Getting Out

I suppose every generation in every poor neighborhood dreams up ways to get out. They all believe that they are somehow better than the generations that came before, and they all think they are the first to plan their escape.

The neighborhood eats these people alive.

Every once in a while, I'll run into someone from the old neighborhood, and we'll discuss the people we knew. Denny was going to be a race car driver. He killed a woman while driving drunk. A week and a half later, he died the same way. T had a good job at Anheuser Busch. He supported his mother, sister, aunts and uncle. What little money he had left over paid for classes at the community college. We really thought T would escape. He still lives in the neighborhood, and his family still bleeds him dry. There were boys who carried weights everywhere they went. They were going to be the next Mr. Universe. Their dumbbells were a symbol declaring, "I'm better than this and I'm getting out!"

They all had their symbols. Nunchucks were for the next Bruce Lee. Greasy jeans were for the next mechanic, and a blue work shirt meant you had finally grown up and gotten a job. The girls flocked to these status symbols, offering up their bodies and praying for babies. For them, it was the only way out. If they could get some guy to marry them, and that guy got out, then the guy would take them out too.