Yesterday, we drove into Flint to see family and had to take a detour off of Dort Highway because only two hours earlier, a shooting had occurred outside of the Big John Steak and Onion shop. A shooting at eleven in the morning. The shooting was the result of a theft and the subsequent retaliation.
My friend, who also grew up in Flint, but now lives in Detroit, messaged, “Who is robbing shit on S. Dort???” After I gave her some of the details of the shooting, which I won’t go into, she replied: “And that’s why you don’t rob people off of Dort Highway.”
I really can’t lambaste Flint because I didn’t stick around and try to help my community. My answer to what I experienced growing up, what I saw on the horizon, was to leave. And that’s what I did. I occasionally drive in to see family, meet with old friends and visit the Flint Institute of Arts.
Recently, the friend that I mentioned above informed me that somebody has been burning abandoned buildings again. Two, in particular, caught her attention: the old pharmacy across from the original Angelo’s, and the clock shop on the corner of Dort and Robert T. Longway. Both of these buildings have been vacant for years. But none of these places are ever really abandoned in our minds.
The pharmacy was significant for me because I used to walk to it from my grandmother’s house with my uncle. In my semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face, the protagonist and his uncle spend several tense moments together in a fictionalized version of this pharmacy.
Another East Side building that has been torched and gutted is the old Brown’s Funeral Home. This place is mentioned in YSF, as well. Stuart, the protagonist, avoids driving past it as he roves across the East Side because it brings back painful memories of when his grandfather suddenly died.
I am including photos. I do not like to dwell on urban blight, but maybe it has to be acknowledged. These places look nothing like this in my mind—my imagination—and I guess that a part of me tries to keep it that way.
I think my novel preserves a part of Flint—some places, some people, some moments—but I also think that this is complicated. I didn’t sugar-coat anything. I blurred and fictionalized people, places and events while trying to be true to an experience. I might have focused on too many negatives. I might have kicked my hometown one too many times while it was down. I tried to provide a bit of balance while remaining faithful to the perspective of a mixed up, sensitive, angry narrator who dwelt on his tough experiences more than his tender ones—who struggled with class, religion, violence and failure.
Good or bad, or neither, I do believe that stories preserve a place, or, more like one’s experience or perception of a place. It’s a fact, or a Romantic idea. Maybe both. I think that stories can help other people. I think in some way that they can help the person who writes them. I think history matters, and that people have to question stories for historical accuracy. Like I said, I haven’t contributed to Flint’s welfare or future. But I think that I get to have my say because I was born and raised there. I spent all of my formative years there. I like to think that maybe my novel is some sort of contribution, but if I am being honest, I’m not really sure.
#Flint #EastSide #Angelos #FlintEastSide #YourSilentFace
The vacant pharmacy at the corner of Franklin and Davison.
What used to be Brown’s Funeral Home.
Both of my grandparents lived a couple of blocks from both of these places, and for the first six years of my life, I did, too. But even after we moved less than two miles away, this neighborhood was still the hub of my life for many more years.