Vic Socotra

26 May 2008

Memorial

Ominous Semi-trailer on Pershing Street

I have to let Detroit go. Everyone else has, leaving that wonderful old muscular city to die a long and painful death. The buildings are abandoned, block by block, sag, and then are destroyed. The Michigan State Department of National Resources is running an interesting program to capture the pheasants that are returning to populate the great swathes of the city that once were neighborhoods, and now are just grassland.

Urban prairies, they call them, an understated memorial to the passing of a once-mighty city.

That is not a problem here around Big Pink. We live on a park-like campus with our broad lawn, tennis court and swimming pool. Still, you can feel the density starting to press against the flanks of the building. There is a semi-trailer parked on Pershing, and it has been there all the long weekend. It is white, like the mystery trailers the government used to operate in the Cold War, mobile anonymous things to perform necessary functions, just in case.

This one may have a similar mysterious purpose. The single word “Covenant” is emblazoned on its flank, which combined with its outsized presence on the little residential street, conveys the sense that we have been occupied.

The trailer may be associated with the dozens of bikers who are camped in the parking lot to the west, between the Methodist Church and the Assembly of God.

The bikers are said to be here to honor the Vets, and Rolling Thunder is what they call the big Spring run to the capital.

I was talking to Ms Hamilton at the pool yesterday under a bottomless blue sky about the matter. She was not, of course, though the winter’s work as a personal trainer has kept her in top form. There was a whole winter’s worth of catching up to do and it all came out with a rush and a roar. Apparently the truck and trailer have been configured as a sort of mobile chapel.

The bikers are Christians of some stripe, though I could not tell if they represented a muscular strain of Methodism or a splinter of the Assembly. One thing appeared certain: they were not of the afternoon congregation of la Iglesia la Nueva Esperanza, who use the Assembly hall late in the day.

The first few afternoons at poolside come with revelations both secular and sacred.

Yes, of course I was the first in, but I have a rival. The Professor came down almost to the minute of the official opening. The effects of his stroke seem to have moderated, and the dread Speedo that appalled the women was not in evidence. I was safely in the water by the time he arrived, opening day streak intact, but it could have been a near thing if I had not been alert.

The current lifeguard is named Bennett, and he is an actual American, tall and good-humored. We do not have to break him in, though we may have a change coming. Bennett is filling in for pool Czar Peter until the first planeloads of lifeguards from the Czech Republic appear in a few weeks. We don’t know if he will stay, or be assigned to one of the more bustling pools in Peter’s empire.

Ms Hamilton is going to retire the tanning trophy this year, and retire it for good. Her skin is already a luscious gold, working steadily toward the characteristic rich mahogany tone of the high season. She is going to marry, and move to New York. She says she will stay at Big Pink until the end of the season, and then it is off to New York to live with her love.

The tanning trophy may as well be abolished. There will never be another like hers.

Montana was stunned by the news, though her winter back-story was of a horrifying collapse, and two months on the injured reserve from her job with the County. We are all wary of the new building that is rising on Pershing, across the parking lot. The towers of cinderblocks that will hold the elevators are thrusting up from the concrete labyrinth below that extends almost to the sidewalk.

The first of these two monsters is supposed to be complete by Fall; then the new residents will come and the old Buckingham buildings on the other side of the block will be demolished to erect the second.

I could tell you all the other stories, but there will be plenty of time to chew through the nuance as the lazy days of summer come to us. Meanwhile, I need to slather my skin with lotion to prepare for the day, The sun was intense yesterday, and I have the first lobster-burn of the summer.

Then I need to get some flowers at the Harris Teeter Supermarket to take with me on my walk to Arlington Cemetery.

There are some friends over there I have to remember.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com.

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