Seven Years
Hope left here a while ago, and filling the void an apathy that spreads like cancer.
Not just an absence of hope apathy, but an aggressive apathy, worn like a tarnished badge of honor.
Hope left when the Wal-Mart opened and the drug store closed, the one with the ice cream that came out best when you ran the scooper under the water faucet.
When the TG&Y store (the place where my grandfather would take me to get a toy even if I wasn't good) fell apart.
When fielding a baseball in the outfield grass became a dangerous gamble on whether the rocky soil would send it unexpectedly hurdling into your cheek bone.
When the truck-assembly plant sold false hope for a desperate town, only to leave as quickly as it came and force those who wanted to keep their jobs to move up North.
When maggots were eating out the floating carcass of a fish that couldn't quite agree with the town park's toxic water.
When the mill village was a place to work and build a childhood, not marinate in your own juices and wait out the fruitless days for a government check and destroy a thousand childhoods.
This is my hometown. Or at least the place I would come live every now and then with my grandparents when I had nowhere else to go.
In November of 2000, the state of South Carolina voted on whether or not we should have a state-run "education" lottery.
Going on seven years now.
Seven years.
There is nothing to take its place on this billboard. No new businesses. No reason to waste money convincing people to spend money they don't have. There's nothing else that needs to be shouted to anyone -- except, maybe, that even though the lottery is a reality, please, don't try to buy hope through it.
Today -- just a block or two down the street from the sun-bleached, desperate plea to vote against the tax on the poor and desperate and the apathetic and lazy -- is the gas station where the poor and desperate and the apathetic and lazy hover outside the doorway. Feverishly scratching their pennies across a piece of paper that offers a chance -- if only a chance -- at the good fortune that has left this place.
Beers and cigarettes are sold in singles.
And meanwhile, the accompanying, equally desperate plea to simply just wear a condom goes unheard.
Breeding apathy.
12 comments:
i can relate to all of that. it's not quite as bad here...yet, though it's heading that way.
i remember in 1984, the year of the british miners strike, when my uncle bought smokes and beers in singles. the shop used to give three matches with a cigarette.
thankfully my old was a farmer back then, so we weren't as poor, though we were relatively broke.
First off, I misread this:
"Not just an absence of hope, but an aggressive apathy, worn like a tarnished badge of honor."
As this:
"Not just an absence of hope, but an aggressive apathy, worn like a trash bag of honor."
Not nearly enough sleep this weekend.
Secondly, although well written, your post just scared me off from ever visiting where you live.
Where do you live again? ;)
Many years ago I went to Shreveport LA to visit family. We decided to go down to one of the casinos. We walked in the first thing we saw was an ice cream parlor on one side and an arcade on the other side. There were kids everywhere! Where were their parents? Dropping the mortgage at the blackjack tables.
A very illuminating post, Eric. Seven years with the lottery billboard?
dan ... it sure is a sign. my cousin would have me take him down to the store to buy one smoke for 25 cents. they don't live so much day to day as hour to hour. three matches.
tink ... i don't live there now. it's in fairfield county south carolina, one of the poorest, under-educated counties in one of the poorest, under-educated states. it's funny ... i fit in quite well there and try to go back at least once a month to visit family and take in the culture. in fact, the last time i was there i had a girl call me a woman-hating, fucking drunk asshole before she left. i'm a different person there. though i'm not a woman hater. maybe a drunk asshole, though. she was just trying to front as some kind of lesbian because she hates men. and she didn't like that i called someone a "bottom bitch," which if you check your urban dictionary is quite a compliment.
so did i convince you to visit?
jay ... that's a great observation in concert with this. though depressing. the lottery here replaced video poker. we had a case just before the vote where a woman let her baby cook to death in a hot car in the summer sun while she played video poker all day.
melissa ... seven years. the thing is, i didn't notice it really until last year. i just happened to look up and realized it's been awhile since the lottery passed.
Very interesting how many states across the south have been dealing with these issues. I'm from a small town in one of the most rural, backwater areas of Texas, and can sooo relate.
"And meanwhile, the accompanying, equally desperate plea to simply just wear a condom goes unheard."
Isn't that the truth?
i don't know what it is about the south.
Eric,
I used to pass by that sign every day on my way home from work. My wife worked in Rock Hill and I worked in Columbia. Living in Winnsboro gave her a little longer drive, but it was nicer than Great Falls.
I'm usually a live and let live kind of person, but it was utterly depressing to see the level of addiction there. I would go running up and down Congress Street early early in the morning and had to run in the street in stead of the sidewalk occassionaly because of the drunks. It made me consider being in favor of banning alchohol.
We were only there a year and a half, but I saw some signs of life. I think Winnsboro does have a small town charm despite the utter poverty outside the about 8 nice blocks of town. I know there were several houses that had been recently renovated by people that had moved in from out of state.
I don't think I'll live in Winnsboro again, but I will always have fond memories of my landlady Ms. Haslet.
if you happen to come back, i'm interested in when you lived there.
i used to remark to members of family that one thing you don't see in winnsboro is people running just to run. they're usually running from something.
Great post, lots of nice things for me to say about the allegories and all, but I just can't get past, "Teen Pregnancy - it only takes a minute."
Says words about the sexual prowess of high school boys ;) . That, if nothing else, should help keep the girls' panties on.
kz ... what an astute observation. i'm jealous.
I'm from Oakboro NC
Remember the first time you saw beer sold in a grocery store ?
I see likker sold where i am now in the stores..and I'm still shocked
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