PANIC IN THE HOLY CITY
There are no sins inside the gates of Eden.
Optimistic lyric sung by Bob Dylan in his classic 1965 tune Gates of Eden. As I write this from a dusty, web-laden park bench, Zebra pen in hand, on a humid summer evening in Charleston, South Carolina, watching the twilight sun set behind the church steeple of Mother Emanuel AME Church, listening to the chorus of frogs, cicada’s, and wrens blended into the sounds of ambulance and police sirens and the expected noise heard in most small, bustling cities teeming with tourists, I’m vexed by the fact that another Dylan came along fifty years later and disproved those eight words on a quiet, unassuming summer night in July 2015. Dylann Roof. A serpent who not only would’ve made Eve eat a piece of fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he would’ve shoved the whole tree down her throat.
George Stinney Jr. was executed just eighty one days after being arrested, tried, and convicted by an all-white jury in Alcolu, South Carolina in 1944 for allegedly murdering two young white girls when he was just fourteen years old. A crime he would be absolved of 70 years later. Not that it did him any good post mortem. But it does reveal a history of injustice in this blood stained southern state. Peewee Gaskins, a self-proclaimed serial killer who murdered between 80 and 110 people (by his own account but a claim highly regarded as an exaggeration), sat on death row for just eight years before he rode the lightning in Columbia, South Carolina.
Because of a lengthy appeals process and his case being taken over by the federal government , that neo-Nazi savage, Dylann Roof, will probably see old age before the families of those he killed and the communities so deeply affected by their losses till this day get any real retribution. Even after Roof was excluded from clemency when President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row in 2024.
Recently, I listened to a man in his mid-thirties talk about that night. He was an emotional, poor ex-army man now living on the streets (leaving those who served their country to die is a major issue in America). He was sitting on the ground at Wesley United Methodist Church going back and forth with some of the other people waiting to be served breakfast and the last thing he said before dropping his head into his hands and sobbing was, “I just miss my aunt.” Everyone in line stood quiet for about five minutes. The only sounds coming from the bunch were shoes shuffling forward as each man and woman was served and moved on from the free cheese line. The reality of that tragedy that the rest of the country has moved on from is that it’s still affecting people and will continue to for the rest of their lives.
A quick search on the internet reveals that Roof spends 23 hours a day in a small, isolated cell. I can think of a much smaller box fit for a man filled with such callousness and a heart as black as a solar midnight. A place where the warden doesn’t let you out for good behaviour.
Maybe a city that boasted about having the most beautiful people in the country almost two decades ago did so by hiding their ugliness so cunningly that you’d mistake their scars for beauty marks. But there are sins in the South’s Holy City. Its Eden. And they’re as clear and damning as Hester Prynne’s Scarlet Letter.
There’s a silent war happening in the streets of America. The undeveloped adults need help from the corrupt adults who’re only interested in furthering their power, status, and influence. Or using what little authority they have to flex on and manipulate the citizens that keep their children in those private schools, that boat paid off, and that wife who only cares about that healthy salary, around for another year. A tale as old as time it seems. The have’s versus the have nots.
The rank, pesky, unshaven, red-headed step children of America are rearing their ugly heads again. The poor. The alcoholics, crackheads, and thieves. The mentally retarded abandoned by their families for a myriad of reasons, not the least of them being shame. And, of course, a pesky drug addiction that they can’t seem to manage without asking to borrow money every couple of days. The fiends, junkies, murderers, and ladies of the night (and day). The leftovers from yesteryear when East Bay, Calhoun, and Fulton Street (formerly called Beresford Alley) were lined with brothels and blind tigers. Blackbeard himself experienced some of that Southern Hospitality during his stint in the Holy City. Well, sort of.
“You can’t sleep here!”
Words heard often by the city’s vagrant community. Whether day or night, at a park, a bus stop, outside a storefront, a parking garage, or at the local library, they’re kept awake perpetually. Regularly getting 2 to 4 hours of interrupted sleep per night before being forced further into the crevices of the city like cockroaches shooed back underneath the refrigerator by Charleston’s finest. That ragtag bunch who only deem it necessary to police the poor minority inhabitants and drug abusers in the city. When I questioned a female officer about just where they expected these people to sleep if everywhere is deemed illegal, I was met with a response I was not expecting. In fact, I needed her to repeat herself to make sure I’d heard her correctly.
Hide
One word. Four letters. Hide. That was the advice given by one of the trusted local law enforcers. Hide. Empathy be damned! I wonder how many years of training it took at the academy to come up with such a brilliant response to an insidious issue that’s only getting worse by the day.
When I asked for clarification, she expounded further, “Just get to a place where we can’t find you. If we can’t find you, we can’t give you a ticket. Or arrest you.” Man, that’s some great advice isn’t it? If only Mr. Roof had known this ahead of time, maybe he’d have gotten away to slay another 9 Black victims. Or maybe Peewee guts 100 more people before retiring on a remote island in the South Atlantic.
If we can’t find you, we can’t give you a ticket
Good to know that our tax dollars are being put to good use.
But the incompetency doesn’t stop there. Because I questioned further. Luckily local politicians try to make their rounds at the soup kitchens and resource centers often enough to appear active in the community. And as luck would have it, Mayor William Cogswell did just that and stopped by the Hope Center located just off of Meeting Street downtown. He and his associates were explaining a plan for renovated storage containers. They plan on finding a large enough spot, preferably outside of the city (because who wants to see Sloth in the light?), to place enough of the containers to house the homeless and abandoned miscreants in downtown Charleston snatching purses, smoking dope, kicking babies, and raiding trash cans. There is no real timetable and, walking by the Hope Center, one can see those same janky containers sitting out back collecting dust like a forgotten prized car.
After this spiel, I presented him with the same question that I had asked the female police officer.
“All of that sounds good, but, in the meantime, where do you expect them to sleep? If everywhere is illegal…parks are illegal, parking garages are illegal, a strangers front porch is illegal, storefront doorways are illegal, the street is illegal, the beach is illegal, the libraries aren’t illegal, but they’ll wake you up and kick you out after repeated sleeping offenses regardless. Knowing all of this, Mayor Cogswell, where do you expect them to sleep?”
He stared at me for a moment before looking towards one of his female assistants and opening his mouth, but he did not speak. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he was turning the question over in his mind repeatedly. But this wasn't me asking Neil deGrasse Tyson the secrets of the Universe, I just wanted to know what one of the individuals tasked with making sure the people who live in the city are accommodated (not just the tourists with deep pockets vacationing here) was doing to provide the basic thing necessary for all life. Sleep.
His face flushed red as he looked around the room at the maybe 8 or so people that cared enough to attend this speech. With heavy labor and his voice cracking, he finally spoke.
“I. Don’t. Know.”
Three words. Nine letters.
I. Don’t. Know.
If I was shocked by what the cop said, this response disgusted and disturbed me. Because I know what people in power do when they don’t have an immediate answer for important issues. They pacify the situation with quick fixes that only exacerbate the problem in the long run. Meaning people already running low on energy during this hot, rainy, muggy summer would feel even more heat from the people paid to protect them. People with not only a monkey on their backs, but the whole damn zoo riding them like a drunk chick riding one of those mechanical bulls.
How mad would you go if while trying to get a base level human need, you weren’t allowed to do so without having to hide like Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon?
I did not respond. This was coming from the top. At that moment the female officer and the Mayor were echoing the same sentiment: HIDE.
Well, I think those hiding spots will be running out soon. Putting people who’ve fallen on hard times with those that actively make a choice to remain on the streets is having an adverse effect. Couple that with the lack of sleep and the buffet of drugs and alcohol readily available and the situation becomes dire. Literal zombies roaming the streets. Haven’t slept in days. Beaten down by the weather. Snubbed by snobby tourists who come to their city to eulogize what the city used to be but unwilling to accept what it’s turning into. Those same tourists who love the culture that Charleston presents, but not the people who created that culture in the first place.
No amount of houses, apartments, or condominiums can hide what’s happening. Go ahead and expand the College of Charleston housing downtown. More victims for the misplaced anger stirring up in the Holy City. These are flesh and blood human beings being treated like the dog feces the privileged naive in the city pick up all day. What’s happening to the poor in this city is just as foul as the pissy wind blowing through the market from the horses pulling carriages of wide-eyed, gullible, privileged men, women, and children only in town for a few days.
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden
Bob Dylan got that last line correct. There are no truths outside the Gates of Eden. Every detail, every truth, even the ones they’d prefer to keep hidden, can all be found inside the Gates of Eden. I just hope they’re brought to the light before the darkness takes over. Which, just like the darkness from the setting twilight sun I’m watching settle over the city from this same park bench, is approaching fast.
Yours Truly,
Egostrapensky
