The 6-Year-Old on 8th and Locust

We've had a spate of good weather lately: Pleasantly warm, not a lot of humidity, mostly clear skies. The thing that the Midwest can provide in July.

I went to my chiropractor as I do occasionally the other day. Returning via freeway, I must get off on Locust Street, at the point at which, more or less, the rough part of town begins. Nonetheless, not two blocks from the exit ramp, a small grocery store maintains its business, pandemic or no.

It's at that store that, I stand to think, people buy a slew of bottles of Gatorade or similar fluids and try to peddle them for a slight profit, making the transaction in the 45 seconds or so that the light remains red. I say that without knowing for sure, for I've never made that purchase.

I have never seen a white person make those efforts, either. 8th and Locust is thoroughly The Hood, and nobody who looks like me would ever get caught buttressing their incomes on such an enterprise in such a location.

But I was impressed, then distressed, with who it was that approached my driver's side window that day. She couldn't have been six. Someone had put her up to taking that "shift," I suppose, while they went off and did, well, something else.

Yes. She was alone. No one to watch her. No one to take care of her. No one to spell her. There she was, the face of the awful franchise.

Is that the way six-year-olds are supposed to be enjoying their summer? They should be at the library, like some kids were at Zablocki Library on 35th and Oklahoma when I went to vote early. But those kids were white.

She should be on a playground. She should be playing hopscotch. She should be playing, not greasing someone's palm, for you know very well that whatever money she made during that stay, she would be allowed to keep little of it if at all.

I doubt that she did. It would get to be about 83 that day. It wasn't what we here in Wisconsin would call hot, which is somewhere nearing 90. I have lived in Arkansas and Texas, where 90 is not even worth a comment. The heat wave that envelops those regions has just been experienced and will soon return. Those people need Gatorade whenever and wherever they can find it, not Badgers in their air conditioned cars.

I found that unrelentingly sad. I wonder what that kid thought of her relatives, some of whom probably made her stand there. I wonder what she thought of white people, who seemed coldly uninterested in relieving themselves from the heat. I wonder if she thought that her race had something to do with it.

The discomfort from being approached like that sometimes causes people to take pity. Whatever. Their dollar bills have the same value. But just as many, seeing that potential motivation, are quick to reject any offers.

I thought of the film which I saw the previous week, called "Growing Up in Milwaukee," at Cedarburg's Performing Arts Center, after which I was invited to join a panel discussion, whether I really deserved to be there or not. It wasn't about the whole city of Milwaukee. It wasn't about a cultural milieu. 

It was about growing up, or growing up way the hell too fast, in the thoroughly black section of town, in which the previously mentioned street corner is in the very southeast region. It featured a close look at the lives of three black youth: one who wanted to get better but can't (for the moment) get out of 10th grade; one who got pregnant at 14 and had to give up the baby, but now wants to become a singer (she's really good); and one who wants to play basketball and will, but whether he can hang on to his eligibility is another matter. None of them had anything close to a normal, decent childhood. I had to wonder whether the little girl on 8th and Locust would join them in a world that defeated them before they really got started.

Like the other three, she's already trapped on that street corner in what would otherwise be the kind of summer kids dream of. It's not her fault, it's not her doing, but it sure as hell is her fate. How jaded would she be by high school age? How desperate will she be to get out of that situation, and make exactly the same mistakes as others have? Used as she is right now, will she be able to tell the difference when others wish to use her for other things?

Should I buy some Gatorade next time? I don't know. If I knew what it really meant, what I was really contributing to, maybe I would. But maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would call the police instead for a fairly blatant case of child abandonment.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark