Down and Out at the Charles Village Fair
I'm ill prepared to live without a room mate. Not that I charged any of them too much ($300 + 1/2 of the BGE bill), but I'm generally a man of simple tastes. CDs and eating out are pretty much my only vices, and that little bit of rent satisfies my indulgence of both. I became the sole occupant of my home on May 31st, with no real desire to find another room mate and in fact turned down anyone who inquired.
My goal for the immediate future is to live a more frugal life, to cook my own meals and stay out of places that charge a cover, and above all to not draw money out of my savings. All of this adds up a dreary existence, and when I spotted the annual Charles Village fair, I ran to the event with more than thirty dollars burning a hole in my wallet.
The event shut down a side street and allowed for a small bazaar of local merchants to set up tents. Behind the Civil War memorial statue, a bar band belted out passable covers of minor alt rock classics (think 'Say it Aint So').
The vendors were generally hawking clothing made in the city, African style, Jamiacan style, community aware, you name it. I stopped at a tent selling shirts who put captions like 'The Original Homeland Security' under sad photographs of nineteenth century Indians posing with rifles. I asked the vendor, a short red-skinned man, if they sold any poster prints like the shirts.
He froze in place after I spoke, like he didn't know and didn't understand English well enough to even repeat what I'd asked.
"Poster, like a picture, like a painting..."
The vendor scratched a bit, his eyes lowering to the ground. "Uh... no"
I noticed a man with a wide grin taking in our exchange. "He doesn't understand you. He doesn't know what you're saying." He looked like a Sicilian, squat and a ruddy complexion, his cheeks colored by acne scars. But his long gray hair was pony tailed neatly, running halfway down his back, and he had high cheekbones that cut through his round face, a picture of a Reservation Indian. At first I pegged him as the American chief of the operation, but he turned to the vendor, flashing a wide grin and asked "Where are you from? What country?"
The vendor understood him, more than the actual words, "Ecuador. But..." he pointed down to the shirts, "we are the same peoples, the first Americans."
The man was not totally satisfied. He turned to me, "You see?" Then he turned back to the vendor, "so why'd you come up here? Why not stay in your own country and try to change things up there?" He repeated "why not be a force for good in your homeland?" slowly and without shortening his grin.
The vendor couldn't respond, maybe didn't understand, and ultimately froze in place.
"You see? " he asked me. "It's hard to enact change, right? So they come up here, and what good does that do? What good does that do for your family back home? Huh? None. There could be revolution if the people would stay and fight for it. Not that I blame him (and to the vendor directly) not that I blame you. (And back to me) You see? That the problem is they run up here... running up here won't fix their home countries at all." The man was so squat and solidly round that he seemed shorter than me, although we were probably close to the same height. He finished most questions by pulling his arms apart, palms up to the sky, and bowing a little bit, a motion that descended from vaudeville but had the cumulative effect of making him look even shorter.
As he carried on, the vendor planted his hands in his pockets, wishing the conversation would move away from his tent. The man continued on about revolutions waiting to bring all of Central and Southern America righteous democracy. He thumbed back to the vendor, "...and these guys, like him, leaving their homelands to make their riches in America, they're the worst of them all."
Having not gotten a word in edgewise up this point, I hazarded my first comment. "Well Marx waited all of his life for the peoples to take up arms and revolt. I mean, eventually he got so tired of waiting he lashed out at them. The 'Lumpen Proletariat', he called them."
"Oh no, oh no, I've read Marx my friend. The lumpenproletariat were the lowest of the low," here he motioned as though pulling a screen over his face. "They were those that could take up arms but refused (screen pull motion), they weren't the privileged caste but they helped the privileged caste keep the workers oppressed (screen pull motion). I know my Karl Marx, my friend." And maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but he shot me down with such conviction that I knew the conversation wouldn't become an equal dialog.
"No, instead of staying in their own country, and changing their home for the better they come up here. I don't have anything against that guy, but they come up here, and where do they go?"
I returned his smiling gaze with a flat stare. I tried to put a finger on the man's driving motive, because honestly who give's a shit about cheap shirts and royalty free images so much that they'd stake out a street vendor. I pretty much knew the destination of the rest of the conversation.
"They go right onto the construction site. And me?" He tapped his chest with five straight fingers. "I gotta live in Dundalk, getting _______ poison." He motioned around the acne scars on his cheeks. "Let me ask you this, buddy. I've been in construction for thirty years. I have more experience. I have more contacts. I should be making more money, right? No, and why? Cause these guys..." he shot his arm out toward the vendor, who at this point refused to make eye contact with anyone at the festival, "these guys cross the borders illegally, and they take our jobs. And I gotta buy the only house I can afford, right? And now I gotta live on a toxic waste dump, in Dundalk, getting _______ poison from the fumes."
I had a raft of explanations for his grievances. First and foremost, certainly the whole housing bubble couldn't be blamed on cheap immigrant labor, I see that more as a societal and even global problem. Secondly, why did he need to buy a house, why not rent? And I'd guess that construction is a bit like most anything else, if after thirty years you're no more than a day laborer, you're not the most valuable cog in the machine and were paid accordingly. But I bit my tongue. Partly because he shot through my credibility with the Marx reference, partly because he was winding down anyway.
"But you're young right? Just wait, it'll happen to you too. What do you do?"
"I'm a web developer."
"Computers? Right. In a decade, you're going to be fighting tooth and nail with India. It'll be the same thing as me."
And I wanted to tell him the industry joke: "What do you do when and engineer turns forty? You take him out back and shoot him." I wanted to tell him that offshoring was already affecting my industry, and maybe I had less than his thirty years. But I let him finish, his speech became fragmented, jumbled. Eventually he thanked me and trotted up the street, away from the fair.
I nodded and shrugged to the vendor as the conversation broke, hoping that it would be understood as an apology.
My goal for the immediate future is to live a more frugal life, to cook my own meals and stay out of places that charge a cover, and above all to not draw money out of my savings. All of this adds up a dreary existence, and when I spotted the annual Charles Village fair, I ran to the event with more than thirty dollars burning a hole in my wallet.
The event shut down a side street and allowed for a small bazaar of local merchants to set up tents. Behind the Civil War memorial statue, a bar band belted out passable covers of minor alt rock classics (think 'Say it Aint So').
The vendors were generally hawking clothing made in the city, African style, Jamiacan style, community aware, you name it. I stopped at a tent selling shirts who put captions like 'The Original Homeland Security' under sad photographs of nineteenth century Indians posing with rifles. I asked the vendor, a short red-skinned man, if they sold any poster prints like the shirts.
He froze in place after I spoke, like he didn't know and didn't understand English well enough to even repeat what I'd asked.
"Poster, like a picture, like a painting..."
The vendor scratched a bit, his eyes lowering to the ground. "Uh... no"
I noticed a man with a wide grin taking in our exchange. "He doesn't understand you. He doesn't know what you're saying." He looked like a Sicilian, squat and a ruddy complexion, his cheeks colored by acne scars. But his long gray hair was pony tailed neatly, running halfway down his back, and he had high cheekbones that cut through his round face, a picture of a Reservation Indian. At first I pegged him as the American chief of the operation, but he turned to the vendor, flashing a wide grin and asked "Where are you from? What country?"
The vendor understood him, more than the actual words, "Ecuador. But..." he pointed down to the shirts, "we are the same peoples, the first Americans."
The man was not totally satisfied. He turned to me, "You see?" Then he turned back to the vendor, "so why'd you come up here? Why not stay in your own country and try to change things up there?" He repeated "why not be a force for good in your homeland?" slowly and without shortening his grin.
The vendor couldn't respond, maybe didn't understand, and ultimately froze in place.
"You see? " he asked me. "It's hard to enact change, right? So they come up here, and what good does that do? What good does that do for your family back home? Huh? None. There could be revolution if the people would stay and fight for it. Not that I blame him (and to the vendor directly) not that I blame you. (And back to me) You see? That the problem is they run up here... running up here won't fix their home countries at all." The man was so squat and solidly round that he seemed shorter than me, although we were probably close to the same height. He finished most questions by pulling his arms apart, palms up to the sky, and bowing a little bit, a motion that descended from vaudeville but had the cumulative effect of making him look even shorter.
As he carried on, the vendor planted his hands in his pockets, wishing the conversation would move away from his tent. The man continued on about revolutions waiting to bring all of Central and Southern America righteous democracy. He thumbed back to the vendor, "...and these guys, like him, leaving their homelands to make their riches in America, they're the worst of them all."
Having not gotten a word in edgewise up this point, I hazarded my first comment. "Well Marx waited all of his life for the peoples to take up arms and revolt. I mean, eventually he got so tired of waiting he lashed out at them. The 'Lumpen Proletariat', he called them."
"Oh no, oh no, I've read Marx my friend. The lumpenproletariat were the lowest of the low," here he motioned as though pulling a screen over his face. "They were those that could take up arms but refused (screen pull motion), they weren't the privileged caste but they helped the privileged caste keep the workers oppressed (screen pull motion). I know my Karl Marx, my friend." And maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but he shot me down with such conviction that I knew the conversation wouldn't become an equal dialog.
"No, instead of staying in their own country, and changing their home for the better they come up here. I don't have anything against that guy, but they come up here, and where do they go?"
I returned his smiling gaze with a flat stare. I tried to put a finger on the man's driving motive, because honestly who give's a shit about cheap shirts and royalty free images so much that they'd stake out a street vendor. I pretty much knew the destination of the rest of the conversation.
"They go right onto the construction site. And me?" He tapped his chest with five straight fingers. "I gotta live in Dundalk, getting _______ poison." He motioned around the acne scars on his cheeks. "Let me ask you this, buddy. I've been in construction for thirty years. I have more experience. I have more contacts. I should be making more money, right? No, and why? Cause these guys..." he shot his arm out toward the vendor, who at this point refused to make eye contact with anyone at the festival, "these guys cross the borders illegally, and they take our jobs. And I gotta buy the only house I can afford, right? And now I gotta live on a toxic waste dump, in Dundalk, getting _______ poison from the fumes."
I had a raft of explanations for his grievances. First and foremost, certainly the whole housing bubble couldn't be blamed on cheap immigrant labor, I see that more as a societal and even global problem. Secondly, why did he need to buy a house, why not rent? And I'd guess that construction is a bit like most anything else, if after thirty years you're no more than a day laborer, you're not the most valuable cog in the machine and were paid accordingly. But I bit my tongue. Partly because he shot through my credibility with the Marx reference, partly because he was winding down anyway.
"But you're young right? Just wait, it'll happen to you too. What do you do?"
"I'm a web developer."
"Computers? Right. In a decade, you're going to be fighting tooth and nail with India. It'll be the same thing as me."
And I wanted to tell him the industry joke: "What do you do when and engineer turns forty? You take him out back and shoot him." I wanted to tell him that offshoring was already affecting my industry, and maybe I had less than his thirty years. But I let him finish, his speech became fragmented, jumbled. Eventually he thanked me and trotted up the street, away from the fair.
I nodded and shrugged to the vendor as the conversation broke, hoping that it would be understood as an apology.