s father is sitting outside the house and he calls me over. He has a cut on his arm and blood runs to his elbow. He is wrapping it in white tape as he speaks to me. No one should live in secret, he says. The only way to become a genius is by reading and studying (so they say) and researching and following the rules. But there is a dollar sign attached to genius just like there is to everything else.
I have always been here with these thoughts, he says. They have progressed, perhaps, but they have not changed. If only we weren’t so afraid…
Gogo’s father brushes his teeth three times a day: Before breakfast, after lunch, after dinner. Routine is very important to him. He gets physically ill when he misses an appointment.
Chaos! He would say, Chaos! And regimentation is the only relief.
I sleep with the window open. Fall asleep to the sounds of the street. I think of zoo animals in cages. Falling asleep with the lights on, he flails his arms and kicks his legs. Yelling as the veins in his neck bulge so much they look as though they will burst from his skin. So afraid of dying, so unwilling to succumb to nonexistence that violence – the sort of unchecked, uncontrollable energy we all hold somewhere deep inside ourselves – he unleashes on everyone and everything else around him.
I say I do not live in there – or that I will not live my life in fear. Though I will not know if this is true until I am faced with something of which I should truly be afraid. They say the most dangerous thing most people will ever do in life is get into the seat of a car. I wonder if that’s true in this neighborhood.
But would we have forgotten how to love? Pastor Johns asks, rubbing his forehead with his hand. Or no – love is only a young man’s game. The sort of adventure the world decides must someday come to an end. But the sweet smell of misspent youth hanging from her shirt in the closet, our dreams plastered to the walls, what are we if not creatures who feel? Ah, to bottle this emotion and sell it…
Pastor Johns looks at me then. But love – he says – like hope, like everything else, exists only in the soul.
I can only think of her.