Miss Mary Ellen was waiting for traffic to slow so she could shuffle across the street with her two light grocery bags, cane and keys, a bag on each gloved wrist, her pale skin protected by her broad straw hat, her sky blue dress putting the overcast sky to shame. I had some place to be and didn't have an hour to walk her home at her considered pace, but did have a solid minute to help her across those two lanes by waltzing slowly next to her as I threatened fenders with my recently acquired Santa Clause bulk, where Miss Mary Ellen would be lucky to scratch their paint at about 80 pounds.
Knowing of my avocation she asked me of things violent, about how things have gotten out in the suburbs she never consented to migrate to with her fleeing family.
"Violence is the same in the City as this time last year, with assault, threat and verbal aggression up, and new, out of state, middleclass, white home buyers up as well. But in the County, its gone from suburbia to outer hood over the past 10 months, like a crime plague. It's ridiculous. the County cops are overwhelmed and falsifying the stats, misreporting crimes, not reporting crimes, etc.
Miss Mary Ellen shook her Head, paused in traffic to look at me and then began to speak as we continued across the right lane, "My mother saw the flu of 1918. She was a seamstress—worked for the rich. When they sent the Gold Teeth after us and sent the men to war, she said that this is how it would be, a changaroo; the Gold Teeth driving us out of the city, then once we were all out there, the Gold Teeth would come again and the rich would take back the city—the old changaroo. That is why we never moved, Mom and me, but the kids and the cousins, they all went and the Gold Teeth are coming for them, aren't they?"
Up on the curb now, in front of the snowball stand and hair salon, I wished Miss Mary Ellen a good day, and walked off, wondering that what a seamstress had known would come to pass had been overlooked as history looked the other way.
Thriving in Bad Places
The vast amount of money and time these people are costing us is unreal. All this moving. It's very depressing.
Speaking of the devil. I went to a funeral today and my cousin is having to leave his small house he bought. Too many section 8's moving in. He leaves the house they steal from him. He makes the door stronger, they break the windows. He can't stay locked up in the house he has to work. He's not a wealthy guy and he'll lose money selling the house. He's already bought a place in the county. Fixer upper that will cost him lots of time and labor. He's essentially starting all over. The vast amount of money they are costing us is breaking us.