Fremont

Behind the palm tree silhouettes pressed against a cotton candy sky, a crow caws with no voice in the distance responding. Maybe it’s the whispering drone of the 880 freeway or a stray maltese cat wandering by those paint-peeling apartments. My consciousness is stained as a vignette, creeping up from the sides.

Sometimes you’d sit on the curb just waiting for a car to drive by.

Things have changed here. The streetmall we used to go bowling sometimes after school has become abandoned, except for the lonely liquor store and some hobo trailers. The schools I went to got rebuilt with a steel fence surrounding it - maybe from all the school shooting complaints and graffiti over the years.

These are the same streets where my neighbor and I would roam knocking on friend’s doors, looking for places to eat Sour Patch Kids or Takis without our parents knowing. Would build dirt ramps for tailwhips and fakies. Would go stay out lying on roofs talking about the oreo trend until the streetlights finally turned on. I see those kids as nothing but a distant outline of me. These are no longer the same streets. These are no longer my streets.

My neighbor Carol, an older lady, sits by her window every day waiting for something eventful to occur - like the rebellious teenage daughter next door. Actually most of my neighbors do that. That or watch television.

I gotta get out of this town. Gotta get out of Hibbing, gotta get out of the local farm, gotta get out of Fremont. I gotta get out of here. I gotta, the way people need water.