Voices from the Rust Belt

by Anne Trubek

  That crew was going somewhere in a pickup truck when the driver took a bend too fast and John rolled from the truck bed and shattered his arm on the asphalt. He held up the cast. Everything from the wrist to elbow was metal. The next time we talked, it was worse. His body was rejecting the pins and screws. His arm was yellow. Then the arm stabilized. Then the doctor said John would never work again, that he was fully disabled. John said, “I worked my whole fucking life.” Then John had a lawyer and was suing the temp agency.

  Now he’s in our office, just out of jail.

  The temp agency said they would settle and promised checks but the checks haven’t arrived. John is completely broke, which is broker than broke, broker than before. Last Friday, someone, a friend, sort of a friend, a guy John recognized from the neighborhood, offered to buy drinks at the bar if John would drive. John drove. The cops stopped him on the way home. They asked him to exit the car. They asked him to walk a line. They took him to jail.

  John says, “That was five days ago.”

  I say, “That was seven days ago.”

  John says, “It’s Friday?”

  I nod.

  John says, “I’m going to jump off the fucking bridge and break my neck and drown.”

  “Don’t do that,” I say.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever heard John articulate exactly how he wants to die, how he’s going to do it. I look around the office and feel the dry heat blowing in and think about what I’m doing and what I’m supposed to do. Social workers have a code of ethics. Those ethics say you cannot let a person walk off and die. I ask John if he’s serious. He says he doesn’t know. I ask him if he wants to go to the hospital. I tell him they will help him at the hospital. There are doctors. They have beds and food and people to talk to.

  John says, “I don’t got insurance. I don’t have a way to get to the nut hospital. They impounded my truck and I can’t afford to get it out.”

  I say, “I can drive you,” and I will but I don’t know if I’m allowed to.

  I don’t know the outreach’s policy about taking clients places. Everyone who works here is a woman and they don’t like to be alone with the male clients, who are generally few but loud and frustrated and angry. Last year, one guy threw a can of creamed corn through a window at the food pantry. Another guy smokes weed in the bathroom and denies it while laughing. Another guy seizes and collapses to the floor and is too big to be lifted.

  John says, “I really only came in here to see if you have some clothes.” He flares out his winter coat and lifts his shirt and shows off the waist of his jeans. The jeans don’t have belt loops and they buckle on the side. He says, “They’re women’s jeans. The jail lost my clothes and this is all they had. It’s like a bad joke.”

  “They look good on you,” I say.

  John smiles a little.

  I think sometimes I’d like to be in charge of a charity organization so I could make all the rules then change the rules to whatever I need the rules to be. I’d run my charity organization with a bat. I’d knock on the doors of temp agencies and poverty-wage employers and universities who charge students to work jobs and call them internships and I’d show my bat and I’d say, “Honestly, what the fuck are you doing?”

  I think about that then ask John what he wants, what he needs.

  He says, “Jeans,” and laughs.

  I ask him if he needs any food. He asks if we have any peanut butter. I tell him we do. We have peanut butter but it’s in a cabinet and, for some reason, we are not supposed to give it out. The peanut butter stays in the cabinet, even when people want—no, need—peanut butter.

  I leave John and go to the pantry and go in the cabinet I’m not supposed to go in. The cabinet is full. All the shelves are full. I fill up three bags with groceries, lots of bread and peanut butter and jelly, and bring them back to John.

  He says, “I can’t carry those,” and he lifts his arm, his helpless arm, like a tiny bird without wings trying to fly from his shoulder and getting stuck and falling down to his lap.

  I tell John I’ll take him home. I tell him to wait and I go back and ask my boss if I can take John home. She says she wouldn’t but I can. I tell her I want to. I walk around to the front of the hospital and find my car. I load in the groceries and pick up John at the back door.

  He says, “Thanks for this.”

  I say, “Not a problem.”

  We drive over the bridge and down below us is McKees Rocks. A famous boxer is from there. I can’t remember his name. Billy Mays, the TV guy, the guy who used to be in all the infomercials, the guy who pitched OxiClean, the guy in a blue denim shirt with a nice beard, the guy with the great voice, grew up in the Rocks. When he died, when his heart exploded from years of cocaine abuse, it was all over the national news. Billy Mays. Pittsburgh. Heart attack. Cocaine. But not John, he never makes the national news. Construction, ripped off, broken arm, hungry, depressed. They don’t loop that on CNN.

  But now John has groceries and we are driving, driving and talking.

  Years ago, when I was twenty-two or twenty-three, I started to read Walt Whitman and I found these lines in one of his poems: “Despise riches, give alms to every one that asks.” He said, “Stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others.” He said, “Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.” Whitman was a poet but he was also a nurse in the civil war.

  He said, “Have patience and indulgence toward the people.” He said, “Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men.” He said, “Go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families.”

  He said, “Devote your income and labor to others.”

  He said, “Stand up.”

  My brain aches sometimes from how much I want to be better, from how often I fail.

  John and I drive to his apartment. The bricks of his apartment are yellow, some crumbling, some no longer present so there are open spaces and dusty concrete. I park out front but he doesn’t get out. He leans on his door. He sighs. I lean on my door. He wants to talk and I want to listen. He wants to talk about bridges and jumping from them, and he does, naming bridges, naming heights, until he wants to talk about other things, better things, small things, steaks, hamburgers, french fries, New Orleans, about the food down there, fried fish, fried clams, fried shrimp, about sandwiches and cold beers. We do that until we circle back to bridges and jumping and falling and dying and how bad that would be, to die before his settlement arrives, to die before he can prove those fucking doctors wrong, before he can work again, before he can build something again, or at least paint it, something, some job, any job, some kind of work because he can still do work, he doesn’t need an arm, he doesn’t need a hand, he could paint a room with a brush in his teeth, and then John’s like fuck bridges, and I’m like fuck bridges, and he’s like fuck death, and I’m like exactly, no death, no dying, not now, and John promises me he won’t kill himself, and we shake on it, we are men who love to shake, and he promises to make a sandwich, because if you’re going to be alive you have to eat, you have to make a sandwich, maybe not a po’boy, maybe not shrimp, but something, you need to start somewhere, you start with food.

  I carry in John’s groceries. I wave hello to his roommates, all adults older than me, dressed worse than me, looking more exhausted than me, all happy to see John, all moving to the kitchen to see what John has brought, to see what’s in the bag.

  Outside the sun hides behind the trees, and I have kids at home, and a wife, and so much homework, so much homework I do not want to do.

  I start my junky car and I am starved.

  ERIC WOODYARD

  Fresh to Death

  TAY STEPPED INTO ARLENE’S NIGHTCLUB fresh to death on a chilly Sunday night in October.

  He was clean as hell, rocking a pair of flashy True Religion jeans and burgundy Bally sneakers, with a tan sweater trimmed in matching burgundy. The words “Trouble Man” were stampe
d across his chest.

  A flock of fine-ass chicks trailed his smooth cologne scent. From the outside looking in, he was a true baller.

  He mostly stood near the bar, with his homie Duke, sending shot after shot to the loosest females in the building. By the end of the night, he was setting up a play for the baddest of them all.

  Duke and Tay were the local promoters of the comedy show happening at Arlene’s. Ciroc Boi Entertainment was their official tag.

  Tay was my brother. We weren’t related by blood, but Tay was truly like family to me. He was a devoted father, son, brother, hustler, and a certified mack. You’d rarely ever catch him stepping out to a club or bar and not looking fly—even if he was just popping in for a split second. He grew up down the street, near both of my grandmothers on the nutty north side of town. I met him so early in life that I really can’t remember any formal introduction. His aura reminded me of that of legendary boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, with his slight stutter and bright smile. Tay could light up any room.

  I had a lot of love for that dude, and whenever we stepped out together I was guaranteed to have a fun time. But on the night of the comedy show I was chilling at my mom’s house because my body had shut down from excessive alcohol consumption throughout the week. I’ll leave it at that. I needed to get my black ass mentally prepared for work the next morning and I couldn’t take a chance at partying too hard with Tay that night.

  Duke and Tay had flown in a comedian from Washington, DC, as the headline act, and even with a modest crowd, the show still had to go on.

  Unfortunately, the bulk of the folks—looking to drink and party—didn’t arrive until after the comedian’s set had already ended. But Tay and Duke still showed the comedian love and blessed him with a portion of their earnings from the door. Tay kept the jokester’s cup filled with vodka shots, too. Shit was all good.

  By 2:00 A.M. the countless Cîroc shots and Bud Ice started to kick in.

  Everybody at Arlene’s was feeling a good buzz as they headed for the door. Tay and Duke even lined up a few chicks to come home with them, but there was one problem: the liquor store was closed.

  As the owners shut down Arlene’s, Tay and Duke were among the last ones to leave.

  Tay skirted off recklessly. He punched at least sixty miles per hour on the dashboard down North Saginaw Street in his white 2007 Dodge Charger. Tay was headed to an after-hours spot to grab another fifth of Cîroc. Duke took off in the opposite direction in his green truck to get gas before entertaining the women.

  Wandering closely near the door of the after-hours spot were a couple of strange-looking black dudes, according to an eyewitness whom I promised would stay anonymous. One was tall and light-skinned and the other was a muscular, dark-skinned guy with a thick beard.

  Tay knocked on the door then gave the guys dap as he waited to get in.

  “Wassup, my nigga!” Tay greeted them.

  “Are they charging in there, my nigga?” one asked.

  “Probably a couple of dollars, if that,” Tay said. “You just gotta buy some drinks.”

  “Man, I ain’t buying no drinks,” the other guy said. “Is they searching?”

  “Yeah, they’re gonna pat you down or something,” Tay explained as they walked back toward the door.

  As he banged on the door again, the light-skinned guy exposed a handgun.

  “You know what man run that shit,” he told Tay.

  “Y’all niggas are gonna try to rob me?” Tay asked.

  “Run that motherfucking shit before I kill you,” he repeated.

  Tay placed his hands on the door with a gun pointed toward his head as the dark-skinned guy ran his pockets.

  “That’s fucked up that y’all niggas robbing me like this.” Tay shook his head in disbelief.

  “Shut the fuck up before I pop you,” the tall guy yelled.

  Tay beat on the door again before it finally flew open. He ran in, explained the situation, and raced back out to spot the thieves. The duo was still in the same spot. As soon as the robbers saw Tay coming back out, they fired.

  Tay’s body collapsed on the hard concrete as soon as the bullet entered his left temple. A stream of blood flowed from his head onto the street as paramedics arrived on the scene. His clothes were soaked in blood.

  “Oh my God, Tay!” a woman screamed. “Talk to me!”

  He never recovered. Two days later, on October 22, 2013, at Hurley Medical Center, Tay took his last breath. He was thirty-two years old. The news hit me like a shock wave.

  I’ll never forget that day. I was lying in bed, chilling with my pregnant girlfriend, when my mother barged in the room to deliver the news.

  “Tay just died!” she yelled.

  I jumped out of bed in disbelief. Tay and I had been hanging out that entire week in celebration of my twenty-fifth birthday. In fact, I was right at that same after-hours spot that he got shot in front of just four days before the incident.

  What if I had decided to attend that comedy show with him that Sunday night? I would’ve likely trailed him to get a bottle of liquor. Would those guys have shot me, too? Maybe I wouldn’t be here, either. That’s a scary thought but a truthful one. To make matters worse, Tay’s girlfriend was also pregnant with his daughter. He couldn’t wait to father his third child. We discussed fatherhood that entire week.

  “Can you believe that this gonna be my first baby that I’ll be out of the joint to raise from day one?” Tay kept saying, smiling. “That shit crazy.”

  “It’s gonna be wild,” I said, as we passed around a bottle of Cîroc. “Our babies will be tight since they’re so close in age.”

  “I know,” he told me. “If it’s a boy, I’m gonna name him after me, but if it’s a girl her name will be Dessiah.”

  Tay never got a chance to even learn the baby’s gender. Maybe someday I can tell Dessiah how cool her daddy was.

  Moving on the streets of Flint in the late night can be deadly. It took my losing Tay to really grasp this. In the daytime, many people identify me as Eric Woodyard, award-winning sports reporter, but at night people see me differently. There was once a time where I partied nearly every night. In fact, I still like to go out but I’m way more cautious of my surroundings.

  Stepping in any club around Flint, especially the hood ones, you have to be prepared to encounter some bullshit. It’s really that serious. Anything can break out.

  That tension hangs in the air to this day. It’s a weird line that I have to walk—between downtown corporate Flint and where I was raised; between night and day; between the two different identities I’ve formed. There’s that side of me that likes to live on the edge and then there’s the responsible father that excels in his career. To keep it plain and simple, I try to resolve that tension by using Tay as an example of when I feel that I’m going overboard.

  Growing up in the Fifth Ward of Flint, there weren’t many places around town where I didn’t feel comfortable. When you aren’t bothering anybody or involved in illegal activity, why would you be afraid of going anywhere? But in Flint, trouble can still manage to find you if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Tay was like me. He went out a lot. He drank lots of liquor. He messed around with women. Life was fun for Tay. He lived single and carefree.

  I still remember walking into the newsroom the next day after Tay was shot. Somehow, I kept my composure and didn’t mention it to anyone on the job for fear of them asking me to connect a reporter with the family. That was way too far beyond my comfort zone, to assist anyone with sources for that. The headline on the article written by one of my close coworkers read: “One man in critical condition after shooting at Flint bar, suspect in custody.” Later in the week it was updated to: “Man dies after being shot outside Flint nightclub.” To them, Tay’s death was just one of fifty-two homicides in 2013. Four more folks were murdered after him in the city that year. Flint’s death toll was actually at its lowest since 2009, but all it takes is to lose one
person and the statistics go out of the window.

  As sad as it was for me and my family to lose Tay to senseless violence, it also taught me a valuable lesson.

  Sometimes life isn’t fair and when it’s your time to go then it’s your time. You can’t beat death. Tay wasn’t bothering anybody when those guys gunned him down. Being fresh to death in Flint could literally be your cause of death.

  Rest in peace, Deonta Blackmon.

  BEN GWIN

  Rust Belt Heroin Chic

  SUMMER 2014

  At the far end of the West End meeting room there’s an old disco ball hanging above the coffeepot. The meeting that’s about to start is listed as one about alcoholism, but maybe half the people in attendance are recovering heroin addicts, many of them from halfway houses and renewal programs. A few kids sit at folding tables, puffing on e-cigarettes and vapes. Little clouds of mist rise toward the ceiling fan. When I got sober in 2005, you could smoke in there. The walls are still stained nicotine-yellow.

  SPRING 2009

  When you’re involved in a custody case in Allegheny County, one of the first requirements is parenting class. The class Gracie’s mom and I are assigned takes place in an East End elementary school—a gray stone building with a fenced-in playground. Before class starts, I stand in the shade with my coffee, smoking a cigarette. Across the street, kids play home run derby with a metal bat and tennis ball. It smells like last night’s rain.

  Inside there’s a projector and a bunch of tables set up in the cafeteria. I grab a pamphlet and sit. Seats fill slowly. No one says much. Jane shows up in sweatpants, stuffing a half-smoked Newport back into her pack. She sits next to me and smiles as if I were a friend she just ran into at the supermarket.

  Class will run for two hours with a break in the middle.

  We watch a slide show that teaches such salient points as: Don’t hit your child, don’t hit your co-parent, don’t fight in front of your child. Get your child to school every day. Feed your child every day. Bathe your child. Do not use drugs around your child.