Rest in peace, y’all.
In a weedy field, another ‘dozer bashes the roof of a brown and white Toyota. The operator, a young bearded man with no expression on his face, pulls the levers. Methodical, pointless. The shovel comes down. The car lurches. The windshield webs. Another blow scatters it. The front doors pop off like bread ejected from a toaster. The tires deflate. This is the energy that builds cities and also tears them down. I think of Troy and Dwayne. Reggie, Rufus, Rue. Cletus. Elias. Daddy. All who’ve fallen.
The sun is gone now, leaving Houston in shadow. KFC sacks blow through empty lots. “Gris-gris,” I whisper, as if I actually had the power to save anything.
“But! My uncle’s going to live!” I shout. “Resurrection! Hallelujah! Praised-be! Stop in the name of love …!” I like the sound of my voice. “He dom-diddly-doo-wop did it!” My uncle who’s not really my uncle: my tie to the most important life I never lived.
How’s that for perspective?
In my rearview, Freedmen’s Town looks tilled-under and dark, as though no one had ever set foot there. One by one, across the frog-buzzing bayou, windows start to glow downtown. Yellow, white, blue — coloring the heavy, magnolia-scented air. Oh what the hell, I think. I reach for my radio and find some evening jazz.
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