Gentrify: A Story

 

I moved to Colorado for a change of scenery. Actually, I moved because I was bored. Bored of living in that small podunk town that I had called home for thirty years. The same people, the same backward mentality, the same everything. The same fears, too. My parents, never ones to rock the boat, loved their small town with all their hearts. They knew that if they loved living here, then their two children must love it as well. My younger sister was a wallflower. She was mousy and quiet and refused to stand up for herself. She was also a talented artist and her constant wins at the school art fair could contest that. She received notices from various art schools all over the world to have her become a student in their prestigious halls. She said no to all of them, mostly because she thought they were liars. I shook my head in frustrated silence yet didn't say a word. I, on the other hand, wanted to be a writer. I wanted to capture my view of the world onto pages so that people would read them and possibly be inspired. Yet, who in the world had ever heard of Jack Veller, 30 years old, working at the local library, who only had one girlfriend? I spent my days shelving the books while glancing at the titles and sometimes even stopping to read them. No one seemed to mind. I read our small collection of classics, then fiction, then mysteries, then anything else I could get my hands on. Soon, I started ordering books through Amazon. I wanted my words to be immortal like theirs. I was a dreamer that felt as though I was slowly dying. So, it came to pass that while looking through the internet, I found a job as a library assistant at one of the branches of the Denver Public Library system. I applied and knew that I would never hear from them, only to receive an email from them three days later. We set up an online interview, I gave it my all to a black woman named Jackie, and a week later, I got the job. 

I knew that when I told my parents what I had done behind their backs, they would never forgive me. I was right. They sat me down in the kitchen and yelled at me for an hour, telling me that "family comes first", "let's break down the salary to the hourly rate", "how will you take care of yourself if you get sick?" and "Denver? Who wants to live there?" I sat in that chair and stared at their red faces; suddenly, it dawned on me that they were afraid of the outside world. They projected their fears on me. When my father finally stopped talking so he could console his crying wife and my mother, I calmly got up, told them I needed to pack, and left the kitchen. I gave my notice at the library and my co-workers were actually happy. They, too, had dreams of leaving the town yet they either didn't know how or didn't think they could. My girlfriend asked if she could come with me. She had never been alone before (we had started dating when we were in grade school) and began to have panic attacks. I patted her hand, kissed her cheek, and told her to look me up sometime. Two days later, I drove away from the town, never to look back. My parents didn't see me off; they remained in their bedroom. I didn't have a cell phone, so I stopped at the first Walgreens I saw and purchased a cheap phone. I put in the address of the library and resumed my drive. As I drove, my mind began to whisper to me - why did you leave, you can't make it in a city like Denver, you're a failure, no one will help you. I put in one of my CDs and drowned out the voice.

When I saw the Welcome to Colorado sign, I grinned like an idiot. I pulled into a rest area and changed my directions to a hotel near Denver. I arrived at Motel 6 in the dead of night and quickly checked in, then drove around looking for some food. The air smelled cleaner here and the night sky seemed to show off more of the stars than what I was used to. I purchased a chicken sandwich with sliced avocado, chips, and an iced tea, then returned to my room to enjoy my solitary meal. When I awoke the next day, I dressed in my best clothes and drove to the library. The branch was located near the University of Denver and as I drove by the campus, I saw people of all races walking around the campus, each filled with their own purpose in life. I saw people my age walking and laughing with friends as they held their cups of coffee and bags of pastries. I pulled into the parking lot and took several minutes to take in all of the shops and restaurants in the area, then walked in. I introduced myself to what I thought was a man with pink dyed hair and a nose ring and said that I was the new Library Assistant. He beamed and clapped his hands and said that I could follow him to the back. In all of my life, I'd never seen a man with pink hair before, but then again, I'd not seen too much in my small hometown. We walked to the back and then to an office with the sign Jackie Vasen - Head Librarian on the door. The man knocked and then stood to the side as the door opened to reveal the woman who had interviewed me. We shook hands and she said that she was pleased I had accepted the job. She then gave me a tour of the library and I felt my chest bursting with pride. 

In the next several weeks, I located housing, slowly got to know my co-workers, and threw myself into living in the Mile High City. The first thing I learned was that the city was expensive. The second thing I learned was that I needed to be hipper in my life. So, with my lovely salary, I shopped for better clothes, took myself out to cool restaurants, and learned which coffeehouses served the better coffee. As I lived my life day by day, I noticed that the same kind of people occupied these places. Even though they were of different races and sexual preferences, they all looked alike. They all had this "thing" about them that seemed to be the result of hard labour to maintain it. They were all hipsters and I wanted access to their world. I wanted to be like them because I hated who I was before. I hated the fact that I was not cool enough. I was determined to change myself, to undergo a metamorphosis and emerge a butterfly who looked and acted as though he damn well belonged in Denver. Slowly and surely, I began making friends and they in turn introduced me to their friends and their friends. Soon, I received invitations to parties at someone's house on Pearl Street, or met up with my book club at the pizza place on South Broadway, or So Bo. I hung out after work with my co-workers for craft beers and made pastry runs to Katherine's French Bakery two doors down from the library. After three months, I had made it. 

That's when it all began. That's when I began to see it. 

I saw people, my new kind of people, harassing the homeless as they lay on the sidewalks, or sat huddled on corners. I saw them yell at the homeless to get a job, you losers, and then walk off while laughing. I began to read reports of older neighbourhoods occupied by people of colour for years suddenly thrown out of their homes because real estate developers bought them all and raised the rents. A week later, those same older homes were gutted out and changed for the new owners - young, hip, and filled to bursting with money. My drives to work filled me with shame as more and more homeless people occupied the streets. Prices started to go up and it seemed that only my fellow hipsters could afford anything. At night, news reports of other cities having the same issues began to fill my TV screen. These people, the ones who drove up the prices, were also the ones who fought anyone who was Republican, followed a path of white supremacy, and was pro-life. These people, my people, yelled from the rooftops how they voted for Obama and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. These people would get upset with you if you dated someone from your own race. These people. My people. My fellow hipsters. 

Soup kitchens began to shut down. The homeless and the poor began to set up more tents along the streets. Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Boston, everywhere. The more I saw the homeless, the more I heard my people laughing as they drank their craft beers. Both the Democrats and the Republicans held up their hands in surrender as a new party, the Gentrify Party, was born from the ashes of the burning houses that no one could sell. The Gentrify Party believed in freedom for all, healthcare for all, birth control for all, coffee for all . . . as long as you had money and accepted their ways. I thought that perhaps, this new party would lose steam, yet it was quite the opposite. People from all walks of life took refuge in this new party that promised the world and actually delivered it. Those who wanted handouts were met with a closed door. Those who were lazy would never get a return call. Those who refused to look like them (us) were set out on the street, given a cookie and a pat on the head, and then left. I was made a member without me even knowing it - I began to receive mail from the party as well as my party card. 

The Gentrify Party changed the world. A cleaner, more educational, more liberal world. A more dangerous one. People who opposed them were killed on sight or disappeared. Guns were banned. Artists were treated like royalty. Authors like immortal deities. The poor and homeless were placed in walled-off sections of cities or shipped out to small towns. There was resistance, then fights, then talks of war. Amid it all the high-ranking members of the Gentrify Party calmly looked around at their new world and said - yes . . . but aren't you better for it? Soon, there were talks with NASA regarding a new space program to solve the party's one thorn in their side. Massive rockets were built to carry the poor to the Moon to establish colonies for the less than desirable. When I heard about these plans, I thought that surely it would be canceled. That someone would finally see reason and put an end to all of this. I was wrong. The party had more than enough money to finance the idea. And the world loved it.  Trucks came in the dead of night to haul these people to their new and permanent homes. I watched it all, wrote down everything I saw, and wanted to cry. It took forever for the plan to fall into place, yet when it did the TVs showed constant coverage of one rocket after another being shot into space. The world cheered. I wrote it down. 

The Gentrifiy's media kept constant coverage of the colonies, like someone watching over their new pet. We thrived and watched and grew concerned. As the months went by, the colonies did something quite remarkable - they began to thrive. Suddenly, those who couldn't afford to live on Earth were suddenly becoming productive citizens of the Moon. They created their own medicines and educated themselves. Their artists and authors were treated well and admired. As for us, the Gentrify Party, we began to crumble from within. Fights broke out over the smallest thing. People started to fall victim to a new and strange disease in which one just wasted away with wide and unblinking eyes. Our scientists called it the Ennui. Our books and art began to lose meaning because we would bicker over the relevance of it all. Soon, nothing was seen as valuable, only disposable. The Moon thrived and we despaired because we had no balance. No limits. No control.

It is late. My hands are sore from writing. It seems that that's all I've been doing lately. Writing, writing, writing. I'm an old man now, hardly able to feed myself. No one comes by to check on me. No one wants to talk with me because I'm no longer useful. I wanted to change and change screamed in my face. I feel discarded and irrelevant. I think about my small hometown; if any of those people are still alive, or if they were taken by the Gentrify Party. I wonder if my parents fought to the bitter end. I need to stop wondering.

Long live the Gentrify Party.