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Sisters Of Sartre
Looking out my window stubbing my toe on the soft edges of second hand literature I see a thing that makes me lonely for a past dynamic that included more girl children, who could comfort me with their seemingly serene assurance that the world around us, shambled, in tatters, teetering, was only as it should be.
They all scattered to the wind now though: daddy's in jail, daddy's dead, daddy got a new groove going on. In a sense it all goes for me too.
Looking out another window I can see my urban philosophy project is attended and accepted by only the finest feline critics in the city, their sprayed scent a testimony to the value of real estate. I have been the keeper of my brother's dance hall, boarding it up against the onslaught of crack heads, a group I can only attend to on my own terms, and those terms are lacking in but the most meager amounts of sympathy. I am becoming hardened. I cannot see the solution to a problem that is evidenced by a human being brought into this world and left to fester and wallow on the street for thirty or fifty years, a person whose only real contact with God is not to be seen in the person's use of faith based shelters, but in the ringing stark raving clarity of mind obtained via the crack pipe. I would like to feel more sympathy but it is my feeling that sympathy without action is wasted emotion, a valium for your soul, which will not soar to intended heights with the weight of your indifference. So you feel sorry and then convince yourself you feel better, while actually doing nothing, taking not even the smallest step. I myself am the coward who can only feel for the children brought into--and in some cases, heading towards--this blighted world. This is me talking to myself, and you, and YOU, my Pentecostal brother, whose dance hall I board up and sign with the subtle humor of existential despair--"NO EXIT."
The trinity of seven-year-old girls I am missing are attended to by loving and caring guardians. One guardian is banned from this house forever by it's current owner who deemed the guardian's theft of my full to the brim change cup a third strike. The daughter of this young woman was often treated as somewhat of an outcast by the other two girls. She is so beautiful and poised this seven-year-old in the hood, with manners and bearing belying certain aspects of her upbringing that in my opinion would seem to hinder such grace. To make this child smile was such a lopsided exchange considering the weight of the gift which was mine--seeing her do it.
The second girl, small, frail, a mere wisp, with eyes bigger than belong on her tiny face, a dull sheen of skin, and adorned in clean but always second hand clothing, carries the weight of everything I have ever seen or felt or will ever describe, on the bent sloping coat hanger of her shoulders. To make her laugh makes me cry.
The third girl is the embodiment of what makes it all keep happening in this hood and your hood and all over the world. She is the sensuous one. The one of her group who will most likely first experience the sensual pleasures. Her grandma, shortly before dying confided to me that this grand daughter was already getting "musty" under her arms and this meant she would become a woman early. It was the girl's sixth birthday party.
She is now being cared for by a conservative aunt in a neighborhood not much safer than this one. I tried to figure the proximity of bloodstained sidewalk when recently I read of another gunned down teenager in her neighborhood. I have watched with amazement her progress from the age of two. At three I first made direct eye contact and knew I had met that rare child who already intuited more about the world than I ever would.
She is not allowed to come to this neighborhood anymore and last year had an incident in school that as far as I can tell was her first foray into the world of "playing doctor." Her aunt was reasonably upset by this and consulted with the owner of this house in an attempt at trying to understand what the girl may have been exposed to in this neighborhood during her first six years and my response to the owner of this house--who was telling me this and who knew as well as me that that would be a hard list to make--was a vacant stare and a bewildered shake of my head and the word "Jesus."
The last time I saw the girl in person was at a time I now realize was shortly after the incident at the school, for which she was made to feel ashamed, and confused. I was answering the front door over here and there she was looking up at me with none of her usual confidence or beguilement and an expression of guilt that assumed I had heard about her harassing of her second grade peer. I couldn't tell from her mood what she wanted, and she wouldn't tell me so I let her in the house to roam at will. At one point she came over here where I am now and I leaned sideways and gave her a big bear hug and afterwards she stepped back and with a very uncharacteristic mistrust said--"what did that mean?" I guess this is a lesson in context because at the time I did not know of her "incident" at school and therefore I did not think of the many ramifications of my words, words so over used and misused, and misunderstood, and therefore lacking meaning when meaning is needed most. But when you know so little its probably better to stick with that which feels certain. I told her "it means I love you."
And, well, speaking of love and Christ and neediness, and charity, all those things one would hope to find in a church, I think I should tell you again, as like punctuation, that the Iberville dance hall which I keep boarded and reboarded-up and is being choked to death by the ubiquitous Virginia Creepr Vine (which is like kudzu with smaller leaves) and sits in perpendicular proximity to the large weed and tree choked lot which fronts Rocheblave, and is apparently waiting the fate of similar New Orleans properties--which is to burn down during a cold winter when a careless visitor not welcome at the shelters uses poor judgement with a bic, is also, like the vacant lot, owned by the Pentecostal Church, a group upon which I have chosen to lay my wrath. So in a sense I'm like an honorary member of the church, tithing my ill will.
The punch line to the dance hall is a short one. A few years back a group, perhaps too sneakily, tried to acquire the dance hall from the owner previous to the Pentecostals, with the intention of turning it into an AIDS Hospice. Unfortunately, its next door proximity to a small private (Pentecostal) school and general proximity to many god-forsaken, god fearing Baptists, caused the deal to fall through before it could get started. The mayor had somehow helped the group and he did not need that kind of publicity.
I guess I've made it clear to my new neighbors--those who have been foolish enough to engage me in conversation--that I think that was a shameful mistake--an opinion I can offer freely by virture of being the nearest actual residence to the property. How could the restoration of a grand old house for the purpose of offering comfort to dying people (oh yeah, I'm sorry, people with AIDS) be something so many churches would come out against. And boy did they come out. I remember being simply shocked by the words of area pastors concerning the issue. An overt disgust, an almost in so many words expressed hatred for those who suffer the ultimate punishment for their "sins"--slow lingering death. So much so that I drove to the neighborhood (this was long before I bought over here, and in fact did not realize it was the same neighborhood when I did buy) just in hopes of spying what I imagined at the time might be an entirely different specie. I am such a naive schmuck. Its just that the Hopsice debacle was such an obvious turning away from such an obvious microcosmic view of an important problem--ignoring the slow lingering death of our city, and a fear of being too close to the death when in fact the death engulfs us, it is the air we breath, almost literally. Anyway, at the time I had considered going back to church as a way to meet chicks, but that incident really set me back.
Looking down I see the yellowing pages of second hand masterpieces--To Kill a Mockingbird underneath Lord of the Flies. I had been alerted by the crying oustide my window and was watching the loneliness of a small girl child whose Daddy had come back after some absence and was making an honest go of things. He had built for her a rope swing with a primitive but purely adequate seat, and the day before both mother and father had surrounded her with attention, first one pushing, then the other.
The border collie mut the man brought with him as much needed guard dog in a neighborhood recently beset by burglary seemed to understand the need for action but clearly was not up to the task itself. It turned in jumping circles by the back door, yelping its need for assistance. The little girl screamed more even while realizing her feet could be used to propel her in her swing. The light of recoginition and pride showed on her face--that she could accomplish things on her own--and then just as quickly the light turned off as she realized she did not want to do it alone.