Free Write 1, Week 8

Between the University and the Mandeville Lofts, white, yellow and brown ramshackle houses lay a yard’s distance from the road with Little Tikes bikes, old brown tires, neon colored Frisbees, and a rotting cat carcass tumbling into the street. On a hot summer day, one may see tanned Hispanics standing guard in drives around Honda Accords with neon lights, tinted glass, and NOS, standing 2 inches off the ground. On the other side of the Lofts, across the railroad tracks where coal carts through every hour or so, and before Alabama St., where the curving potholes lead to graveyards by the entrance at Martha Berry Hwy, wooden and chain link fences surround knee high weeds and broken weed eaters beside rusted out car shells. As I stand on the deck at the Lofts, a woman’s voice calls across the tracks: I’m gonna kill that bitch! That’s my man! Then the breaking of glass and the blue-white lights of Carrollton City Police. The Lofts are an old textile mill with rivets ground into wood and loading docks turned into apartments with thin sheetrock and concrete floors. Middle class college students fill the rooms for the novelty of the thing while congratulating themselves on their connections to the yards and fences on either side. As Tim and I talk about our early days at the Pig and time together in cub scouts, assorted blue collars walk into my neighbor’s apartment and leave 5 minutes later. We sing along to the stereo: have you ever seen the rain comin' down on a sunny day? and sip Pabst while a warm breeze and curses drift through open windows. Last night, in Bowdon, we read poetry to our friends, describing the nice Mexican maid cleaning our party and our last meal at Millie’s while Eddie polished the counter and the grey haired man from the Prison considered prisoner poets.