I'm beginning to understand crime.
Once a long time ago a teacher asked me why I thought crime was more common in poorer neighborhoods. As a sage sixteen year old I answered, "Because they're frustrated. They don't have any options or anyway to escape." The words made sense and I was right, but I didn't truly understand.
At the time I didn't understand; today I do. As time slips away and the inevitable approaches my options dwindle. To many people the obvious route is to find a job so that I can survive. Physical survival has never been a concern. Just like any street corner kid knows that if they need to eat they'll figure out a way, legal or otherwise. The thing that isn't apparent to those on the outside, the ones who want to help, who donate and pity, is that the survival of the human spirit is paramount. In a way I'm lucky to have had a chance to view life from a different angle. If I had grown up in the ghetto, amongst the poor and desperate, I would have thought that there was only one way to live. Seeing everyone as a threat or a target. Fighting everyday for every inch because I didn't know that all those negative emotions feed each other. Anger begets anger. Anger makes you angrier. Anger makes people angry at you. Anger stops people from wanting to help you, give you a chance. Soon enough anger is your only option. Anger, depression, bitterness, they're all the same. They all have the power to destroy your humanity.
I've been looking for a job, despite the looks of disbelief I see on people's face. Forty or fifty resumes sent out, zero replies since December. Well paying jobs and minimum wage jobs alike. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough, maybe I need to walk door to door calling a every one over and over, badgering them into at least interviewing me. Maybe even at minimum wage I won't be able pay for a place to live and the relative bills new and old, keep my car, take care of my cats, fend of the impending lawsuits.
My options shrink and my future with it.
I have little control over what's happening. As much as that kid who walks past drug dealers every morning to get to school. I know, however, that money trouble, pain, sickness loss and all the rest of it will always be there. It will come and go at random intervals and varying intensities. You can't avoid this, no one can avoid this. But when its bad, when there is no escaping the tidal wave coming at then all you can do is go with the flow. Fighting against it is a waste of energy, energy that should be spent on saving your soul. There's nothing wrong with being angry or depressed. It's when you let those types of emotions control you, when you send that flood of destruction to fight the forces that are beating you down that is wrong. If you fight fire with fire all you'll have left is ashes.
So I wonder, as I sit talking with friends and family, if they think that I'm taking things well. Or maybe they think I don't care. Mostly likely they come to the conclusion that I've cut myself off from the world. I would like to tell them the truth as cold and calculated as it might sound. Screaming and crying won't help anyone. It won't make the situation better and it won't help them feel any better. But there is something else. I'm afraid that if I let my head go under the water, even for a second, I'll drown. I'll lose my soul and the person who I was will cease to exist. My thought, idea and dreams will vanish. It will all be replaced my a twisted version, something forged in anger.
I know I'm beginning to sound melodramatic. The first thing some one would say to me is that I was over exaggerating. But I would ask them this, have they ever been in this deep, treading water in currents to strong to fight, not knowing where you're going and at the same time knowing that the sea was filled with sharks ready to strike at any moment? This is my life, sitting in an apartment all day, alone, powerless because I can't get a job, helpless because I can't stop anything and knowing that in the next fifteen day everything I built will be taken from me. Even after it's all gone they'll want more. Then I'll ask, is it hard to believe that I'm wondering if crime is a solution to some problems?
And for a second my head goes underwater and I can see the sharks.
I'm beginning to understand crime.
Sky Coyote by Kage Baker
