The orange sign at the end of the street speaks truthfully.
I spotted it first, then glimpsed up and right to the white, mod-squad, egg-shaped front chairs, only to lock my vision on the older-than-old woman sitting on the front porch of a small shack that is rotting and sad. She watched me as I watched her; I instantly felt guilty, with dots of tears stinging the corners of my eyes.
The tar paper roof was too much.
Or, rather, too unforgivably little. It's 2009, we're in the richest country in the world, and yet this woman, older-than-old, sits in her gravy-blue shack, with tar paper sheets covering the roof.
I feel sick.
And ashamed.
And I want so desperately to get out of this safe, reliable car, walk up to her gravy-blue shack, climb her three termite-chewed faded steps, and talk to the older-than-old woman.
But I don't.
Because I'm scared.
Not of her, but of her neighborhood that is menacing, even in the daylight.
So the older-than-old woman sits alone in her mod-squad white egg chair on the front porch, her hands folded in her lap, and I drive on.
