Once more to Jane Street

It was going to be a trip to 8-Mile Road because Jenna was obsessed with the movie, but I was coaxed on by passengers Evan, Jenna, and cousin Cayla. They wanted to see "the old neighborhood." My sister, Gravalier, wanted none of it and pleaded for me to turn around. As we decended down Chalmers from Jefferson, there seemed to be more multi-colored cinder-block "party stores" than homes; the store windows and doors had thick black bars guarding goods that undoubtedly would be paid for through 6-inch thick bulletproof glass. Along the street were vacant lots, lots with piles of debris that were once homes, boarded-up houses with painted gang codes and brick scorched like open barbeques at Belle Isle Park,  and people, lots of people. Two things I'd read about Detroit before I visited crossed my mind as we stopped at a light on Charlevoix: Detroit was named one of the 10 deadliest cities in the world; and it is a "one race" city. I could remember the urgent sound of my mother's instructions in 1967: "Roll up the windows and lock the doors; we're in a bad neighborhood." Gravalier was claiming an anxiety attack and reaching for medication. The kids wanted to wave at people and "be friendly." I told them I wasn't sure how the Detroiters would take that: a carload of white people waving and gesturing in an area it didn't appear any white people traveled. For, as we winded our way through the old neighborhood, passed St. Juliana Elementary School, passed our childhood home on Jane Street, passed Denby High School, and finally ended up on 8 Mile, we did not see one other white person; however, it didn't seem like anybody really noticed anything different about us.