Dog Tails

Umbrella Left Inside Empty Cooler At Health Food Restaurant

Tired Of Coexisting

Popular "Coexist" bumper sticker, halfheartedly peeled from back window of Ford Focus. Did they buy the car used, and find issue with the idea of coexistence? Or did diversity become tiresome?

Missing Memorial Tree

Fast Food-Sponsored Fitness Course Established In Honor Of Natural Disaster

Hooplock

Tired of the neighborhood kids using your alleyway basketball hoop without permission? Make a hooplock.

Sameish

I Will Be On The Lookout, Defunct Tile Manufacturer

Because Lord knows I could use the extra scratch.

Salesmen Undeterred By "We Shoot Salesmen" Sign

In the window of a now-closed jukebox sales and repair shop.

Psychos Undeterred By "No Pyschos Allowed" Sticker

Maybe it's too small.

Scavenging History

Despite declining prices in commodities, scrap metal here remains in high demand, providing quick cash for an increasingly desperate population. Derelict properties are mined for copper, aluminum, iron, and steel. The walls of empty buildings are opened up and any metal inside is ripped out. Wiring, pipes, ductwork, lathe, rebar. The spoils are hauled away in shopping carts down to the neighborhood scrapyard, where you get paid by the pound. A decent haul will net you $5 or 10. A couple of steel radiators might get you 15. The money you get is food, a fix, gas money. Whatever you get, it's well worth it, hard-earned.

With a finite number of abandoned properties, it was only a matter of time before the scavengers started looking elsewhere. Fences, gutters, and aluminum siding started disappearing from inhabited homes all over the city. Residents took pains to warn the scavengers that they were being watched, that there was nothing of value inside. What could be taken was, and again, the scavengers moved on to their next big score.




Scrapyards pay out big for heavy bronze, iron, and copper historical plaques bolted to sides of buildings, embedded in sidewalks, cast in concrete blocks. In a city rich with history, the market was soon flooded. Scavengers responded by demanding pay based not on weight, but historic importance. A plaque describing a now-demolished building will net $25; a Civil War battlefield, 30; the site of an early baseball diamond, 40.

All over the city, plaques have been chipped, pulled, pried from their moorings. The residents here have barely noticed. We are adrift in history, and have been long before the plaques started disappearing.

Tree Growing On Side Of Historic Watertower

Careful, Kid! Rain Melts Ice Cream

A Bad Winter For Crows

Now that the weather's warmer it's hard to remember, but this last winter was a bad one for crows. We get them every year here, it's part of their migratory pattern. Corvus brachyrhynchos. A small flock or murder usually settles near the dump or in one of the empty lots. They typically arrive in mid-November and are gone by the first snow. At one time, we affectionately thought of them as symbols of changing seasons, mascots for late fall. But this year, the crows brought friends, came early and stayed late, like bad party guests.

By the time the pumpkins were out for Halloween, our cars were covered in crowshit. We'd never seen a murder so big. Crows were on every roof, in every tree, and more arrived every day, at dusk. (We never saw them during the day). They were aggressive too, in ways never witnessed before. On Halloween night, they were swooping in at folks, perhaps attracted by the colorful costumes and shiny foil-wrapped candy. Trick-or-treaters had to run from one house to the next swinging their candy bags overhead. The crows would flap down, snatching hats and rubber noses, scaring the kids. I watched it all from the upstairs window, in the dark, smoking. Now and then a big black shadow would come and smack against the glass. My guess is they were interested in the glow of my cigarette.

The first snow came and went, melting quickly, as it tends to nowadays. The crows stayed. They stayed through Thanksgiving, and well into the holidays. It snowed again and the crows stayed. Their presence went a long way towards souring the general mood of the season. Crows chewed through strings of lights, stole ornaments and garland from trees. Carolers were shouted down by a deafening chorus of caaah-caws overhead, or sometimes they were just chased away. We were forced to cancel this year's Nativity play in front of St. Liborious -- the crows had annexed the manger and one of the Wise Men got bit on the finger.

After the New Year, when the real cold finally set in, the crows became noticeably less hostile. They stopped divebombing pedestrians. No longer did they tap on your windows all night, or hiss at you as you ran from your car to your front door. Maybe the freeze mellowed them a bit, slowing the cold blood in their veins. Or maybe they got bored with us. By mid-January, the crows were downright timid. You could shoo them off your stoop without getting your ankles nipped. Knowing they were now scared of us, we made it a sport to chase them from tree to tree. Their numbers were thinning. The chorus was quieter. And one night, at sundown, the crows just weren't there. It was the first of February, and the last crow had left. Back to where they came, I guess, or down south somewhere, like Arkansas.

License Plates (Stolen Car?)

Bike Trail, Eroded Away

Places To Sit

Edited "Wash Your Hands" Sign In Pizza Restaurant Restroom

What did it read, prior to redaction?

Batvan

It's a matte black custom-painted Plymouth Grand Voyager. Probably a '91 or '92.

This Burning City

Whether it's arson, criminal neglect, or bad luck, no one knows. Our energies are focused on stopping the fires, not punishing whoever's responsible. Our hands are full. Lord knows we try to keep the most important things from burning. But in spite of our best efforts, now and then a big one gets away from us and we lose a courthouse, or a school, or sometimes an entire neighborhood.

We live in a charred shell of a city. Here, smoke always hangs on the horizon. Black columns billow up from every block and immolated homes spill smoldering bricks into the street. Homes, hotels, factories, museums, libraries, all have burned here, never to be rebuilt. Visitors to this city have noticed that the air here has an unnatural chill – I have heard it described it as a supernatural presence – but residents here will calmly explain that it's just because the smoke has blotted out the sun.




Because of our fire problem, firefighters serve this city beyond their traditional capacity. They have reached a sort of celebrity status. They are our priests, our jesters, our royalty. We all know their names. In addition to fighting fires, firefighters host radio call in shows, appear on talk shows, pen opinion columns predicting which city landmark will burn next. Their personal lives are gossiped about on the front pages of newspapers. Whenever a firefighter falls, businesses, municipal buildings and schools all close in mourning.





We are all aficionados of flames. We can identify the size of the fire and what's burning inside by its smell alone. Sundays in the spring, we pack picnics and drive around looking for the biggest and best inferno. Television ratings have reached an all time low. We're always outside, looking for fires. When the baseball stadium burned, everyone watched, but no one lobbied to rebuild it. Fires have become our national pastime.