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static_abyss) wrote2019-02-09 07:22 pm
static_abyss) wrote2019-02-09 07:22 pm
Lj Idol Week 15: Stratford
The main differences between Stratford Street and Manor Street are the number of streetlights.
Stratford has more street lights that shine like cheap orange spotlights, their light spreading out in circles on the floor, as the Ecuadorians skirt around them. Stratford, at night, reeks of cliched moments under the lights, of men in hooded jackets and large brimmed hats, and women in tight dresses and heels. Both groups live on opposite sides of the street, one with eyes out for trouble, the other wanting recognition. Neither of them aware of what exists on the other side. Both focused on the all consuming hunger they've been told to fear.
Manor Street is one block over, with an HSBC on its corner and a dentist's office across the street. There's metered parking on Manor, three buildings total, flanking rows of two-family homes. There are six streetlights, two-thirds those on Stratford. Manor's light, though, comes from the strings of Christmas lights in the winter, from the front porches of its homes. Past ten in the evening, no one walks the streets of Manor. It sits, dark and silent, first to bed and first to rise.
The difference between Stratford and Manor, everyone knows, is that when gunshots pierce the rumbling night, the cops never start their search on Manor.
Manor, though, for all it's glow and fame, posses no magic. No hint of the buzzing of brujos, or the chatter of prayers as abuelitos, in worn button downs and creased dress pants, shake hierba buena over the body of the cursed.
In the morning, Stratford hides no secrets. It's alight with scented candles and good luck prayers. No women hide in the corners and no men wait under streetlights. In the mornings, Stratford comes awake with a vengeance, so much so that the cops in the street know not to walk down the block.
"There's some dark magic voodoo shit, there," the White cops tell each other.
Even though voodoo is a different kind of magic, with its own history. Even though Stratford mornings are nothing like Stratford nights, and cops aren't afraid of the dark.
But Stratford, with its morning life and desperate nights, isn't where this story takes place.
Jimmy lives on Manor. At sixteen, he's a little over five feet ten, thin like carizo and just as hollow. He has the cheekbones of a delinquent, angled for truancy and sharpened into weapons. His cheeks are gaunt with the hunger of the people on the Stratford streets, some desperate wish to thrive tucked into his face, an inheritance from his father's side.
When Jimmy walks down the clean Manor street, he doesn't have to do anything for the cops to follow him. They ride in their small black cars, too new to belong with the dented bumpers and the peeling paint of the SUVs parked on Manor. His bones ache with the effort of untapped magic, something deep and roiling, like dark brujeria, and bile. But this, he tucks away when the cop car pulls up, the slow roll of the windows like a knife through butter.
"Good Evening Officer," Jimmy says, pressing hard on the r's. "How can I help you?"
"Where are you going?" the cop asks.
Which is a valid question, all things considered.
See, once, when Jimmy was young, his family lived on Stratford. His father had stood under streetlights, hungry for fame, for the call of magic in their bones. The Sanchezes were brujos and the magic of Stratford ran in their veins. So, it was no surprise, the day an abuelo put his hands on Jimmy's head and said, "You're a curandero."
It would have been so, Jimmy supposes, now. In a different time, in a different place, he would live on Stratford and his veins would run with magic. He'd drip the sounds of rustling herbs, and chants to drive away the dark. His bones would sing the hymns of battle, and he'd stand among the streetlights, hungry for the sounds of freedom.
He'd wave a hand, murmur a prayer, and these cops would back away.
"Brujo," they'd say, their accents corrupting the word.
But Jimmy's mother was born on Manor, and the random hands that search his bag are all the inheritance she left him.
When Jimmy is sixteen years old, his friend hands him a stolen iPhone and says, "If you take it for the day, I'mma give you half of what they give me. Easy one fifty, whadda you say?"
Jimmy's mother is a good, church-going, God-fearing woman who has never once stood under streetlights to dream. When she heard that Jimmy was meant to be a curandero, she told him that doctors weren't healers, and that money came from lawyers, too.
Jimmy's father stopped dreaming after Stratford. Now, Jimmy's father likes to say that he would have been a priest if it hadn't been for Jimmy's mother. So, Jimmy has that, at least, to be thankful for.
On Manor, Jimmy has two siblings, whose voices drip with untapped magic, with the muted sounds of Stratford Street. They walk in colors, protected now from the same eyes that watch Jimmy from civilian vehicles. The Sanchezes are made for magic, and Jimmy has two siblings who look to him for guidance, for food when their mom forgets, because she went to church and didn't come back in time.
In the end, there is no choice.
Jimmy takes the iPhone.
Stratford has more street lights that shine like cheap orange spotlights, their light spreading out in circles on the floor, as the Ecuadorians skirt around them. Stratford, at night, reeks of cliched moments under the lights, of men in hooded jackets and large brimmed hats, and women in tight dresses and heels. Both groups live on opposite sides of the street, one with eyes out for trouble, the other wanting recognition. Neither of them aware of what exists on the other side. Both focused on the all consuming hunger they've been told to fear.
Manor Street is one block over, with an HSBC on its corner and a dentist's office across the street. There's metered parking on Manor, three buildings total, flanking rows of two-family homes. There are six streetlights, two-thirds those on Stratford. Manor's light, though, comes from the strings of Christmas lights in the winter, from the front porches of its homes. Past ten in the evening, no one walks the streets of Manor. It sits, dark and silent, first to bed and first to rise.
The difference between Stratford and Manor, everyone knows, is that when gunshots pierce the rumbling night, the cops never start their search on Manor.
Manor, though, for all it's glow and fame, posses no magic. No hint of the buzzing of brujos, or the chatter of prayers as abuelitos, in worn button downs and creased dress pants, shake hierba buena over the body of the cursed.
In the morning, Stratford hides no secrets. It's alight with scented candles and good luck prayers. No women hide in the corners and no men wait under streetlights. In the mornings, Stratford comes awake with a vengeance, so much so that the cops in the street know not to walk down the block.
"There's some dark magic voodoo shit, there," the White cops tell each other.
Even though voodoo is a different kind of magic, with its own history. Even though Stratford mornings are nothing like Stratford nights, and cops aren't afraid of the dark.
But Stratford, with its morning life and desperate nights, isn't where this story takes place.
Jimmy lives on Manor. At sixteen, he's a little over five feet ten, thin like carizo and just as hollow. He has the cheekbones of a delinquent, angled for truancy and sharpened into weapons. His cheeks are gaunt with the hunger of the people on the Stratford streets, some desperate wish to thrive tucked into his face, an inheritance from his father's side.
When Jimmy walks down the clean Manor street, he doesn't have to do anything for the cops to follow him. They ride in their small black cars, too new to belong with the dented bumpers and the peeling paint of the SUVs parked on Manor. His bones ache with the effort of untapped magic, something deep and roiling, like dark brujeria, and bile. But this, he tucks away when the cop car pulls up, the slow roll of the windows like a knife through butter.
"Good Evening Officer," Jimmy says, pressing hard on the r's. "How can I help you?"
"Where are you going?" the cop asks.
Which is a valid question, all things considered.
See, once, when Jimmy was young, his family lived on Stratford. His father had stood under streetlights, hungry for fame, for the call of magic in their bones. The Sanchezes were brujos and the magic of Stratford ran in their veins. So, it was no surprise, the day an abuelo put his hands on Jimmy's head and said, "You're a curandero."
It would have been so, Jimmy supposes, now. In a different time, in a different place, he would live on Stratford and his veins would run with magic. He'd drip the sounds of rustling herbs, and chants to drive away the dark. His bones would sing the hymns of battle, and he'd stand among the streetlights, hungry for the sounds of freedom.
He'd wave a hand, murmur a prayer, and these cops would back away.
"Brujo," they'd say, their accents corrupting the word.
But Jimmy's mother was born on Manor, and the random hands that search his bag are all the inheritance she left him.
When Jimmy is sixteen years old, his friend hands him a stolen iPhone and says, "If you take it for the day, I'mma give you half of what they give me. Easy one fifty, whadda you say?"
Jimmy's mother is a good, church-going, God-fearing woman who has never once stood under streetlights to dream. When she heard that Jimmy was meant to be a curandero, she told him that doctors weren't healers, and that money came from lawyers, too.
Jimmy's father stopped dreaming after Stratford. Now, Jimmy's father likes to say that he would have been a priest if it hadn't been for Jimmy's mother. So, Jimmy has that, at least, to be thankful for.
On Manor, Jimmy has two siblings, whose voices drip with untapped magic, with the muted sounds of Stratford Street. They walk in colors, protected now from the same eyes that watch Jimmy from civilian vehicles. The Sanchezes are made for magic, and Jimmy has two siblings who look to him for guidance, for food when their mom forgets, because she went to church and didn't come back in time.
In the end, there is no choice.
Jimmy takes the iPhone.
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