Overtown

Overtown, Miami

Overtown is usually empty in the late morning hours. By mid-afternoon, boys on bikes patrol the streets looking for cops and potential customers. Homeless men gather under the highway and consider their options. In the bushes, a pile of clothes turns over; a dog sniffs once and retreats slowly back to the cracked pavement.

Tinted windows slow. A woman with limbs like twigs comes to the window and whispers a word. Spinning rims flash gold. There is value on the outside. I don't know what lurks within.

Working men and women will return to their crumbling concrete blocks and try to keep their kids inside as the shadows get longer. A little girl clutches a bag of chips -- there is orange powder on her lips and her eyes are on those rims that twirl and seem to promise something pretty. The car has come to a stop at the corner. And men get out and argue.

Her hand reaches into the bag and digs for that last crunch. She hears her mom call, but why take her eyes off those spinning sparkles. Everything else is turning gray.