I found a bullet casing outside my garage door yesterday. 9 mm. empty, spent. It put a sadness into my heart. Well-meaning friends ask me, “why do you live over there? Can’t you just move someplace else? It’s just so ghetto.” Hmmm.
Chances are, in a few years, I won’t live here. Situationally, my neighborhood is positioned smack in the middle of all the resources: minutes from downtown and the lake, easy access to the freeway, and with beautiful old houses falling apart in various states of disrepair.
I live in a part of the city that is nearly surrounded by neighborhoods full of fixed gear cycles, ironic mustaches, and fashionable flannel. Across the way, folks walk designer dogs while swallowing down 7 dollar fair trade coffee drinks, or go urban kayaking on the river. When I walk past them, they avert their eyes, or find a reason to phone a friend on their smartphones. It's easier than trying to relate. They are walking over here because they want to prove to themselves that they aren’t afraid of us. So, they fake it til they make it.
Our neighborhood is one of the last hold-outs on Milwaukee’s charming east side. Mostly, we rent, because we still want to live in the city, but have been priced out of nicer neighborhoods, and our three part-time jobs and side hustles don’t afford the luxury of well-manicured sidewalks and thai restaurants. The buses still run, though they have been renamed and re-routed, so we can make it to our jobs all year. Holidays are spent on the job, because our employers don’t assume we have anything better to do. We are too poor, under-educated, lazy. But, apparently, smart enough to run shit for you. We break backs and spirits to get by with what we have, hoping to avoid any major minor crisis that will deplete our hard-won savings... god forbid a tire blow or a tooth chip. Can’t even afford that mandated insurance. Back in the red again. Baby has a fever. More side hustle, more work. There must be a better way.
What does that have to do with the bullet? When you live in the hood, and you are poor, you know exactly how all of these things relate. You know that the cost of rent is unjust in comparison to building equity in a home, but you can’t get a down payment together. You know that the landlords will show up whenever they are ready for some bullshit, in spite of having called consistently about broken doors and locks. You know that you cannot have anything shipped to your house, because it will walk away on its own, and the doorbell (in your landlord’s opinion) isn’t worth fixing. You know that your car can get towed for any crazy reason at any time, or that you might get stopped and possibly murdered by the police. You know that your neighbors are hungry, tired, and despairing. You know how desperation begets violence, and how the unsuspecting often pay the price of power games. You know that minimum wage is lucky if you live over there, but you also know that the street hustles pay more in a month than your straight ones will all year. But you do what you must anyway, because you know in the end, easy money is never easy. You know what an empty bullet casing means. It means someone lost hope. Or a loved one. Or both.
You leave the house to go to work, because you have dreams. Not to leave here, but to stay and heal it. Heal yourself, and your community. You live over there, and hope some day, you can put aside enough to buy your own damn house. You hope your neighbors can do the same, so that together, you all can have a little something to hold on to, instead of hustling in the ghetto that will eventually price you out for condos and coffee shops.
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