I Cannot Go Home

I was tempted to go visit my hometown. Can you really call it a hometown if you haven't lived there in over thirty years? Still, the place where I was born and raised called to me. I wanted to go home.

The problem with East St. Louis is that it isn't home for me anymore. I am a drifter, fulfilling my wanderlust, surviving outside the world that I knew so well. Each time I've visited East St. Louis, I've had the feeling that I was in the wrong place. This is not the home I remember. The streets are not the same as when I played in them decades ago. Through a child's eyes, I saw only the beauty of where I lived. I could not see the poverty, the destitution. I didn't know what the news talked about when it said that the crime rate was soaring. I remember my mother's hotwater cornbread, her sweet potato pies made with pride and love. I remember the neighbors who used to smack my heinie if they caught me doing something wrong. I dreaded hearing the words "Wait 'til your father gets home".

That is not to say that I was unaware that there were problems in East St. Louis. I was aware more of the outside world's perception of us and I couldn't understand why we were judged so harshly. We were, in my eyes, just normal people going through a daily existence like people all over the world. We were taught to work for what we wanted, to strive at being the best. I did not know that we were swimming against the tide.

I went to school with the current mayor. His family has lived in East St. Louis for as long as I can remember. His phone number is still listed in the phone directory. I talk with him once every couple of years. Alvin still has hope that he can change the world for the better. I used to think that as well, but each visit to East St. Louis chiseled away at my hopes and dreams. Unlike Alvin, I decided that I could better use my talents elsewhere. I didn't abandon my hometown as so many others had. I proudly answered, East St. Louis, Illinois when asked where I was born. I enjoyed the looks of bewilderment that a place "like that" could yield a crop of fine, decent, worldly people. I look back and now I too wonder what has happened to my home. I do not believe that we were an anomaly. Even the wino under the bridge had a certain amount of pride and garnered some respect from the rest of us.

I cannot go home. The home of my childhood no longer exists except in my memories. The house where I grew up is still there. The tree that I fell from and chipped a tooth is still in the front yard. The neighbors are still the same. Even so, I can feel the difference. The streetlights have been replaced by drug dealers and prostitution. Most of the houses are in disrepair. The people are poor and have, unlike Alvin Parks and Debra Powell (both former classmates), lost hope. And perhaps that is where the difference lies. I have seen East St. Louis from an outsiders perspective and I have been overwhelmed. I have lost hope. What is worse for me is that I have lost the pride that was instilled in me by my elders.

I cannot go home. The place I loved exists only on as map. It has faded, just as my memories have faded. I cannot look at East St. Louis the same way ever again. A loss of innocence. A loss of community. A loss of home. Now with both my parents deceased, I truly feel like the orphan without origins.

Once there was a place where children played in the streets oblivious to class or caste. There was a place where flowers grew, parks were filled with people enjoying a day near the pond at Jones Park. There was a school where excellence was the order of the day. There was love. The East St. Louis of my memories is long since past. More than a generation away.

I cannot go home. It no longer exists.