Legacies Destroyed By Gentrification: Let’s Go To Grandma Lill’s House (A “Before Times” Snippet)

MidSummer Heat • 4am • 12th Street • Little Rock, Arkansas • Coin De La Rue Douzième à travers du “endroit où l’on peut se procurer du crack” • Corner House • Bed

*Fan whirrs in the dim amber streetlight refraction shining through the window onto the red-lit alarm clock, in an otherwise dark room*

*Every toss & turn creeks the decades old headboard*

Outside:

*Crackheads yelling, arguing in an incoherent stream of foreign consciousness; heard through the decades old window*

Inside:

“Here we go again…”

I look at the red-lit alarm clock…

This time: *04:02am*

“Man… they still goin at it 😒”

Outside:

“Womp, Womp-Womp, Womp Womp.”

“Womp Womp-Womp Womp Womp, Womp Womp Womp-Womp-Womp.”

… it goes on. But I tried to not remember what was said on purpose.

Inside:

I remember periodically waking up to this same occurrence every night. Not necessarily at the same time, but always in the same way.

It’s almost like they were stuck in a scene of a movie that kept rewinding every night.

While they were stuck in repetitive cycles, I was counting the days until the journey back home.