The King of Babylon

“This is who we are: the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy.” Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America

Light to dark. I can’t control it or identify a trigger. It just comes, like a blanket of heavy fog.  An otherwise lovely day leaves me flat for some reason, out of sorts, bothered by something nameless. I can’t shake it, drink, or smoke it away. The next morning I feel better. I write. I sit outside on the sunny back patio and read. I see a hummingbird at the feeder while a monarch butterfly flits about. It’s not too noisy, no wailing leaf blowers or hedge trimmers or chain saws or garbage trucks. I realize that I’m happy, rich, the King of Babylon. The upset of the previous afternoon fades. I don’t understand it. 

It’s almost the second anniversary of my retirement from the school district. Next month I will receive my first Social Security check. As I’ve written before, I’m a lucky boy, favored by the Gods. Comfortable. Relatively healthy. With time to sit and think, to read and write, to work a low-paying job that I love precisely because I’m not under any pressure to do it. I like working alongside people, doing what I can to help them without ever being asked; I pitch in because I can, because it gives me pleasure to lighten the load for someone else. Call me crazy. 

For the most part, my co-workers drive old cars, pick-up trucks, many ride bicycles or scooters, some walk or rely on MTD. This is the working-class. Jose in the Meat Department is tired and moving slowly, as if in a trance. He’ll leave the store at 10 and report for his second job at 1:30. “It costs a lot to live here,” he says. 

Eddie in Whole Body looks at me and says, “Brian, I’ve got six hours to go.” Eddie’s tired, too. 

Some of my co-workers limp, some are overweight, diabetic or suffer from arthritis. But they show up, day after day. When I see David out back by the baler machine we compare ailments, his lower back, my shoulder. He’s 65. His father is 91 and suffers from debilitating arthritis.  

There’s a lot of turnover, faces come and go. Two of my favorite people, Octavio and Kevin G, are gone from the Grocery department, lured away by better hours and money. Kids who just graduated high school take their place. The weird white guy with the impressive gym muscles quit after three days. 

Chelly sings, “Goooood Mooorning, Brian.” “Buenos dias, Chelly,” I call back. Her round face and beaming smile give me a lift, restores some of my wavering faith in the human race. 

I begin reading Poverty, By America, by the Pulitzer Prize winner, Matthew Desmond. I interviewed Mr. Desmond a few years ago, and met him when he spoke at UCSB. An unusual man. Scholar. Writer. Activist. He is to poverty in this country what Bryan Stevenson is to injustice. The book is a mirror held to the face of America. Desmond reminds those of us who are comfortable that poverty is hard, grinding, unforgiving. 

It’s likely that my French ancestors in Quebec were farmers. They emigrated to the northeastern United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Maine and Massachusetts and Vermont. They became Franco-Americans, mill workers, laborers, tenement dwellers. Some did alright, but others never ascended the social and economic ladder. The French immigrants were no more welcome than the Irish. My mother grew up in poverty. She was born during the Depression. French was spoken in the home.