Erie thoughts

My desk has a sterile and cold feel to it. It’s not made of wood that is of a smooth grain and varnished to a comforting, almost glass-like sheen; it’s steel and hard, thin and sharp around the edges. When I grab a drawer I feel a stinging pressure, as the metal creases into my skin. My work place is nothing but a cheap, imitation top that is “plasticky” and swings between phases of cold restrictedness where papers slide as if they’re on ice, to sticky, full-blooded warmth that makes one feel stuffy and uncomfortable like after a humid rain that makes hands ‘clamy.’

My hands on the first day of work were perpetually cold, which made me conscious around the big, robust black women with large smiles, thick lips and white teeth. They all seemed so full of breast-driven womanliness and human passion, that it seemed their veins were as thick as a concrete tunnels traversing their way though the belly of a stubborn mountain. And here I am with my thin, restricted blue-like veins of seedy, white-man coldness being placed into their fatty palms. “Hi, I’m Jeremy. I’ll be working in the place of Brooke.” I said. “I’m open to talk, so come in and ask me a question when you want.” Ha! Like that will happen; I’m sure the entire time I had their hand gripped, they were wondering about whether my miniscule heart was pumping enough blood to my freezing-cold finger tips. What life could I bring into such a vibrant place with a heart beat (literally) not strong enough to get my phalanges ‘veiny’ and hot.

I don’t know Erie well. The preposterous amount of stop lights pisses me off as I am continually being impeded on my way to work. Drive five feet. Stop. Breathe in exhaust. Trucks are larger than Corollas. Listen to the blast of the combustion of the engine as they speed away. “Aha, five minutes closer to work!” I think to myself. Stop. Red light. A change is now proceeding in cascade-like formation towards the horizons, as freedom-loving greens change to frustrating-as-hell reds. Will I ever make it to work!?

Jamie grew up outside the city, so she doesn’t seem to have a good handle on where 12th street lines up with Buffalo, and where Fairview intersects with the Bayfront. What’s on 6th and 8th, you say? A bar? A Dollar General? A Health Clinic, behind a bus stop, where derelicts and obese people congregate and mix genes? What about Upper Peach? No. I’m on East 19th, but my apartment is on East 2nd. No, not west, EAST! You’re thinking of 6th and where it crosses over with 10th. I went down to the diner today on 24th and 12th, but it was on the WEST side of town. Where are you talking about? Oh, YOU DON’T KNOW THE GOD DAMN NUMBERS!?


When I cross the traffic bridge and drive past the dilapidated Erie Mill Co. and ‘round the bend across from the Orthodox Church, I plunge myself into a world of black men on bikes with rusted chains, and houses with big-wheel strewn front yards. Where are these men going? I’m sure none of them want jobs. Why don’t they clean their gutters, and ‘spray wash’ the grime from the peak of the house, where the siding meets the lip of the roof? Maybe they’re immigrants? Essentially, these people are on the wrong side of the tracks. They’re on the East Side—the bad side—"the black side." I don’t know Erie aside from the wilds around G.E., and the neatly-trimmed public houses of John Moran. After all, it’s about people sir, not I.

Each morning I hear languages ringing in my ears—some buzz, while others clang and are sharp. Some mumble and are spoken on tones and rhythms. While my own, my own language, has found new ways to amaze me in its ability to confound my ear. How is it that the English language can continually change and encompass the culture of those who speak it? Too many times I hear people claim they are ‘their language’, but the bastardized, beautiful, warped, dirtied, laughed-at and exquisite tool that is ‘English’, is not its people; its people make it: Each utterance, roll of the tongue, slur of an accent, and disregard for grammar is awash in humanity and in personality. ‘Wat’cha want? I been had that done, is jus’ you is like me.”