Unburying Hope (19 page)

“Um, sounds like you guys are leaving me,”
said Frank.

Eddie stared at the two of them and then
looked away.
 
“I’m not making her
leave.
 
I’m just saying the drug
wars are going to get bloodier.
 
And a lot of Detroit’s cops and the Feds are reservists doing tours in
Afghanistan.”

Frank frowned.
 
“That scares me.”

“It should.”
 
Eddie finished off his cocktail.
 
“There’s no hope, it’s going to be an all out war across the
streets, unless someone can find a way to pit the two sides against each
other.”

“How could the cops do that?” Celeste asked.

“Cops lost all their funding and they’re too
busy trying to lock up the little guys,” Frank said.

“Yep,” Eddie said, nodding to Frank.
 
“You’d have to focus the cartel against
the local dealers.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this,”
Frank said in a halting voice.

Celeste looked between Frank and Eddie, seeing
a momentary connection, then Frank’s confusion and Eddie’s evading
glances.
 
She didn’t know what she
saw.
 
Maybe it was just the
agreement of two conspiracy theorists.

She shook her head.
 
God, getting Frank off of the news websites on his phone at
work was a never-ending job.
 
Adding Eddie to this overarching neurotic storytelling was too
much.
 

“Too many people want this town to survive,”
she said in a strong voice, waving them both off.

Eddie leaned in, “You might notice that all
the real connective work, the real kind work, the caring for people and the
City, it’s all done outside of the local government, by people, individuals,
not with tax dollars.”

“I know,” Celeste’s words burst out of her
mouth, “See?
 
It matters that each
person steps up.”

“But my point is that the government is
unwilling and unable to stem the tide, the government is too late to the
dance.
 
They can’t fix
anything.
 
The people who ripped
Detroit off, who took all Detroit’s value to offshore banks, they’ve left us to
die.
 
It’s like slitting the throat
of your enemy on a side road and then going into town for hot tea.
 
The only people doing any good here are
individuals, with no power and no money.”

“So it matters that I step up.”

“Yes it does,” he said with only a bit of
energy.
 
“But the government has
thrown up its hands.
 
The
government is supposed to be of the people, for the people.
 
But instead, it’s powerless.”

“Celeste,” Frank said softly, “the City is
already under.
 
It’s buried.
 
Maybe we’d better flesh out Plan B,
pronto.”

“No offense, honey,” she said, patting Eddie’s
hand, “but Frank, we’re not giving up that easily, are we?”
 

Frank looked between the two of them, shaking
his head.
 
“I’ve never felt this
sure of anything in my life.”

“But Eddie says the meth is made outside the
US, so that means the chemicals won’t hurt us.”

Eddie shook his head too.
 
“Celeste, people are using drugs because
life is so shitty here, no jobs, no income, losing houses or apartments,
welfare was cut, no doctors are giving Medicaid care.
 
Meth is the Dr. Kevorkian needle that’s finally killing
Detroit.
 
The car companies are
making surface-to-air missiles, their future is in war-making, not car-making.”

“And we’re supposed to leave Detroit, right
when she needs us most?
 
We should
instead be re-staking our claim to her,” Celeste said softly, knowing in her
heart that walking through neighborhoods with her head held high was no longer
a viable way of saying that she loved her City.
 
The neighborhoods were half ghost towns, half wells of
hopelessness.
 
She’d help a little old
lady open her front gate if she saw her struggling with a key, but she’d turn
away when she looked in to the lady’s apartment to see just a chair in the bare
kitchen, with a cracked coffee cup and a dried out tea bag about to be reused
for any more flavor that could seep out.
 
The need felt too great.
 

“I think you guys should be careful when
you’re heading to and from work,” Eddie said.
 
“Don’t be out on the streets at night.”

“Well, that takes all the joy out of being
single in the City,” Frank joked half –heartedly.

Eddie nodded.
 
“I know.
 
But
take care of yourself, Frank, keep your eyes open.”

“Like you?” Frank asked, “I see that you scope
everything out.
 
But Celeste
promises me you’re not a spy,” he said, winking at Celeste.

“I was trained to do that,” Eddie said, his
voice lowered.
 
“It’s a hard habit
to drop.”

Celeste glared at Frank.
 
“He’s not a spy, Frank,” she said,
looking to see if Eddie was angry.
 
“He’s just cautious.”
 
She
drained the last of her own beer ready to get out of the bar.
 
It was morose throughout the large
darkened room.
 
It was hard to keep
the flame of hope for Detroit burning in a place that was so swamped with
losses.
 

Chapter Twenty-Two

The laptop screen turned on and Celeste hit
the three buttons that would visibly connect her with Frank via Skype.
 
It was nice to see each other for chats
instead of speaking on their cell phones.
 
They had known that their jobs were going to be on the chopping block
when they each shut down their home landlines and went solely to cell
phones.
 
Then calling and email dropped
off, traded for the immediacy of texting.
 
And now Skype erased the use of cell phones as speaking devices and they
only used their cells to text each other during the day, an expensive form of
passing notes in class.

Before she met Eddie, if they weren’t out at
night together in a bar, they’d turn on their laptops and Skype, leaving it
open for ten minutes, half an hour, sometimes hours, watching TV shows, reading
books, together digitally, not physically.

It was comforting to be with him in this way.
 
She’d never had a brother or sister,
and this felt familial.

          
But
she didn’t miss it when Eddie was over, which gave her a twinge of guilt.

She watched the call progress on Skype and was
relieved when he answered.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, smirking disdainfully.
 
“My ex-old lady.”

“I know,” she said, pulling the edges of her
lips down into an exaggerated frown.
 
“My bad.”

“You are right, Missy!” Frank said, shaking
his pointing finger at her.
 
“How
can we stay soulmates if you dump me whenever you get a boyfriend?”

“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” Celeste
protested.
 
She sat down in front
of the laptop.

“What are we drinking tonight?” Frank asked,
“Mai Tai, Tequila Sunrise?”

“Water,” she said, pulling her glass to the
screen in front of her so that the camera would pick it up.

“What?” Frank asked, teasingly aghast.
 
“FAIL,” he said.
 
He pulled a bottle in front of his
screen, a dark brown champagne bottle with a glittering label on it, which he
shoved right up to his laptop’s camera.
 
“The good stuff!
 
And I
might not finish it all myself tonight,” he said, “since my ex-old lady is
probably staying home.
 
Too bad I
can’t pour it through the screen,” he said.
 
“Tell me you’re not going sober on me, please, I just bought
a couple bottles of this stuff and I will never forgive you if I have to drink
it alone.”

Celeste clinked her water glass on the laptop
camera, “Cheers,” she said.

“So, why are you calling me?” he said, his
voice hurt by her non-response.

“Eddie’s out and I wanted to check in with
you,” she said.

“You want to go out drinking?” he said, his
face brightening.
 
“Or we could go
out and get dessert and pay a corkage fee, I’ll bring the champagne.”

“Sure,” she said, “but you’re going to kill
me, I don’t drink as much these days.”

“You’ve changed,” he sniffed.
 
“At least it’s for the good.
 
Don’t stop drinking completely, though,
or I’ll have to go get a boyfriend myself just to finish my wine
collection.”
 
He poured himself a
glass of water and said, “But sit down first, Missy.
 
You’ve got to fluff that hair up and go heavy on that
eyeliner before we go out.
 
I can’t
let you ruin my public image with the healthy hausfrau look you’re settling
into.”

Celeste opened her mouth in mock horror, then
walked off screen for a moment to retrieve her makeup case from the
bathroom.
 
It used to be in the
living room next to where she sat with her laptop so that she could do her makeup
and get Frank’s approval.
 
He
didn’t seem to notice the meaning of her delay, that she’d moved it closer to Eddie’s
own kit on the shelf next to the mirror above the vanity.
 
She used to Skype Frank early in the
morning, asking if navy blue eyeliner worked with her forest green dress, or if
a lipstick was too red to go with her navy sweater, while he experimented with
spiked hair.
 
Even though they both
knew that only distractedly sad and broke phone users would see them, their
morning primping was frequently the most fun part of their day.

“I’m not a hausfrau,” Celeste objected.

“You’re a hot hausfrau,” Frank insisted,
gesturing with his hands around his head, “pull your hair up like this,” he
said, “just the front part up into a half pony tail.
 
Then straighten the bottoms for a second or two before you
leave.
 
And please, god, no peach
lipstick.
 
Stick with the
raisin.
 
Peach no good when sun go
down, raisin good.”

She laughed, holding up the dreaded peach
tube.
 
“You know I only keep this
to torture you.”

“And you do, Missy, you do,” he shoved his
head in too close to the camera, scolding her affectionately.

“Okay, I’ll meet you in half an hour.
 
That cheesecake place,” she said.

“No, too tacky.
 
Let’s go down by the river.”

“There’s nothing down there but old hotels.”

“There used to be a nice coffee place with a
bakery.
 
I went there with my dad
sometimes when I was a small lad after he’d bring me on the train to the
theater,” Frank said.
 
“I want to
see if it’s still open.
 
If not, we
can eat in the Renn Center.”

“It’s desolate at night,” Celeste
protested.
 
“Are you sure it will
be safe?”

“Yeah, and I’ll bring my bottle of champagne,
I’ll use it as a club if I need to,” he laughed.

“Okay, I’ll get the bus,” Celeste said.
 
“How’s my hair,” she turned side to
side.

“No bus, they’re shutting down our line, did
you hear that?
 
They’re so broke
that they are pulling half the busses offline,” he said.
 
“Take a cab.
 
And bring a hairbrush in your purse.
 
It’s like the beauty care fairies
totally refused to bless you with talent when you were born,” he said.

“Remember last time,” Celeste laughed, “when
that old couple was in line for the two restrooms and you waltzed out of the
ladies room with me?”

“And they should not have said anything!”

“My god,” Celeste laughed, “you gave them a
heart attack saying you’re halfway through a sex change.”

“With both pee organs,” Frank laughed along
with her.
 
“That’ll teach
them.
 
They shouldn’t have been so
nasty.”

“They thought we were in the bathroom being
nasty,” Celeste said.

“As much as I love you, Missy, it would be
nasty to do the nasty with you, so there!”

Celeste rolled her eyes, taking her hair out
of the rubber band.
 
“Wait,
what?
 
They’re shutting down our
bus lines?”

“They put up flyers today after work, it says
most bus lines going down in a week.”

“That makes me insane, Frank,” she could feel
her blood boiling.
 
If she couldn’t
get to work, how could she afford to live in the city?
 
How could anyone get out of the dead
zones?
 
Her mind raced.
 
How could she let her anger flame
out?
 
What colors and what message
would she paint?
 
Where would she
paint it?
 
The bus yard.