The New District<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re drinking a $3.00
\ntea in a waterfront caf\u00e9,
\nthe only one here
\nold enough to remember
\nthe warehouse it used to be.<\/p>\n

35 years ago, you
\nloaded and unloaded
\ntrucks outside this same space.
\nA job that paid $3 more
\nthan minimum wage.
\nYou stunk of carbon monoxide.
\nThe ache in your
\nelbows and lower back
\nkept you awake.<\/p>\n

The foreman said he
\nstayed 20 years here
\nbecause he had kids to feed.
\nYou swore you would
\nget the GED , graduate college.
\nRepurposed is the word
\nthe papers used. Industrial buildings
\nrepurposed into condos, restaurants, retail.
\nConstruction worker employment,
\nthen service jobs galore.
\nHow much higher
\nthan minimum wage
\nthe repurposed jobs pay
\nthe papers didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

Even before the factories
\nand warehouses closed, the neighborhood
\nand surrounding
\nneighborhoods were rough.
\nThings kept getting worse.
\nWindows broken then
\nboarded up. You still came
\nhere when you
\nwanted to cop.<\/p>\n

The adjacent slum underwent
\nanother word: gentrification \u2013 a
\ndecade before the repurposing.
\nBut the sun and the river
\nit shines upon have always been
\nhere for everyone,
\neven you.<\/p>\n

Block by block, buildings condemned.
\nRemaining residents evicted. Developers received
\ninvestments, abatements, enticements. The police
\nmade arrests, but now
\njudges gave out long sentences.
\nWeekly cleaning crews
\nreduced the litter. Rents increased.<\/p>\n

The factories that
\nmade the goods the warehouses
\nstored now made them
\nin other hemispheres. The working class
\ndwindled away. Artists, gays
\nrented first, soon followed by
\nthe salesmen, cubicle occupiers,
\nthe lawyers and stock brokers.
\nRentals converted to condominiums.
\nMortgages further enhanced civil interest.<\/p>\n

The warehouse district revitalized next.
\nAlready enough shopping malls
\nand office parks, so they repurposed
\nthe fallow structures into multi-use destinations.
\nThe old was new, the new, now
\nthe now, trendy.
\nThe trendy tarries so
\nnow is life as we know it, just like the
\nriver and the sun
\nonce upon a time.<\/p>\n

She blows a kiss
\nacross the brim, cooling her $5.00 latte.
\nSips, returns her
\ngaze to the paperback.
\nYou first read the book
\nin college, before she was born.<\/p>\n

The hazel eyes, the raven hair,
\nthe literature. Stephanie.
\nShe liked that book.<\/p>\n

Everyone else in
\nthe caf\u00e9 is either texting
\nor tapping
\non a laptop keypad.
\nLast week,
\nan article you read
\non your mobile device said
\nmillennials rebelling
\nagainst technology
\nkeep used bookstores
\nin business.<\/p>\n

Stephanie loved used
\nbookstores.<\/p>\n

The dive bar had an Irish name,
\nmost did back then. Located between
\nthe slum and the warehouse
\ndistrict. You and Stephanie
\ndrank there, bohemian punks.
\nElvis and Sinatra
\non the juke box, vinyl 45s.
\nAshtrays always close by.
\nEveryone smoked.<\/p>\n

You worked in the office,
\nat the desk, a good job
\nas all college graduates got
\nback then, making
\nrich white men richer,
\nperpetuating a system whose prizes
\nwere never intended
\nfor you, but sometimes
\nseemed nearly in reach.<\/p>\n

At least you were
\nno longer loading
\nand unloading trucks.
\nThe windows in the
\nwaterfront caf\u00e9 seem
\nas tall and as wide as garage doors.
\nA sail boat glides
\nacross the glistening water.<\/p>\n

Indifference to weather or season
\nor natural light ruled the world
\ninside the dive.<\/p>\n

You remember a dull baseball game
\non the television suspended
\nin the corner, when Stephanie
\nsaid you go cop, then we\u2019ll go
\nback to your place.<\/p>\n

Five blocks away,
\nRafael was always on
\nhis street this time of day.
\nYou palmed him $50 in folded bills.
\nHe turned away,
\nmade a peace sign, said walk
\naround the block then look
\nunder the passenger side tire
\nof the Toyota parked at
\nthe corner. He never lied.<\/p>\n

Back in the dive, Stephanie
\nwas reading a paperback, smoking
\na cigarette, sipping a Vodka Tonic,
\nnot talking to anybody.<\/p>\n

You do not know
\nwhat happened in her
\nlife after you. Always blaming
\nthe other for what life lacked,
\nthe arguments intensified.
\nShe moved to Boston for a job.
\nShe called you once
\nfrom rehab without saying why.<\/p>\n

Your benders never lasted
\nmore than a day, rarely two. You
\nwere never hospitalized,
\nyour ulcers never bled. Not so,
\nfor other acquaintances
\nthat you use to party with,
\nno longer here to drink $3.00 teas
\nor $5.00 lattes.
\nYou wonder if Stephanie
\nstill reads paperbacks.<\/p>\n

After Stephanie, with the next one
\nyou went to brunches instead of dives.
\nYou drank with different friends
\nin a new bar
\nwhere microbrews were
\non tap and ESPN played on
\ntelevisions the size of
\nmovie screens.<\/p>\n

Once, after months and months
\nyou wanted to cop, but no one knew
\nwhere Rafael and his crew went.
\nWrecking balls and bulldozers soon
\ntransformed those buildings longest
\nabandoned into rubble.<\/p>\n

The drugs, the booze, even cigarettes
\nare out of your life,
\nfor many long years,
\nfor no other reason than you\u2019ve
\nbeen too busy paying bills to suffer
\nthrough the hangovers. You hated
\nwatching your doctor shake his
\nhead and grimace with
\nsuperiority.<\/p>\n

A gleaming rectangle of
\nchrome and glass replaced
\nthe building where that dive was.
\nA produce store with a
\nCalifornia name there sells
\norganic asparagus to die for.<\/p>\n

Within any moment
\neverything can be clear.
\nSometimes rational and linear.
\nOther times, random and trite. You
\nremember all this history, but
\nthe only thing worth knowing
\nis that the way she
\ndrinks her coffee while reading
\nher book delights you
\nwith the same surprise as the river
\nand the sun.
\n.<\/p>\n

Timothy Herrick \u2013 2012<\/p>\n

Copyright 2012, held by author
\nContact: Timhrk@aol.com<\/strong><\/p>\n