Letting the Wild Flowers Take Over
The letter didn’t mean much when I had first opened it. I had been expecting it for a decade. Knew the kind of person I was. And I knew the kinds of people they were. I remembered the last time they came to “appraise” the house, They had pulled up in something called a Slingshot, something that looks like a motorcycle made out of two sidecars. The song Tainted Love was playing so loud they had to shout at each other.
I had hidden the hand painted Black Lives Matter sign that had sat in our front yard for two years unmoved. I pulled it out of the grass. I pushed it back in the grass. I pulled it out again. I turned in a circle holding the sign above my head. I knew they would ask us to leave if they saw it. How dare we, this used to be their mother’s house, a true Texas woman. It was better to avoid eviction but I keep thinking how easy it is, how easy to pull a sign out of the yard and then just be courteous. How easy it is to avoid subjects that cause conflict. You can’t just hide your blackness the same way you can hide poster board.
Coward.
And here I was holding the letter anyway.
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“At least they gave us three months.”
“You’ve been here ten years!”
“We’re sick of it though.”
“Doesn’t mean we should be kicked out.”
“They’re selling it.”
“They’re tearing it down.”
“The city has changed.”
“The people in the city have changed! They’re using their money to change it. By buying up the property and kicking out the poor people. You’re getting pushed out. Don’t you see that?”
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Piles of bags on the lawn. Trash is full. Couch, my favorite couch, sitting by the curb. I call a company that will pick up the mattresses for a hundred dollars each. We leave them in the bedrooms. Her car will never make it to Mexico. A man down the street gives us three hundred dollars “as is”. The house is showing its neglect. The scratches and scrapes and peeling paint. It’s hollow and gross without the art and lights and fabrics. Pitiable. Broken windows and stained carpets. Holes in the drywall, floppy fan blades and exposed wires. Full of asbestos.
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I stare out the window into the park. My first week on the street the road was closed off for a bounce house. Tejano music ringing in my ears. Smoked pig in the air. Flock of chickens pecking in the dirt in front of the house with the Latin Kings graffiti on the door.
“Neighborhood’s loud but the rent is just right.”
“You’d be moving in on the first.”
“Or the day before.”
“That’s halloween.”
“Oh yeah, you want to move in on Halloween?”
“Sure,” I said, feeling like a conquistador. “I’ll take it.”
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“You guys moving out?”
Matt was standing in his front yard with his hand on his hip. He and Liz had moved in almost two years ago. They renovated the place next door and filled a dumpster in the street with all of the appliances, windows, doors, and pretty much everything else, a lot of it was just put in by the kids of my former neighbor, before they put it up for sale. He cuts his lawn twice a week and resents me for growing ours long, letting the wild flowers take over. He’s holding a brand new lawn mower, this one much smaller than the last one. A tiny, neon green nascar with blades.
“Yeah. They’re selling it.”
“Aw, thats too bad,” he lies, “we never really got to hang out.”
“It’s not on the market yet. You can probably put an offer in now if you want. You’re in real estate, right?” I hear myself say. Why am I always so helpful and nice.
“Hmm,” he looks at our safe haven, “thanks, maybe I will. Listen, good luck. And take care.” He reaches out his hand.
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“The trucks loaded.”
“With what? It’s all on the lawn! We didn’t take anything!”
“This is what you wanted, right? A clean start. Not to lug around our old junk and baggage.”
“It’s my home! My only constant for ten years. The only security I have. I have no health insurance. I haven’t seen a doctor since I was in high school. My teeth are falling out. I haven’t talked to my family in years. It’s the only thing…”
“What choice do we have? It’s over. They told us to leave.”
“Entonces?” Her mother asks.
“Ya, nada mas. Listo.”
“Entonces fuimos.”
“No!”
Tears streaming down my face. I don’t understand. This place is an obvious dump. It’s broken in every way. They are clearly slum lords. It’s nothing. Just go, forget about it. There’s bigger things out there. I feel sick. I feel like trash. I feel embarrassed for leaving my trash. I can’t even leave a restaurant without stacking my plates for the server.
“Vienes o no?’ she says, “we are going. Ahorita.”
I lock the front door and leave through the back, passing my little bamboo plant that can’t cross the California checkpoint. It’s too heavy for its stalk so I wrap a ribbon around it and stick it to a post with a thumb tack.
I slide into the back seat of the pickup truck. It starts to rain. I watch the water seep into the fabric of my favorite couch as we slowly pull away, making sure the little U-haul trailer is still securely behind us.