1986

The Big Three kept our black shoes shiny. Kept us in dentist chairs
reclined. Kept our grins beaming every Christmas morning, action figure-
armed. Lawn mowers, tools, Trans-Ams, T-Birds. All the
while, the neighborhood watched vigilantly.
Some days my brother Malik and I would walk home from school,
push open the door, push past magazines and lamps and clothes,
everything strewn on the floor. Upstairs and down, a littered mess:
a hairdryer, albums, shoes. Minus, of course, the jewelry and
electronics.
What’s behind door number one? The game had grown familiar.
Some mornings as both our parents left for work, Malik and I would
spot a young man hunched under a streetlamp. Wonder silent,
“Would this be today’s contestant?”
They knew us. Kept watch. Hatred escalating. Egg yolks and grape
jelly smeared across our living room walls, evidence that our guests
were not stealing out of hunger.
We ignored talk of epidemics. Because to be blessed in Detroit in
1986 meant you exercised a daily forgiveness. The house, the cars,
the whole lifestyle collapses unless inflated with compassion. You tell
yourself the incident was isolated. Hope the man by the streetlamp
was merely lost. Hope that when you get home to find the door ajar,
he has taken what he needs, pawned it into rock. Hope that you
aren’t provided the opportunity to talk Reaganomics with him.
In Coleman Young’s Motown, you had to face the music, turn your
back on the romance. Save yourself.
Meant you had to hear your family ache as you trade the devil you
know for the one you don’t.