There are some places you can't escape. Places that keep coming back no matter how hard you try to leave them. We called it the slums, the projects, the poor neighborhood. It had a real name but if I told it to you it wouldn't matter anyway. Some of you know where I'm talking about and some of you don't. If you know, you understand, if not, who the hell cares?
We called it home because we lived there. Anyone who didn't live there called it by its name because they were being sensitive or called it what it was in an attempt to anger us, it didn't.
It was the kind of place no one even tried to better. Living in the shadow of a wealthy neighborhood, our parents paid for shit housing, no bus stops, two Quik-e-Marts and a strip of just bars. That was home.
Even after I moved out, it came back. It always came back.
We called it home because we lived there. Anyone who didn't live there called it by its name because they were being sensitive or called it what it was in an attempt to anger us, it didn't.
It was the kind of place no one even tried to better. Living in the shadow of a wealthy neighborhood, our parents paid for shit housing, no bus stops, two Quik-e-Marts and a strip of just bars. That was home.
Even after I moved out, it came back. It always came back.
The one pleasant memory of mine was still early after moving into the area, 20 years ago now, before things felt as gritty. Me, my sister and two of the other boys on my block all got hold of some fishing rods, nothing fancy. And we just went fishing in this pond. I couldn't tell you how natural that pond was, it was small compared to a lake but bigger than a backyard pool. Almost the size of a baseball field with a mound in the middle that stuck up far out of the water. We set up our sticks on the sides of that little island in the pond and waited. Then we got impatient and just swam and played in the water. If we'd caught a fish I hate to think what we'd have done with it.
