I Want to Walk the Streets of Detroit

I don’t want to talk about the economy or the weather. I don’t personally care about Sex, Lies, and Videotape. I am tired of hearing about the ups and downs of the auto industry. I want to walk the streets of Detroit. Detroit, forbidding and welcoming, gritty and sophisticated, opens her arms to any voyageur who wishes to take the chance that there might be a glimmer of hope in her streets. Hope, like a battered child who waits in the doorway for a simple hug, from someone, anyone.

So I walk. It is February and it’s freezing outside. I am a Michigan native, so I know how to handle this. I throw every ounce of winter gear I own at it and drive with my husband, to Detroit Winterfest. We park in an empty garage one block from the festival. Where are all the cars? Crowds? Do you think they parked somewhere else? It’s freezing out. I wonder if I should have worn my ski pants? We walk to the festival down quiet streets past stately art deco buildings that speak of a better time. 

I hear music in the distance, and detect the aroma of campfires and carnival food. I then enter into a world that can only be dreamed up by people desperate to have a good time in spite of it all. I am surrounded by a village of large white tents and smiling, but mummified people. The sign on the building boasts of wine tasting, okay, we’re starting out just fine for me. Let’s save that for the final act. What else is here? Hmmm, sled dogs, ice sculptures dripping in the momentary sunshine that reflect the names of our pride, Red Wings, Pistons, Tigers, and our pain, Lions. Then of course our benefactors MGM, Motor City Casino, and Greektown Casino. 

Inside our first tent there is music. Not just any music, but dam good music. Jazz. A small crowd gathers, whites and blacks. It’s better to watch the crowd than the band. The white people stand as if anchored in place, nary a bob of the head or tap of the toe. They listen and appreciate in the only way they know how—silence. Not one black person stands still. Their movement flows through them like a command from on high. The one tall skinny guy with the long pony tail does a Jamaican jerky dance step that looks like my childhood hopscotch.