Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City Read Online Free PDF Page A

a lot of crap in the Centre Town Progress, the city’s only newspaper, about the problems in Centre Town caused by the “influx” from Philly, a nice way of saying that the “ niggers ” were ruining the town. It seemed like every week someone with an eye on a political job ‒ always a longtime resident who longed for the good ol’ days when the town had been full of “hardworking, God-fearing, neighborly folks” ‒ was bellowing in the newspaper about the town’s rising crime, always attributed, of course, to the recovering drug addi cts fleeing Philly for Centre Town’s recently opened rehabilitation centers. I wasn’t too spaced out on Scotch most of the time to see that there were more African-Americans in the city than what I recalled from the old days. They were on the corners waiting for buses, working in some of the coffee shops and bars, shooting past me on sidewalks with their ghetto blasters and basketballs. And yeah. I’d been stopped by a few slick-talking dudes trying to sell me weed or crack.
    The old hometown was changing. I didn’t need to hear any local politician scream about that. I didn’t need to hear any stuff about Lance Miller being killed by some drug addict looking for a fix either. But that’s the crap I began to pick up.
    In a drug store down the street from Mick’s, at Market and Fourth, I picked up a Sunday edition of the Progress before heading outside to sit on the bus stop bench. The traffic was light along the street, the sweltering weather having apparently driven most of the folks inside to buildings where they could find air conditioning. On the corner across the street, a vacant lot had been transformed into a small park where on weekdays the downtown business crowd could often be seen idling away the lunch hour. At the moment a couple of kids were playing around on skateboards. They looked about twelve or thirteen , and the skill they used to weave and dart about the park’s picnic tables was amazing. I had thrown the thick Sunday edition on the bench beside me without bothering to glance at the headlines. I was content to just sit there watching the kids perform their acrobatics and allow the hot August sun to beat down on me when some woman carrying a shopping bag sat down on the bench. She was an enormous package squeezed into a print dress. With a grunt, she managed to get her big fanny on the bench. For just a moment she glanced my way before her eyes found the newspaper resting between us.
    “Oh my. Where will it end?” she said.
    She looked up at me while pointing a stubby finger at the paper. “May I?”
    I nodded.
    She sat the paper on her wide lap. Screaming back at her was the headline:
    Ballplayer found dead in hotel room
    She read slowly, using the stubby finger to follow the printed words, seemingly devouring every word like some sex-starved nymphomaniac pouring over pictures of naked men. When she was finished, she placed the paper gently on the bench and stared out into the empty street.
    “I’m going to the mall and enjoy myself,” she announced. “Then I’m going to take the bus back here. Pack my bags and never come back to this awful town.”
    I pretended to look hurt. “Was it something I said?”
    She was off then on a diatribe about the “nigger drug dealers” and how Centre Town was once a nice town but now no longer was even a safe place to live.
    “Is that what the paper says?” I asked.
    You’d of thought I’d just inquired of her weight. The cold look she threw me could have chilled an Eskimo.
    “Any fool can read between the lines,” she said angrily.
    The bus came just in time. With a heave and a grunt, she managed to rise. She pulled at the seat of her dress with a pudgy hand and lumbered off to the bus.
    “Have a nice ride,” I called out as she pulled herself up the steps of the bus. She didn’t bother to turn around. Inside, a sea of black faces were pressed up against the windows.
     
    The newspaper told me little