(Why Walk Down Woodward)

My eyes were tired of staring at words of images about the heart, lungs, throat, abdomen, thorax, sacrum, iliac, and the combinations iliolumbar, iliosacral, laryngopharynx, splenorenal, gastroduodenal, pancreatico-do-I-really-have-to-do-this? My mid-day beer was wearing off, along with my morning patience, so my roommate had no trouble convincing me to go for a walk. I realized, I hadn’t left the apartment all day, and a trip to the outside world seemed nice.

In fact, so nice, I nearly forgot that the outside world hardly existed after five p.m. in Detroit. Instead, wide-laned roads were filled with ghost cars. Broad sidewalks masquerading as busy promenades, functioned then only to buffer dirt-burned lots from black-asphalt roads. We walked slowly towards the party store where we hoped to buy enough soda to last us the day or two until the test. The only greeting we received as we passed by was the glinting reflection from the cast iron bars lain across the front door. “The Source” of urban apparel (I assumed) was likewise shuttered. So too, were just about every check-cashing, liquor-lotto, and grubby corner café we passed by.

The first interaction I had with the outside world all day (my roommate and the technological wonder that is facebook excluded) was a startled bum popping up from a doorframe, blocked with wood just enough to nestle him beneath an ominious pair of eyes on a sign reading “this area is being watched.” I wondered if he was doing the watching, or if someone was supposed to be watching him sleep. “What time is it?” he exclaimed as if he was late for an appointment somewhere. I wondered if his reaction would have been different if I had quoted him a time seven hours on either side of the actual six-twenty p.m. A young lady in a wheel-chair solicited us for her bus fare and we gently obliged supplying a nickel more than she asked.

After passing half a dozen condo establishments in the works, we finally stumbled upon a party store still open and stocked with soda. We selected a fine variety of locally produced ginger ale (if you live outside of Michigan, be sure to try it if you see it, a real treat). Walking out of the store a women with a twenty-four ounce beer can in a paper sac asked us for some change. We both again obliged and made some small talk. Her male friend, or at least, street colleague for the moment, asked what we were doing for the night. We shrugged, and he proceeded to detail the race (Detroit Free Press Marathon) we missed the day before. The woman made some slurred small talk as well, and asked if we just got off work. I replied “kind of” thinking a study break classified as “just getting off-of work” in a way. She informed me that she wouldn’t have gone to work either.

We continued back towards our domicile, passing-by closed down businesses, abandoned lots, forlorn apartments, until reaching an open bistro with beautiful floral arrangements meeting all of its seven guests, and also, twenty or so empty tables. An escalade parked next to us, complete with yorkie terrier poking out the window. A woman in front of us overheard our commentary and exclaimed, “She brings it with her everywhere. Bet she’ll bring it right in here” as she pointed to a check cashing establishment.

Right then, a man shouted his evening plans to an uninterested passerby and a ball-capped fellow shouted “that’s the original . . .” assumedly in unison with the rapper in his headphones. We watched, like spectators in a movie, out of place in this entire experience, and further estranged from a world by both the absence of ourselves from it for the entire 9-5 day and the absence of life outside after that day is over in the city. The people we ran into were unfamiliar, but pleasant, and their lives, to me, an entire mystery. So too then was the walk in a city abandoned years ago, but with the air as if someone might just try hard enough one day to restore it. So, until then, I think I’ll try and walk the desolate streets when I can, and hope they become less desolate.