Milwaukee Spring Drawing

by Dan Knauss

Spring is here, and the cankered tree that has conquered our chain link fence is budding again.

Ending a nocturnal argument, a neighbor's girlfriend has pitched a chunk of pavement through his car's rear windshield, and our van has been entered by similar means, the radio/CD player removed.

The thief was new to his business, neglecting to break a rear window, so as not to have to work in the glass which must have cut him; there is blood on the door handle.

What is most dismaying is the memory evoked by broken safety glass. The last time I was picked up by a shuttle to the Dodge dealership, the driver looked at our street and asked how many break-ins we'd had in our two years there. The answer was none, but I knew what was coming next. "I grew up around here," he said, as we headed toward the South Side sprawl. "Sure has gone to shit since then."

There is no need for the Dodge people today. A new window is only 45 dollars and 45 more for 20 minutes' labor at the auto salvage at 30th and Center. Here, business is conducted efficiently in English and Russian by men in dark coveralls, hands blackened by oil, working in a jungle of steering columns, distributors, transmissions.

On the way home I see a house being boarded up, while the next one is shedding rotten siding into a giant steel trash receptacle. Throwing pieces down from above, men energetically rip into their repair work with crowbars. It is a pleasing sound.

Today we have begun to plant a garden in our yard, freshly dug between the front and back houses, 4 feet by 8 feet of black soil. Our shovels turn up old tabs from beer cans.

Down the street I can hear hammering: new porches and repairs, the largesse of landlords. Spring is here; it is a pleasing sound.

Riverwest Currents - Volume 1 - Issue 4 - May 2002