The Funnel of Your Being

There’s nothing worse than a city with a black eye. Hey, you! Wake up! You might think this is all sweet. It ain’t all good. There’s no love, luck, and lollipops in these streets. You see that blood-stained ground? That’s the result of another slain Delawarean in these Wilmington streets. If you see dozens of candles burning all around, it’s not out of festivity, but celebration of a four-year-old caught in the crosshairs of rival gang violence.

You can see the cards and flowers and the pictures, can't you? You see the stray shell casings that the forensics specialists overlooked, right? You see a mother on her knees not even crying, just sort of humming along with the rest of the crowd, a low solemn hymn to the life now lost. If you just walk down this empty street you can see why there’s so much hurt and pain involved in this city. Anyone can look at the skyscrapers and all the banks, the banks! Wilmington thrives off of the production of thousands of minds abuzz with creating. But when you get down on the street, you see the world is totally different from the postcard of the town.

When you look at the smiles, some chip tooth and holding a cigarette or some straight and white and clean, there is a sense of what is to be a greater understanding of the people of Wilmington. In the eyes of the youth, you see the fragmented joy exposed to the morning light after they get off the school bus or DART bus.

Listen to the music. The drill rappers coming out of Wilmington didn’t just talk about the start of physical force out of fun and rhyming. It became that, but the root of all of the devastation is rooted in reality. What’s that you say? You don’t want to stand on this corner? You must. If you are to understand the bitterness of the boulevard, you ought to stand here. You feel that cold wind? Just stand there! Why are you walking away? You have to stand here in order to get the full sense of the place. When the sun goes down…are you listening? When the sun goes down, the beasts in the streets lurk like panthers on the prowl. You have to be ready for this. 

To get from here to the appointed destination and collect your ransom, you’re going to have to take this butterfly knife. You might not have to use it but it’s good to have some protection without a license to carry. So you meet up with Gordy on the corner. You introduce yourself. You exchange no words. He waves you away and you start to walk. 

You know that something is a bit off but you can’t quite place it. There’s a mist rising up from the gutters and the smell of motor oil and salt. Cars rumble by like warrior chariots racing through the grid of traffic lights. The winking lights of the buildings downtown have nothing on the hand cannons that blast off into the night. You look like you’re tired already. This is the start. You might be weary now, but you’re going to be even more run-down after this trek from Southbridge to the West Side. You’re going to want to button up. The chill of the air is nothing compared to the cold of bloated bodies found around the way.

With your capacity to survey the landscape, there’s a chance you just might make it out of here with your life and with some semblance of knowledge of self. So you walk down the block with your mind swirling and your feet pounding the pavement. A brief spell of nausea overwhelms you at the sight of a woman sprawled out, her arms and legs stretched in a position of severe splendor from the fentanyl she just used. Never mind all of that. Keep going. You find yourself at another corner. Some kids, who couldn’t be older than fourteen snicker and grin at the spoils they plundered from someone just like you.

With speed, you change your direction. Your pulse heightens and your breathing quickens. As the youths walk slowly towards you, your survival mode goes into overdrive as you race to another part of the city. Just as dark as the other street corner, but there exist no chortling youths standing about bragging about their latest haul. You receive a phone call. You answer your smartphone.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve gotta stay on the block four more hours in order to get the hundred thousand dollars. That’s the deal.”

“Okay,” you say. You cancel the call.

Now the stakes are even higher. You want that money? You want to put it towards a mortgage? First, you’re going to have to go by Buttonwood Street in the Southbridge to Union Street on the West Side. You’ve got your butterfly knife. This can be done. 

What you have embarked on is an adventure into the place once described as “Murder Town USA.” Your protection ought to keep you and allow you to fend off the snarling jackals in the night. What makes this journey into the bowels of the town so significant is the fact you’ve been here in the sunny warmth of the day in spring and summer. As the deepness of autumn creeps into your soul, you manage to use your rubber soled Cadillacs to guide you through the alleyways and back streets. 

When you finally come across the funeral home, you find yourself looking at the manicured lawn and the van parked outside. You see some lights on as you stroll past the building. One of the drivers walks out to the van. Another follows close behind. As you stop and stare, you see there’s a hearse parked behind the van, belied by it. You walk at a quicker pace. The money comes to your mind. If you can just make it to nine o’clock….The bite of the wind sends your vertebrae into fits. You clutch your coat tighter around you. 

By walking faster, your blood begins to flow into your extremities, and you have the sneaking suspicion that you just might make it. But there’s no one to usher you around the city. All you know is that one hundred large is banking on this excursion into the urban sites. You lift your head and see stars and that’s not even the full picture as the mist and fog and smoke that waft past you. There’s an urge to just want to call the whole thing into jeopardy. There’s a dread that enters your mind. You cling to your coat as if this will protect you somehow. You keep walking. With all the might you reserve in your body, you continue to put foot to ground as the tracking device on your phone shows a countdown and the places you’ve already traversed.

In the long line of buildings jutting out like teeth and spitting out occupants and eating even more in the wee hours, you take shelter by a bus stop. You just sit. It’s your break. A brief respite from the toils and burden of travelling this far. About forty more blocks to go. There, you sit with your hands in your pockets and look around. Always searching. Your plan to see to it that no one has a better chance of winning this money than you. The fight burns in your spirit like a furnace belching out plumes of smoke in the funnel of your being. You get back up and clench your stomach. The nausea has returned. A corner bodega has some ginger tea for sale. Diet. Hot. You put down your meager funds and even use some change from the “take a penny, leave a penny” tray. You lament the demise of the penny, but fortunately, there had been two nickels and a dime to satisfy your debt to the store owner. You sip the whole cup, that blessed warm liquid goes through your system in the frost of the night. The contents of your stomach remain there. As you walk further into the diminishing dimness and the birth of the day, you peer at the corners where kids congregate to get on the buses for school. The gurgle of the diesel engines reverberates around the places that you had just visited. The sun is just peeking out from the clouds now. Illumination continues to hearten you, despite the threat of death poking its nose around every corner.

To walk past the pusher man who has not said a word just flashed a pack in front of your eyes, enticing you to buy his wares, depresses you. A quick glance and you’re ascending up the block where you encounter eighty-two-year-old Mother Simms. You look at her, spry and lanky on her morning run. The knowledge that she’s witnessed dozens of murder investigations enters your mind.

“Good morning,” you call, half out of terror, half out of hope.

“Good morning, young man. I haven’t seen you on this street this time of day.”

“I know. It’s good seeing you.” Your curtness is not taken as being rude. Instead, you wave and Mother Simms fades away, bingo wings flapping in the fall breeze. Just an hour and a half to go and you find yourself slogging on to the finish line bereft of all vigor. Whatever remnants of energy you had, you now have expended. Then, you see some flashing lights. The police officer comes up to you.

“Good morning, officer,” you say a bit too cheerily, nervously.

“You don’t usually come around this section of the city at this time, do you?”
“No. Is that a problem, sir?”

“No. Just checking on the neighborhood. Have a nice day.”

“You do the same, officer.”

Some sweat forms at your brow. The police cruiser glides away.

There’s still some time to get to the destination to collect. Drained and still weary from the fits of feeling sick, you hike up the remaining blocks until there are groups of people surrounding something. The same police cruiser that stopped your progress rolls up to the crowd. It’s the discovery of another dead body.  The fear you imagined is now real. It crawls into your skeletal structure, your central nervous system and pervades your consciousness.

Morning discoveries, although rare, do happen and you want to run but your fatigue shuts down that prospect. You amble up the stretch of the street with your mouth dry and and a heaviness on your chest. You blow past the people milling about as law enforcement directs them to back up and disperse.

No, this is not what you thought you’d bargained for at all. This is not the way this was supposed to go. A loud clang of a pipe on a metal fence wrests you from your mental fog. It is a clarion, calling you to step forth just a few more blocks. If you thought that this would be easy, you underestimated the role of the Wilmingtonian. Though diminutive in stature like the state it's in, the city could still wallop you and take away all of your ambitions if you let it. You don’t let it. All you focus on is the goal of the money and press on like a Civil Rights song. This time affords you the opportunity to seek a reward that would’ve never been available to you. 

What separates you from anyone else who might be on this quest for fortune is the fact you’ve been studying the layout of the city and prepared to make it your job to understand its facets. You took it upon yourself to reach this achievement.

Wait, though. As you approach the West Side, you see other people walking across the street to the little house on the corner. You begin to run. Whatever pains that infested your body now become nothing and you are numb. You sprint to the door and open it. You turn around and lock the door. You hear pounding fists like tiny hammers slamming against the metal hatch. There are no windows around so no one breaks through the place. You slide down the door and close your eyes, panting and struggling for air. You open your eyes and see the gleam from a TV set. 

 The old floor model television shows snow and then the message: “You Lose” in bold Times New Roman white typeface against a black background. A head pops up and you see a man with the loot in his hand. You cant your chin up slightly, make an about face and walk out into the coolness of the day.