Let’s just order some pizza. I say my brother snaps pictures outside the window of our St. Louis hotel room. Okay I guess. This is his first time leaving Georgia without mom and dad, even though he’ll be 21 next month, and I can’t help but pity him for the knowledge he’s about to receive. Knowing that there is a world out there makes it difficult to go into work at a sewing plant with my father Monday morning. Lessens the effect of alcohol to satisfy a body in its spot. Tickles the wanderlust within. I must admit, though, that this was my plan all along. Get him out of Georgia once, and maybe he can move on. Maybe he’ll go to college instead of loading cloth all day and drinking beer all night. Maybe he’ll leave. Get out. Go somewhere. Anywhere. Do something. Anything. Leave Bowdon, home of the Red Devils dominating the mind of its 2,000 inhabitants. The people working at places with names like Sewell’s, Carlisle, Big Chick, Piggly Wiggly. The people stuck there because they have nowhere else to go. Thinking about it, I remind myself, You’re a college student with a blue collar job. Not a blue collar worker going to school.
Free Write 2
Ya don’t sit here wit yo pregnant ass! screams an old man lashing out with his arms at things we can’t see, sitting alone on the Metro through St. Louis. The two girls he screamed at laugh as they walk on by and then off the train at their stop, while the rest of us look forward as the train pulls away from the zoo and towards the college. Sliding out of abandoned factories and run down apartments, and into fields and men in short khaki shorts and bright colored polos playing golf, looking at the green, not us, as we crawl by.
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