This was written by Gabe, one of our summer interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.
( read this out loud; it sounds better that way )
& she had one eye & she was in a park & not far from city hall & not far from the parking garage where we left the minivan when we went to the cardinals game & she had one eye & held a sign that said please help anything helps everything helps & i looked right past her & looked right through her & i was five or six ( maybe ) at the time & i never saw her again but every time i was downtown i saw her eye—sometimes two-fold—sunken in the sockets of someone who aged the way milk does: left out in a place that just is not good or worse is good but destroys them & we ( my whole family ) walked past the elderly woman with one eye & did nothing but look away & i do not know a whole lot about the process of getting an eye removed & what leads to that scenario or what that surgery is like ( if there even is one ) but i know that this woman’s missing eye left behind a socket that was nearly flush against her bone—a reminder that we are not skin or muscle but the brain & cord in between it all ( get rid of all the fluff & we tend to look the same ) & at the time i did not know what homelessness was & my home was so fundamental to my existence & it did not make sense to just not have one & the woman did not have one ( she only had one eye too ) & she had one eye but i am sure saw more of us than we did of her when we looked both ways to cross the street to get to the block with the parking garage where we left our minivan to drive back home in a neighborhood that did not feel like the city but was inside it all the same & i saw a woman with one eye that night & every night & every day & afternoon whenever i am in downtown i see with both of my eyes too many eyes that match her one & the elderly woman with one eye had questionable vision to begin with but her operating eye did not seem fully functioning either & perhaps it was blindness or maybe the age that comes when you are distressed or alone or hurting—the age that ages you way too fast & i saw the woman was elderly but maybe she was young & what stopped me from being her? & what gave me both eyes & a home? luck? geography? & is anything stopping me from being her? & could i still be her now?
& i seem to be too far away from everything & my house is in the south but it is too far to be in south city & my house is west but it is too close to be in the county & my house is in the city but it is too far from the crime that i only hear about & rarely see & my house is a walk away from ted drewes’ but ted drewes’ is not a real place & it is not somewhere you go & you find yourself there & floating through time & space in a line that is both too long & bafflingly fast so that you can get a frozen custard ( not ice cream ) made from the steel & cement that holds up the arch—a female monument in a phallic world & maybe the worst part is that i do not actually like ted drewes’…or imo’s…or toasted ravioli ( i never really liked ravioli ) & gooey butter cake is alright but if i eat too much it makes me sick & as a child i knew what self control was but i did not need it & so i got sick more often than not from the cake & no one else i know seems to care about frozen custard & imo’s pizza & toasted ravioli or gooey butter cake either & “st. louis culture” is just what we do & i go to the county ( which i did not really understand as a kid & sometimes do not understand now ) for a number of different reasons & that is where the grocery store is & that is where my grandparents live & every now & then something of interest does pop up somewhere & i am never more aware of the things that make up “st. louis culture” ( more precisely the culture that appears in those food magazines that crop up in the whole foods where they sell things like kombucha or gluten free waffles ) than when i am in the county & everyone talks about the cardinals & everyone talks about ted drewes’ & everyone harps about toasted ravioli & it did not make a lot of sense to me as a kid & now it just makes me sad & we were all in the city ( the folks i grew up with ) & we did not really have any other options ( when in rome… ) & in the county or at least when i am in the county ( which is often west county—perhaps the others are different ) it feels like they have to remind themselves they live in st. louis but a really specific st. louis & i have rarely seen a vess outside of the city & red hot riplets are met with a “huh? what is that?” when i talk to my county friends & what culture is winning in the county? & is culture even winning in the county or is it muddying like everything else in suburbia feels like it is? & what happens when you only have to leave your house to get groceries? & everything else just shows up at the doorstep to be shuffled inside by a man whose father was shocked anyone would want to live outside of the city? & when in rome there are not many people other than romans & in st. louis sometimes it feels like there are not many people at all & in my neighborhood it is fine: there are plenty of people & they bore into trees faster than the emerald ash borers do but it is for a parish picnic that will get rained out just like last year so it is okay in that way that the clerk at the bp overlooks fifty cents when i get a soda but only have two one dollar bills on me & i have heard it said you help people who are like you but the clerk at the bp ( whose name i should learn because he is a very nice guy ) is very much not like me & the only thing we may have in common is the city itself which is weird because the city is a big place even though it is only sixty-six square miles & the clerk at the bp probably would have given money to the elderly woman with one eye & sometimes i wonder if he is disappointed when i do not help people especially after he helps me & where you are is who you are & i am as much that clerk in the bp as i am the woman with one eye as i am me & as they are me
& they want to reunite the city & the county & i am not quite sure who “they” are & truthfully i am not quite sure “they” do either & apparently bringing the city & county together will “promote economic growth” at least that is the really abstract phrase a friend of mine said & i do not know what economic growth means exactly & he did not really either but it is growth so it must be good ( right? ) & growth means more houses get built ( right? ) & that more businesses show up or people move back into the city ( but what actually is “the city” after reunion? ) & there are a lot of people ( some who only have one eye ) that do not know what is going on & do not care what is going on & they do not care not because they are apathetic but because they cannot afford to waste time on caring about abstract reunifications for two entities that have always been separate whether it was one county or two & maybe reunification happens anyway & we would be in the top ten largest cities in america which ( though cool for the wikipedia page ) does not really do a whole lot for anyone in need & if you are homeless in pocatello or you are homeless in new york city then you are still homeless & if reunification is going to work it needs to help people not a statistic or a business model & if someone is freezing in soulard how is a brand new four hundred thousand dollar house in chesterfield going to help them? & are local businesses going to pop up or are chains going to grow farther & faster? & if we build new what happens to the old? or is the old building the new? & there are thin gray lines ( called roads ) that divide the world & separate the healthy from the healing from the sick from the dying from the dead but the healthy & the healing & the sick & the dying & the dead are irrelevant & these are people we are talking about & the elderly woman with one eye needs help too & is union going to help her? & did you know that 1 in 4 children under 18 in the city are food insecure? & did you know that about 1 in 10 children in the county are food insecure? & i forget about them too & there are an awful lot of people in need & abstract redestinctions of the place where we live do not feed people & do not house people & do not keep them warm & reunification has a lot of abstracts tacked onto it that are good & bad but abstracts are abstract & does reunification help people? & actually help them? & give them what they need?
& i cannot say it does
& i hope i am wrong.
