Dodging puddles
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The narrator walks down a dark, rainy street on a dreary day. Boarded up houses that used to be homes now stand empty. An impoverished man tries unsuccessfully to roll a cigarette in the rain. Two dirty dogs menace the narrator but run away when confronted. The narrator takes shelter in a caf辿 where the waitress seems unhappy. The street's terraced houses are scheduled for demolition as the last remnants of the old working-class community disappear.
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Out of the Cold House
Zayda Sorrell-Medina
I was awakened by a loud thump in the middle of the night. The bedroom doors fluttered
open and the light flickered on. Before me, a tall man appeared from the back room. His shirt
was torn at the bottom and his hair was filled with lint. He held my eldest brother, Jonathan,
eleven, mercilessly by the neck. Jonathans long and lanky legs dangled in midair. His cinnamon
brown face slowly turned pulsing red. He scratched the tall mans face to fight him off, but the
tall man squeezed harder. Jonathans arms fell to his side and his legs grew limp.
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with veins. He dashed into the other room and returned with a hammer in his right hand, ready to
pounce. The tall man smirked.
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mans face and quickly ran to Andres. Give me the hammer, she said, ripping it from my
brothers hand. Her terror filled eyes shifted towards the tall man, whose nails were still planted
deeply in Jonathans throat. She leaped into the air and swung the hammer, hitting the tall man in
the temple. The man stumbled backwards, his cheeks landing firmly against the wooden floors,
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The Lovers of the Poor
B Y G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S
arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: Youd better not be cruel!
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
Herein they kiss and coddle and assault
Anew and dearly in the innocence
With which they baffle nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
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To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching-post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.
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The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim
Norpassionate. In truth, what they could wish
Issomething less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!
God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!
The noxious needy ones whose battles bald
Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.
But its all so bad! and entirely too much for them.
The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans,
Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains,
The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, theyre told,
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The soil that looks the soil of centuries.
And for that matter the general oldness. Old
Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old.
Not homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.
Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic,
There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no
Unkillable infirmity of such
A tasteful turn as lately they have left,
Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars
Must presently restore them. When theyre done
With dullards and distortions of this fistic
Patience of the poor and put-upon.
Theyve never seen such a make-do-ness as
Newspaper rugs before! In this, this flat,
Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich
Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered. . . .)
Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.
Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look,
In horror, behind a substantial citizeness
Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart.
Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.
All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor
And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft-
Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.
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Shouldering open the heavy glass door, I was seared by a sudden gust of heat. Traffic roared past me and stirred the air. Walking toward the newspaper machine, I held the dime so tightly it seemed to melt in my palm. Duty made me feel large and important. I inserted the dime and opened the box, yanking a Herald from the spring contraption that held it as tight as a mousetrap. When I turned around, paper in hand, I saw two women walking toward me.
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The Lovers of the Poor
B Y G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S
arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: Youd better not be cruel!
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
Herein they kiss and coddle and assault
Anew and dearly in the innocence
With which they baffle nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching-post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.
Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim
Norpassionate. In truth, what they could wish
Issomething less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!
God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!
The noxious needy ones whose battles bald
Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.
But its all so bad! and entirely too much for them.
The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans,
Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains,
The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, theyre told,
Something called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn
Darkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs.
The soil that looks the soil of centuries.
And for that matter the general oldness. Old
Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old.
Not homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.
Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic,
There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no
Unkillable infirmity of such
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Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars
Must presently restore them. When theyre done
With dullards and distortions of this fistic
Patience of the poor and put-upon.
Theyve never seen such a make-do-ness as
Newspaper rugs before! In this, this flat,
Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich
Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered. . . .)
Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.
Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look,
In horror, behind a substantial citizeness
Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart.
Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.
All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor
And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft-
Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.
.Dodging puddles
- 1. Walking along on a dark grey day trying to dodge puddles, wet clay on a dirty footpath sticks to my shoes making them muddy and heavy. Rain beats on my raincoat, beats on the back of my head, water flows down my collar down my back, my nylon shirt sticks to my cold skin. Boarded up terraced houses that used to be someones home now stand empty, rows of nothingness, these houses have lost their soul. A harsh bitter wind slams shutters, broken hinges rattle against Victorian red bricks and hammer on window sills, theres no one left to care. Over the way across the road a shabby man stands by a concrete lamppost, a fifty year old neon light that has had its day. The shabby man is soaked to his skin he looks at me as he tries to roll a cigarette, his hands are wet his paper tears, he looks away. A cold wind howls loudly as it blows along a terrace, gusting hard it billows my coat flaps forward, my wet hair forward. Reminds me of a picture I once saw of an American actress her dress all blown up, pretty girl with a sad life, a very sorry end. Two filthy wet dogs walk aimlessly from one side of the street to the other, barking at ghosts, sniffing at anything and everything. They stop as I walk past, look my way teeth bared, snarling looking for weakness they walk towards me growling a deep growl. Picking up a piece of wood fallen from one of the boards I hold it high, but they dont give a damn, so I swing at them hard. It catches one of them around the face, the dog yelps and barks loader, I take a step nearer then like all cowards they ran away. Theres a caf辿 on a corner I can see steam rising from an open window, an odour of fried food blows on a drizzling wind. So I went in for a hot steaming cup of tea and sat by a window wiping away condensation to look out, still raining, a shit day. A young girl who takes food orders sighs constantly, her eyes empty, is this what she dreamed of when leaving school? Bacon sandwiches seem to be the order of the day red or brown sauce, maybe both, plenty of sugar in the strong tea. This is the last living building on the street, wont be here much longer, the owners will move into another dying community. These old terraces are due for demolition theyre old working mans houses, two up two down housed loads of kids, six to a room. Cobblestone roads, horses and carts used to bounce along with their deliveries, coal, milk, rag and bone men, this road has real history. Kids played on these streets I wonder what became of them, how they grew up, did they have a better life than their parents, probably not? The class system back then was made of brick walls, if someone had the brains they would not have had the right provenance.
- 2. Lower class people were born to fail, it was not who you were it was where you live, how you talked, how you acted, who you knew. The people who lived in this street retaliated the only way they could, they hated them back, they hated the rich, hated the powerful. Culture can be a terrible thing, fathers proud when the eldest son drinks a pint of beer in one go, or when he smokes his first cigarette. They lived their lives for weekends, Saturday afternoons and Sundays, after giving their wives their house money they drank the rest. Rising for work on a Monday morning was a thing of silence a hangover enhanced their hatred, a hangover deepened deepest despair. As the houses cleared and the residents moved on to pastures new, did their culture go with them or was it left to rot with this street?