The Hill always casts a shadow. The sun peers through the thin gray clouds that are so common in Seattle, and every ray of light it casts, Beacon Hill selfishly catches, leaving the area behind it to the west, dense with gloom—a captive, forbidden to soak itself in gold. On the Hill, innocent little similar-styled houses form this grid of a neighborhood—a neighborhood I live in, but never felt part of. The lawns weren’t usually manicured but the green waxy color it reflected made it look almost artificial. It’s summer and most kids are inside playing their video games, watching their individual TVs in the PJs they plan to wear until their parents announce they’re taking the family out to eat that night. Only the younger kids with their white, pink-tinted cheeks thrill themselves, riding their bikes where they shouldn’t—down the middle of the street where one or two gleaming SUVs will drive every ten minutes or so. Some parents will watch them from their porches, talking to the neighbors about school systems, traffic, and news of robberies in the neighborhood. The shadow of crime likes to creep up the west side of Beacon Hill every now and then and the residents will try to push it out of sight as far as they can because it’s connected to an issue that they believe cannot be solved. They’ve tried. Call and complain to a cop and they are filled with resolve in their hearts, convincing themselves they have done everything in their power to help solve “the problem.” Then, they’ll talk about it on their front porches, playing the civilized victim and maybe empathizing a little bit, and then they’ll quickly move on to talk about sports. Meanwhile, their children on bikes tease a stray dog.
They like to keep “the problem” on the west hillside in shadow, but they don’t like to shed their light on it. Solve it. I stand on the edge of the hill where a long, chain-link fence looms between me and a steep downward slope of green trees and brush that heads south for acres, hiding Seattle’s “problem.” Peering past the slope of woods, there’s Interstate 5—a bridge buzzing with the traffic coming to and from downtown. What’s under the bridge is hidden by the trees and brush before me, but there’s a small plume of gray smoke coming from that direction and that’s one thing the trees can’t hide. The people of Beacon Hill feel better now that they have already made the 911 call. They turn their heads and return to their talks on the porch. I face the fence and climb over it. The air is noticeably grayer as I carefully head down the slope, and it’s too far away for it to be the smoke yet. Other than that, it seems like every other usual patch of wilderness. My feet tread on soggy brown pine needles which make the ground spongey and pleasant to walk on. I notice fallen blackberries among the pine needles and lift my steady focus off my feet for a second to see that I’m surrounded by blackberry bushes. There’s an occasional rustle to my right or left every other step I take, but I pay no mind to it. I must be somewhere halfway down the slope when a color stands out from the usual green, brown, and gray in the corner of my eye. I make sure my footing is firm before I look up to see what it is. With branches and brush blocking my view, it looks like a grayish-blue imperfect bubble emerging from the ground at the bottom of the slope. I pick up my pace, eager to identify the foreign bubble in this patch of woods and I allow gravity to carry me to reach the bottom of the slope with heavy footfalls. The ground has changed; it’s more solid and firm with compact dirt. The bubble is a tent. Dirt streaks run up and down the sides of it and handfuls of unidentifiable trash are dotted around it. The flap is closed. It sits on the side of a bike trail, about ten feet away that runs north and south. On the other side of the trail are more woods and more…tents. A few of them dot alongside the trail, all of them with their flaps closed, all of them with similar dirt patterns. It’s quiet. Of course, there’s the occasional rustle in the woods and the oncoming sirens getting gradually louder, but other than that, it’s quiet. The trail is vacant. I’m almost afraid to move. I found something, yet nothing at the same time, but I know that this can’t be it. The even grayer woods on the other side of the trail holds my line of sight. Its thickness and looming silence is what fixates my attention from the camp of tents and I know my answer lies beyond it—whatever it may be. I cross the trail in less than twenty strides and pierce deeper into the new section of woods. There’s barely a slope. It’s mostly flat ground which allows me to glance around for any unusual signs. I purposely slow my pace, not wanting to miss anything. And then I hear it: voices. I freeze and try to detect the tone in them—threatening or nonthreatening—but it’s impossible to tell from where I am. It’s just a murmur, so I risk it and continue to step over more branches and follow the murmur until it is noticeably louder. There are more than two people talking and tension threads all of their voices together. In the background I hear the sirens getting louder and louder still. I speed up, and now I can identify words like “stupid,” “fire,” “shame,” and “late….” There’s a clearing up ahead beyond the branches and bushes with clusters of people standing around and I’m finally able to catch a glimpse of the smoke. I can make out the Interstate 5 bridge and faintly hear the bland whooshing of cars on the freeway, too. The sirens are practically on top of me. The closer I get, the more I can piece together of the scene, but there’s one last branch blocking my line of vision and I swipe it out of the way in frustration and finality. The murmuring clusters of people look at me in alarm, startled by my sudden appearance, but one glance at me is enough for them to decide that I’m not as big of a concern. All of them wear some variation of thin, gray, and raggedy clothing. Most of the men are wearing beanies and have some form of a beard growing in and the women’s hair is stringy and stiff. Dirt stains mark the back of their pants, knees, pant legs, and sleeves but they don’t seem to mind at all. Their attention is on what’s happening under the bridge. More tents line themselves under the bridge and one emits smoke from all sides. The smoke clings to the underbelly of the bridge until it has found the edge and is able to break free into the air. I push through the cluster of people towards the edge of the commotion surrounding the bridge to get a closer look, smelling a mix of unpleasant odors as I do so. They don’t say a word to me. I hear coughing from under the bridge and some people run out covering their toothless mouths. A whole new array of people, dressed similarly to the cluster of people behind me, are scattered before me and my mouth slightly drops in response to some of their behaviors. A man in his fifties with dry lips almost completely overtaken by facial hair squats down beside a puddle with a stick and absentmindedly plays in it, oblivious to the chaos behind him. Another man is taking slow, careful steps, carrying a beer bottle in his hand and making a progression of about two inches each step and looking dazed. He’s wearing a beat-up leather jacket with an American flag stitched in the back and a tacky bald eagle stitched on the left upper sleeve. A barefoot woman with raspy flyaway hair sweeps her head back and forth, side to side, like a swing. She’s smiling. She’s singing. She has a raging red burn on the side of her dark face. Other people are yelling, some are laughing hysterically, and some are withdrawn and brooding. These sounds, this atmosphere clash together like a number of consecutive notes being slammed on a piano simultaneously. The combination is enough to make one feel insane. The fire rescue units arrive. I watch their faces as they pour out of their red vehicles and pass the slew of raving people to the source of the smoke. I want to say their reactions are the opposite of what mine would be, but I don’t even know that I saw a change in their face to actually be able to call them reactions…. Nothing. They give away nothing. This is routine for them. I watch as a fireman goes straight into the big tent emitting smoke and comes running back out seconds later with a small crying child in his arms. He quickly sets the child down, in front of me, returns to work and I just stare. The child, a girl of about seven, wipes her soot-covered face and looks around until her swamped eyes land on me, her chest heaving and her voice cracking and scratching at her throat. She suddenly bolts toward me and desperately clings to my leg and, frozen in shock, I let her. I look around for any sign of her mother but don’t know where to even start. I take note of the girl’s dark skin color and raging red burn on the side of her little leg, and then her raspy hair. I glance back up at the woman sweeping her head from side to side. Then at the girl, and back at the woman… Twisting my body so as not to disturb the girl on my leg, I peer back up the slope to Beacon Hill from which I came. The sirens, laughter, sobbing, singing, murmuring, yelling…the chaos ringing in my ears as I scowl up at the Hill that selfishly stole this Jungle’s sunshine. Comments are closed.
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