The cashier at the CVS looks down, can barely make eye contact. His thick glasses weighing down his face at 11:40 on a Sunday night before Independence Day. “Enter your phone number for the discount.” Like he can’t wait to punch the clock and not look at us happy customers. Why would they be happy?
The woman at the Taco Bell drive-thru expresses a stress much too out-sized for the mistaken order of drinks rather than slushies on a busy Sunday night after pulling up after the cop. Her worn face and smoky voice tell all too much. I wanna reach out and give her a hug to say, “We really don’t care. Take care of you.”
We spent a beautiful day bathing at the lake, rode the boat, enjoyed generous hospitality at the Lake of Egypt. Lake of Egypt – built around a power plant. Property owners from all over – Memphis, Chicago, St. Louis, Marion. Who owns the land? I only see white faces, except for my family. Who works at the power plant? Doug worked the mines and passed away too young four years ago. A man of the outdoors, hunting, fishing, knowing the land all too well.
My heart feels a joy and a pain. A joy to see the richness of company and hospitality, of water and fish, of good food and good company. The pain to know if I had stayed the lack of choices around me.
A new Buffalo Wild Wings opens up on the new “Hill.” What hill? Was it a landfill? Those jobs that are opening up I don’t think offer much, even for the privileged who get them. What dreams are deferred to make room for a new development the mayor desires from the comfort of his room on Rt. 13? From the kick-back’s over the years?
I drive past Boyton Street as I turn onto Market and notice the homes of people I don’t know. Black folks who’ve lived in the same area for generations, just steps from the cobblestone corridor of giant houses and the Carnegie library.
Who benefits from this Hill that is so new to me? Who works this Hill? Who benefits?
As I sit on the back step pondering my heritage from a privileged Chicago view.
JEO 7.3.17 12:03 a.m.