I awaken at 6AM to the sound of huge garbage trucks grinding bags of malodorous refuse piled curbside.
The garbage men do not collect the litter piled beside them, broken bags torn asunder by the homeless men and women who wander the streets nearby searching for bottle returns to pay for the next few vials of crack. Fat flies hover, searching for another place to alight, and the soft buzz of mosquitoes is drowned out by the sound of West Indian jitney vans and private car service drivers honking horns loudly; impatient to speed on their way to the next fare, competing with New York Transit buses for fares and winning at 1.00 a ride to the subway. The neighborhood stirs and awakens to start yet another day of grinding poverty.
I have been away from my farm upstate for over a week. No roosters crowing, goats’ maaing, or soft sounds of doves cooing from the top of the barn where they have nested. I have not slept well here, the night punctuated with the loud crackle of fireworks, cherry bombs and the staccato sound of gun shots – hard to tell the difference. It is hot here and humid, no air-conditioning to provide relief from the swelter, my hosts cannot afford it, so ceiling fans spin the same hot breezes around the room offering little relief and my skin feels oily and unclean, the only solution is to take multiple showers each day.
As I sit outside in a warped beach chair, I make eye contact with the early risers heading sluggishly toward the bus stop; the fortunate folk who have jobs to head toward. Mothers with small children push strollers, with 2 or 3 toddlers lagging behind or running ahead, shrill laughter as the head towards school, or clinic visits; las madres admonish them in multiple dialects of Spanish and other foreign tongues; Misteco, Nahual, a few speak Hindi or Farsi. They ignore the permanent crew on the corner who rarely move from their "punto" (crack spot) location in front of the bodega across the street where rolls of toilet paper block the windows, and few groceries are purchased, though you can play the number or buy some weed. Young men in head rags, with beepers and bicycles zealously guarding their turf, waiting for the pathetic buyers to arrive to buy their addiction of choice.
I take a walk round the corner to check on my car – the rarely used bright red Club on the steering wheel signals that this car is not up for grabs, and I’m relieved to finds it untouched and no flat tires from the sparkling carpet of broken glass and crack vials in the street, waiting to be swept up later by the sanitation trucks.
The apartments all have gates, the windows barred from theft, a neighborhood imprisoning its occupants from the depredations faced each day by the poor. Behind the wrought iron I see familiar posters scotch-taped to doors, and windows – "Obama 08, Change we can believe in", and I whisper a soft prayer that one day this neighborhood will see change but it seems like a dream from another world.
I stop at a grocery store to buy a paper; no New York Times here – only the Daily News, the Post and several Spanish language papers sit on racks, but few people buy them.
It is too early as of yet for the traffic noises to blend with the sound of reggeton, bachata and hip-hop to fill the air with dissonant and competing melodies from boom boxes in windows and passing cars, and the two Evangelical churches directly across the street have not as yet turned on loudspeakers blasting calls to Salvation to the faithful, attempting to lure new recruits with Hallelujahs and Dios te Bendiga, warning of hell fire and eternal damnation to all who resist being saved. The congregations are mostly female, with small children, or the elderly. The drug sellers shift a bit, but ignore the call, blocking the exhortations with IPod earplugs.
I see few white faces here; they are foreign to this corner of Brooklyn, and are either driving through, or part of a small vanguard of young people who have settled here fearfully but bravely since rents are far lower than those in better heeled neighborhoods.
I muse as I sit with my laptop, hoping to catch a wandering Wi-Fi signal from a neighboring apartment. Few computers here and mostly those belonging to the young – intent on checking their MySpace pages. These are the people who we lose sight of in our daily battles over FISA and Wesley Clarks latest statements. These are the people we should be fighting for. Few own cars so they are not bothered by the high price of gasoline, though their landlords will be hard pressed to supply heating oil in the winter ahead, and the price of a subway ride is now $2.00. I remember as a child in Brooklyn riding the trolley for 15 cents. But it is hot now so the only worry is where to find surcease from the sweltering heat of the cramped apartments, and those jobless me who do not head off to work sit all day on the stoops idly watching passersby, or play endless games of dominos; drinking beers and maltas, tirando flores (throwing compliments) to the young women who saunter by pushing baby strollers.
I take a short walk to the vegetable stand in search of bananas and salad greens, and listen to the daily haggling over the price of plantains or yucca; the staple vegetables that enliven a steady diet of rice and beans and strong coffee.
A flock of local rat birds – pigeons, alights in the street, scrapping over a leftover bag of treats from MickyDee’s, the McDonald’s down the street, which competes with the cuchifrito joint next door and I can smell the grease laced with garlic in the morning air as a bus chugs by belching exhaust fumes to add to the miasma of scents and sounds.
We talk here online of global warming and lofty ideals of environmental changes, and saving rain forests and ecosystems and I wonder what that means for those who live here daily inhaling the pollution of the urban jungle.
I return to my friends home and go inside to change into my New York for Obama tee-shirt. I want to see if it gets any responses. The neighbors from upstairs are now camped out on the steps, and a young teenage girl approaches me to ask me about my laptop. Her name is Jennie and she is Puerto Rican and goes to Catholic school. She asks me where I got my tee-shirt. She and her friends are rooting for Obama , though she and they are not old enough to vote. I inquire about her parents. She says her mother likes Obama, but that her dad, who did time in the military is undecided, but more than likely her mother will be the only one who votes. I google quickly and show her that there is a Bushwick for Obama group, and get her to commit to joining and to recruit her friends. I inquire about why Obama interests her and she responds shyly stating that "he looks like one of us". That is enough.
We talk online of "identity politics", not always understanding the power of a simple statement like Jennies. For the first time in history, there will be a Presidential Candidate who if walking into a bodega in Bushwick, without his Secret service contingent and cadre of reporters would look more like the young men on the corner than the foreign white faces who drive through this small corner of Brooklyn. This is a change they can believe in. Just for today – that is enough.
I lose the Wi-Fi signal, and resign myself to posting this later on. Odd to step back into a world where my computer is no longer a link to the news of the day, and the television is dominated by "novellas" (Spanish soap operas) and not MSNBC and Keith Olbermann.
Afterthoughts: I am home now. Never got a signal again in Brooklyn. The roosters are crowing, the doves are cooing, and soon it will be time to let the goats out into the pasture. The morning air is fresh.
I’ve already read the morning news, logged in to Dkos to see what’s new, and the week past is quickly fading, as I start my life again. I vow to remember those who do not have the privilege I so easily access each day here. I post this hoping to share with you all a brief vignette of the daily lives of those people whose voices will never be heard here. They are among the millions we are fighting for. Do not forget.