In the summer of 1999 I stood in the street and watched the abandoned rowhome two lots down from mine burn unencumbered for hours. The fire department took it's sweet time arriving to our very poor Cambodian Ethiopian Caribbean African-American neighborhood. By the time the truck arrived, two stories of bay windows and ornate molding were gone, and the fire was hunkered down in what remained, lashing out haughtily at the adjacent buildings: storefront churches and residences. I’d already put my important possessions in my Geo Metro and moved it a few streets away. We’d taken our cat to stay with a neighbor. Everyone who lived on our block, and some folks who lived elsewhere, too, were milling about in the sidewalks and on the wide front porches and stairs, Was anybody inside? Was it under control yet? How did it start? No. No. Crackheads. A few days before, a friend and I had walked past that now burning house and noticed, without surprise, a man sitting on the front porch making unsteady use of both a blow torch and a pipe.
Places live in my heart like lovers, and at the time of the fire, West Philadelphia had been my favorite since the summer before.
I was seventeen the first year, living in a four story, eight bedroom Victorian walkup left to decay until some punk rock urban lefties moved in (illegally) and began fixing it up; papering the walls with magazine pictures of birds, adding trapdoors and six burner restaurant stoves. My beloved squatters bought the house for $5k at auction after they’d lived in it though through two winters of pirated utilities.
This all transpired ten years before I lived in the place; in the intervening time my friends helped other people do the same with two more house on our block, and some in other parts of West Philly, too. Last I heard, the last trust born in those pioneering times owned at least 15 buildings in various parts of the city, with more being reclaimed far under the radar. I was the youngest among us, a junior member of the secret revolution club, little sister to every idealistic lesbian, feminist stripper and grown up rebel boy. I could not help but make heroes of these bohemian monkey wrenchers, locking themselves in creative ways to large scale paper mache; getting arrested picturesquely. I marched, too: more aid for this or that, no troops here or there, free so and so. We disobeyed civilly.
My days were spent at the Children's Garden down the street, teaching the neighborhood kids about compost and mint. All thirty of them, from two to twelve years old, called every insect a cockroach and ran screaming from it, but I sat with the youngest ones in the only circle of shade and taught each to eat mulberries fresh from the tree in June. Come July, we stuffed our cheeks with sunshine hot cherry tomatoes, sweet juice running from between our lips like blood. Those small children and I bit into the meat of existence two summers running: soil, sun, water, though wars born of poverty and despair raged just outside our chain link fence.
The family across the street from the garden had a social worker who wanted them to participate in our project. He was an attractive black man, somewhat overdressed, perhaps, certainly over cologned, but good with kids, articulate, committed to social justice. Wearing denim fragments in the near liquid heat, I played the blue cowgirl as always, explaining the goals of the program, pointing out plants of interest as I led him through our verdant oasis, my heart bursting with pride at how much we had done, how important it was. When I mentioned most fruit trees need a second nearby to produce, he did not stop at raising his eyebrows suggestively, but felt the need to say, "Just like men and women." Yes, handsome, I could love you like a peach tree in full pollenheavy bloom. He asked me out, I gave the only reasonable answer. One does not turn up an opportunity to gaze for hours into green eyes set against chocolate skin. Where to go? Maybe he could come to my house, we could watch a movie. No, no, my house was filthy, I lived with seven other hippies, we didn't have a TV. Had he been to the free art museum? He was wary, I needed to get back to work, we'd figure it out later, exchanged numbers to that end.
A few days later, I walked to the only grocery store nearby. We anarchists were the only white people in the neighborhood, so every time I made the four block trek, I was by far the palest person shopping. That day, I saw two mothers from the garden- we chatted warmly if briefly. The cashier recognized me, smiled like she was glad to see me, the look she gave every sweet tough grandmother, every primped thin mother. Week after week, I stood in line with my orange juice concentrate or pretzels, coveting that smile. Having received it, I belonged, always had and always would. I came home.
The exit opened onto a day not yet hot, full of well dressed people showing of for each other and squinting against the sun. Street vendors sold sparkly things to fashonistas, summertime debauchery blaring from staticy black boxes. Not ten steps away, the social worker chatted with a group of friends, I presumed, other guys his age, though dressed with more street credibility, looking perhaps tougher. Some of their faces were familiar, uncles and maybe fathers of kids at the garden. A smiling hello passed my lips as I walked toward the social worker. He made eye contact for half a second, then broke it wordlessly. My steps took me within a few feet of him on the wide busy sidewalk. I lingered briefly at the vegetable truck, bought two red peppers less then five feet from where he was standing, facing me. I am the only person with blonde hair for twelve square blocks. There is no way he does not see me, no way he does not recognize me. My hurt feelings giving way to indignation, I did not try to get his attention again, just walked home.
For a successful black man to be involved with a white woman is strongly frowned upon in the politicized black neighborhoods of West Philly. It is an abandonment of the community, it is a slap in the face to black women, to black pride. I can understand that, I support that. Black women are the spine of this neighborhood, they deserve not to be treated as if they are not good enough for the men who make it.
At the very least, the social worker was not willing to admit to his friends that he was romantically interested in a white woman. He may have been in another, more legitimate, relationship as well: wife, serious girlfriend. In any case, it was obvious in that moment that he wanted to bed me without anyone ever knowing about it, to make me a secret he would lie about later. Whatever larger social forces swirl around us, whatever legitimate grievances your community has against mine, whatever symbolism is carried by unfortunate demographic trends, we are individuals when we flirt. I will not fuck someone who ignores me in public.
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