Unburying Hope Read online

  Residents stare off into the distance, telling stories about how easily stick-ball games in summer or hockey games on frozen water sprayed from hoses onto driveways in the winter used to bring everyone out into the open so that families could play together.

  The remnants of Detroit’s beauty came from the scrappy hope of its residents that someday things would get better, that the people would come back, the jobs would return, paychecks and health insurance could be counted on again, the elderly would feel that they could safely toddle out onto their front porches and someone would see them and know whether or not today was a day that could use a helpful visit, an offer to change a light bulb too high for age-gnarled hands.

  As deeply as she knew Detroit was asleep in its pain, she wanted to awaken with it.

  That hope felt dreamlike, Celeste thought. Like a movie shown on a 30-foot screen in a darkened theater, it couldn’t hold in the light of day. But she’d felt that brokenhearted loneliness herself since her mother had died, since she’d last known what she was doing for her days, her weeks, her months. It was time to get back in charge of herself, even if Detroit had gone unconscious.

  Chapter Three

  In her sterile low walled cubicle on an October Friday morning, Celeste unpacked her leather purse, pushing aside the black taped can of spray paint and the baggie of paint-encrusted stencils. She placed her lunch container into the small fridge under the counter and flipped the switch on the pay system. She watched as it hummed on, red LED lights flashed until the screen had the usual program on it: Customer Phone Number, Account Number, Billing Date, Balance Due.

  The threat of the office closing hung around her like a shroud. The laminate desktops were chipped, the black screen in front of her looked nothing like the sleek laptops sold in a nearby computer store. If she squinted her eyes, the office looked the exact same as it had eight years ago when she’d been excited to walk in to her first job, except that the cheap materials hadn’t aged in the same manner as the elegant ceiling carvings in the cavernous 100 year old building. She’d have graffitied here, but risking her job had never been worth the momentary sense of justice that spraying the word ‘HOPE’ would have brought her. Better to do it surreptitiously on the walls of abandoned buildings in her beloved home city.

  She usually carried the spray paint and four 36 by 36 inch stencils, folded down into small squares in her purse. She’d first painted the walls of one home in her neighborhood, one she’d coveted from afar for years, afraid she’d never be able to save enough to buy it. It had dormers, was two stories high, had curlicue Victorian trim around the double hung windows and she’d wandered through it four or five times each time it had came on the market in the last six years. Every time it was listed for sale, another family had lost it, the bank had repossessed it and the price dropped. It was almost in her price range, when suddenly it was plastered with the yellow sheets of paper from the City, eviction notices, demolition notices. Before it could be pulled down, her heart broken with the realization that she would not be able to wake up within the comfort of its walls, she bought the spray cans and cut out the letters in cardboard culled from the delivery boxes left behind the back of her corner market and one night in the dark, she painted one letter on each side of the house. H on the front, O on the right side, P on the back and E on the left side. She’d painted in orange, with navy blue tears dripping from the letters, spraying a touch of silver on to make the tears glisten at night. It had been her prayer, her gift to the house and it had salved her sorrow to see the neighbors wander around the house reading her short message the next day before the huge yellow excavator arrived to pull her dream house down to the ground.

  What angered her most was the onslaught of thieves in the dark of the terrible night, who crawled onto the broken down walls and ceilings left behind by the tractor, stealing the copper pipes out of walls, pulling sheet metal out of the roof, all to be sold for scrap by poor Detroiters who had no income with which to feed themselves, no jobs available and no homes themselves.

  With half of Detroit unemployed, the cannibalism of demolished homes was the final insult to her. It catalyzed her and she’d gone out night after night for months after that, with Frank after he found out, and she painted her letters around homes and old brick storefronts, anywhere that the City turned off street lights to save money. Her graffiti was photographed a lot, in the Detroit Free Press, online. No one knew who could possibly have hope in that cesspool of poverty, but she did. She did.

  Chapter Four

  The ceiling bell rang. Fifteen minutes to door opening. In two of the five empty cubicles lined parallel to hers, Frank and Jeanne scrambled into their chairs and flipped on their own computers. The other three cubicles had been empty for seven months, since the last downsizing. Celeste sat with her computer ready, her keyboard clear, her brain turned off just enough to be able to hear between the lines of the customers who would stand at her window one after another until lunch break, giving her small checks or cash to pay up their delinquent accounts and reinstate their phone service.

  Plexiglas separating the employees from the customers went from the top of each desk to the ceiling, with squawk box holes for the customer to speak through to each teller. There was a small cutout at the bottom of the glass where they could slip a check or ten and twenty dollar bills to catch up their account. She thought it was funny to discover it on her first day, a protection against what? She’d been in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles to change her address to her new apartment, and seen angry people, but no plexiglas. She’d seen angry people at the Post Office, but no plexiglas. So why here?

  Nowadays, anyone could make an online payment or set up a payment plan on a laptop. The people who wandered through these doors at 8 am had no computers, couldn’t call because their phones had been turned off and were more ashamed than angry. They’d get in close to the window and, even though every single person in line was in the same predicament, not one raised their voice enough to yell through the squawk box, their ears attuned instead to hear if the people in line behind them were listening.

  “I am freaked out by the drug wars going on,” Frank said, the morning newspaper open on his lap under his worktable.

  “Don’t read that stuff, it’ll just make you crazy,” Celeste said, “and you’re no fun when you’re crazy.”

  “I’m serious, Celeste. You can’t shove your head in the sand anymore.” He tapped his finger on an article. “It ain’t heroin or crack, now it’s meth. Last night, they found the head of some bastard in the old theater my dad took me to when we’d come to Detroit to visit my grandma. It was sitting in the front middle seat staring at the stage. The body was up on stage in a chair.” He shivered. “I used to watch indie films there, it was one of those majestic old places with thirty foot curtains and filigree all over the walls. The place closed about five years ago. The whole neighborhood is a crack den. Or it was, until the outposts of the Mexican drug cartel came to D-town. How weird.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Frank.”

  “We do, because it’s made from household cleaners and cough medicine. Meth is a white trash drug. Anyone can make it in his or her garage. They mess with chemicals that are like bombs and they’re high when they’re mixing the stuff, so it’s really dangerous. ”

  “Why are you worried about it? It’s not like you’re going to see it anywhere that we hang out.”

  “There’s some kind of phantom bombing in these places, no one knows what the hell is going on anymore. And that means we have to be careful when we’re wandering between bars at night.”

  “You sound like you think there are UFOs.”

  “No. Bombs go off but nothing explodes.”

  “Like it kills people but not buildings?”

  “No, nothing happens. A huge explosion happens but no one dies and the building isn’t destroyed. So the freaked out druggies think there’s some invisible poison in the air, since they can’t see any dam
age. Just what we need, a bunch of terrified tweakers. How will we tell the difference between them and the drunks waddling home?”

  “I don’t understand,” Celeste said.

  “The danger is that meth has always been made by one or two people for their own use. It’s crazy addictive, it destroys your face, your teeth get all corroded and they break off.”

  “Well, that’s sad,” Celeste said. “But you’d never use meth, not after you spent all that money on your teeth bleaching.” She reached over and opened Frank’s mouth.

  “Hey, I’m not your horse,” he snapped, then opened his mouth wide to show off his teeth. “See, totally worth it and I didn’t just do the front eight teeth. I’m too vain to do drugs. You know I quit cigs because I didn’t want leathery skin,” he looked pointedly at Jeannie who was putting her lighter and half empty pack of cigarettes back in her purse.

  Jeanne rolled her eyes at him, “Hey, at least I’m married.”

  “Non sequitur,” he sneered, “And since when is that a plus? But seriously, they’re killing now in our own neighborhood. No more late night jogs home.”

  “You go running at night?” Jeannie asked.

  “Oh, honey, you have so much to learn,” Frank said condescendingly. “You tell her, Celeste.

  “He runs home from the bar, Jeannie. Not for exercise but to watch the 1 am repeats of ‘Selling New York.’ If he’s sober enough to check his watch, he throws a $20 on the bar counter and hits the road home.”

  “Hey, I place the money, I don’t throw it.”

  “And he heads out, running 8 blocks home to see his dream properties in Manhattan.”

  “Isn’t Detroit good enough for you?” Jeannie asked. “It’s gotten a lot quieter because everyone’s broke, but we still have some nice neighborhoods the further out you go.”

  “We both live here, downtown,” Frank said.

  “What? Why? There are too many derelicts and homeless druggies here.”

  “Um, hello! We call those ‘customers’,” Celeste waved her hand out to the empty lobby.

  “Well, don’t ever walk alone in the downtown here, day or night,” Jeannie said. “There aren’t even any nice hotels you could duck into if you need help.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Frank said.

  “Why do you live here, Celeste?” Jeannie asked.

  “It’s where I grew up,” Celeste answered. “I’m saving to move though.”

  “Well you’d better get out before the Mexicans run you out,” Jeannie said, her face skewered in disgust.

  “It’s not Mexicans, you racist,” Frank said. “It’s the Mexican drug cartel. And they’re too smart to be here themselves, they’re just supplying locals. They’re here because dumbass Americans need their high. Most Mexicans here aren’t criminals,” he said.

  “How do you know? I don’t trust them,” Jeannie said, “they’re all here illegally.”

  “But you let them clean your house or your car or your hotel room. You let them fix your dinner at restaurants.”

  “Why are you so defensive?” Jeannie asked.

  “Because he likes Latin guys,” Celeste answered, “and because it’s just racist to blame a whole country for the mess kicked up by some losers,” she laughed sardonically.

  “Don’t get me started, Jeannie,” Frank said. “I can’t stand homophobes or racists. And remember, Jesus was down in the Middle East where it’s hot and sunny all the time, so he had brown skin.”

  Celeste nodded in assent.

  “Whatever, you’re the one with the dead head in your movie seat.”

  “Yeah, back to that.” Frank turned to Celeste. “I think it’s time we redo our two year plan and think of moving, pronto. What do you say we get a nice little house in the country away from all these pissed off drug dealers? We could be Ward and June Cleaver of the new millennium.”

  “Seriously, Frank, get a grip. I’m more worried about zombies like Jeannie and her church knitting group that went to see repeats of Passion of the Christ together and now don’t trust Jewish people than I am of some invisible Mexican cartel.”

  “Celeste,” Frank said, disappointment in his voice, “this meth stuff is bad, and it’s come to our neighborhood. I’m telling you, we should move. I am. I’m going to be part of another round of the suburban diaspora. I’ll find a job where I can work online from home. I’m going to have a nice little house with a garden I can eat from and I’m going to have chickens.”

  “What are you going to do in the middle of winter, Frank, when the chickens freeze to death,” she snickered. “You going to move them into your two car suburban garage?”

  “Oh my god, I’d forgotten about the possibility of a 2 car garage? I could get a car? We have to move now,” Frank said. “You can start a cooking business.”

  “I only like to cook for me and you,” she said. “Besides, we can’t move to anywhere near a shoreline, it’s all going to be underwater in 50 years, when the glaciers melt.”

  “I’ll be dead in 50 years. I’d marry you in a flash, my dear Celeste,” Frank got down on one knee clutching his newspaper in his hands, “but you’d have to sleep on the sofa and not interfere with my dating life.”

  “What a lovely offer,” Celeste said, rolling her chair away from him. “But no, I’m holding out for someone who wants to have sex with me,” she laughed. “Okay, work time,” she said, “let’s forget about these murderous drug dealers.” Something in her words sobered her to her core.

  “It says that the City of Detroit would set up a paramilitary takedown if they can catch who is bringing all the prepped meth in, but our National Guard and reservists are in Iraq”, Frank said, his eyes back on his newspaper. “So it’s just our police, and they don’t have the guns or the manpower against the funding from Mexico. The cops lost all that on the last round of budget cuts.” He stood up and Celeste watched as he patted just-made wrinkles from his pant knees. “I hope they don’t pink slip us early, I need to carry the condo until escrow closes. Just another three weeks, that’s all I need.”

  She nodded.

  He’d lost two skittish buyers. “Beaufort,” he said to her, his code words for the dreamy southern destination he was cajoling her into moving with him, if they could manage to slip the knots of the economic noose around Detroit’s neck.

  “Beaufort, South Carolina? Are you going to leave your boyfriend?” Jeanne asked Celeste.

  “She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Frank said.

  “What happened to that last guy, the guy you talked about a week ago?” Jeannie raised her heavily drawn-in eyebrows dangerously high in a feat of propulsion versus gravity.

  “Yep, he was a real looker,” Frank said. “Black hair, lumberjack shirt. I’d have gone out with him myself. Turns out he’s a zero, though.”

  “You’re gay?” Jeanne looked at Frank in confusion. She was new, another in a long line of temps hired so that the phone company wouldn’t have to pay benefits when it shut its doors.

  He leaned towards her. “Celeste and I have a ‘waste not, want not’ philosophy and we never fight over cute men in line. The straight dudes like her, the gay ones like me, and we divvy them up without drawing blood.”

  Celeste walked to the water fountain and splashed a bit of water onto her face. She had grown her brown hair long and left it wavy in the way that men seemed to like. She was tall at 5’8” and slim, had a pleasant enough heart shaped face like photos of her mother, with brown eyes and a button nose. She had full cheeks, one dimple on the right side of her mouth.

  Living by herself after college, Celeste had inched into dating. Liquor lubricated things for her, she grew animated and men were interested. But she only wanted one man. And a house.

  Then Frank was hired. He had rifling through her closet one evening after too many vodka drinks at the bar. Having lost her mom right before high school graduation, she wasn’t good at dressing with any individual style. She cut out photos from business magazines a
nd took them with her to the local discount store, choosing black or navy skirts with conservative blouses and flat shoes, the better to walk the mile or two between work and home on sunny days. Sometimes, when she saw herself in the reflection of storefront windows, she realized wistfully that she looked like the photo of her mother on her front hallway table.

  Frank had poured over the school notebook into which she’d glued the work fashion cutouts and then concluded, “Honey, this is your problem. You’re rocking the ‘grandma going to church’ look. And you’re what? 45?”

  “26.”

  “Hell to the no, then. You dress like an old lady! I see you with a couple cocktails in you but with that nasty pair of flats on, no man will want to bed you!” He’d unceremoniously pulled clothes out of her closet, making a ‘give away’ pile on the floor. “No one, and I mean NO ONE is going to be turned on by a crisp, a-line skirt to the knee. Better to get a pair of ass hugging jeans or a shorter pencil skirt, and a blouse that clings to those cute breasts you have.”

  She’d been frozen for a few seconds, watching the clothes she’d hidden herself within be dumped onto the old beige carpet.

  “Why do you wear fabrics that could double as scrubbing materials? You’re not the back of a sponge.”

  “I like those clothes,” she had pouted.

  “That’s your problem. You never outgrew those itchy Catholic school sweaters. But that’s not inviting, Missy, and we want men to look at you and want to run their fingers over your clothes. And then eventually not over your clothes.”

  Jeanne looked from Frank to Celeste. “You two, all you think about is sex.”

  “What else is there?” Frank asked languidly.

  Celeste cringed when Jeannie looked at her with disdain.

  “There’s being responsible,” Jeannie said, “church, kids in school, homework, gardening, weekends.”

  “I hate kids.” Celeste said.