The outside

Two shots fired four blocks away. A homicide somewhere on Penn. A bus stop robbery a block over.

After absorbing a few segments of the local evening news and encountering raised eyebrows from people who asked where we lived, reality seeped in. We lived in the hated part of town. North Minneapolis, the black sheep of the Twin Cities. It didn’t feel bad to me, but hearing stories from outsiders left a mark. Husband was unaffected, but I started living on the inside. And if I closed my living room curtains, I decided, they couldn’t get a clean shot driving by. I buried myself in diaper changes and orchestrating nap times. Husband was gone a lot for work. For months, the curtains stayed shut.

During the inside days, we settled into a church in the suburbs, and what I had always known came back: Needs are everywhere. My neighborhood brimmed with visible needs, but pain also hid behind expensive window treatments in suburban cul-de-sacs. Finally, I’d had enough.

Love your neighbor.

I opened the curtains and stepped outside. We started living.

Memories of our early days are blurred at the edges and planted in our backyard with its chain-link fence and lush grass—that new grass with its sod seams showing it had been displaced too and was without roots yet. But the perfect lawn didn’t last.

“Creeping Charlie?” I said when my sister explained her weedy struggles. She pointed it out in her south Minneapolis yard so I would recognize the usurper in the future. Soon I had a crop of my own.

But living on the outside wasn’t all about the grass. We had an alley too, and excitement swirled around it. The revolving door on the rental property straight across the alley from our house kept us guessing. Who now?

“Well, they seem nice,” I’d say to Husband. And then we never saw them again.

Diversity surrounded us, and two-and-a-half-year-old Flicka noticed.

“Why are we so bright?” she said while watching some new tenants move in across the alley one day.

“Because God made us that way,” I said. “And we’re okay even though we’re different.”

Later, while on my hands and knees tending my garden, I caught a flash of red in my peripheral vision. I glanced up but saw nothing. I went back to my soil prodding. The autumn sedum was doing well in spite of me. Wait. What was that red flash? Nine-month-old Ricka sat on her plump base near me, tweezing blades of grass with fingers that disappeared into her mouth. Where was Flicka? I jumped to my feet, eyes darting over the yard. I scooped up Ricka, popped her onto my hip, and ran through the gate to the front sidewalk. Our wiener dog Dexter scooted between my legs and scuttled under a bush in my neighbor’s yard. I’d deal with him later.

There was Flicka—already a half block down, clutching an opened red umbrella, and running away from me as fast as possible—wearing only her birthday suit. She was almost to the corner when I caught up with her naked self.

“Oh, you think it’s funny?” I said. She did.

I wondered if our new neighbors had ever seen so much bright skin before.

Mrs. Isenberg next door was tickled watching our girls play in the yard and also lucky enough to have witnessed the nude run on the sidewalk, she later told me over the chain-link fence. Then we chatted about her diabetes. It was getting harder for her to control, and sometimes her foot ulcer kept her in bed.

Her husband, a disabled veteran, tried to tidy the yard, but his efforts trickled off as Mrs. Isenberg required more care. He left an empty five-gallon bucket lying on its side in the garden, and it stayed there—a stark reminder she was confined to the house, and he wasn’t leaving her.

Over several months, the house next door fell into disrepair and then finally went into foreclosure. The Isenbergs were forced to move out of the place where they had raised all their children. They packed all their things and left. The five-gallon bucket was left behind.

But we weren’t done with Mrs. Isenberg yet. The girls and I followed her life and adventures into the nursing home room where she ended up after her lower right leg was amputated.

“Have a piece of candy,” Mrs. Isenberg said. “I sure don’t need it.”

“Did your surgery go well?” I said.

“I can’t complain. Do you want to see it?”

“Could we?” 

Mrs. Isenberg uncovered her leg, then pulled a stretchy stocking off her residual limb. Even though we had talked about the procedure on the ride over, Flicka looked surprised.

In the car on the way home, we debriefed.

“Her stump is round,” Flicka said. “You said they cut it off. But it’s not flat on the end.”

“Was that strange?”

“No, it was nice that way.”

Back at home, my sadness at seeing the Isenbergs’ empty house was replaced by a niggling dread. Who would live next door now?

We kept living on the outside so we could find out. We wouldn’t have long to wait.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

House hunt

On a glowing recommendation from my sister, we hired Mr. Brylcreem—a chain-smoking, sixty-something realtor with a high tolerance for inner-city living. Mr. B lived in a grand, old Victorian in a rough neighborhood in south Minneapolis, so he knew what he was doing. Right away, I liked his blue eyes and warm, fatherly manner.  

Husband and I sat down with him in a coffee shop in April, 2002, and told Mr. B our real estate hopes and dreams. I wanted to stay home with the little ones, and Husband supported me, so we would have to swing this thing on one salary. We gave him our price range—an easy mortgage for us. We wanted an old house, an inner-city experience too, we said, and would he please restrict his search to Minneapolis proper? Mr. B was happy to comply and started sending us leads immediately.

Husband and I printed off the first four listings from Mr. B and got in the car to go and take a look. After ten years of marriage, we were excited to hunt together for our first house. I gazed at Husband’s profile as he drove, committing the moment to memory.

We pulled up to the first listing—a house right off 35W. I liked the vintage. Then we drove through the alley to inspect the unattached garage. Gang tagging marked its side, and the word “blood” was in all caps. We sighed and crossed it off the list.

My stomach leapt with excitement at the second house on our hunt. Charming, old, and near Uptown. Perfect. Until we got out of the car and read the sign affixed to the door. UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION: Condemned due to lead paint. Undaunted, I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the front door’s beveled glass window.

“How long until it becomes fit for human habitation, do you think?” I said to Husband.

“Too long. Let’s go.”

We got in the car and drove to our meeting spot with Mr. B. He had the keys for the next couple of houses we’d see.

The house in listing #3 didn’t have any discernible right angles; the floors slanted in every room. The pedestal ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts. The mirrored ceiling tiles in the kitchen were impressive, but what about greasy spatters? I pictured tomato sauce accidents or heaven forbid, the explosion of a pressure cooker. What if one of the mirrors broke, and a shard of glass impaled me while I washed dishes? We shook our heads and moved on.

I liked what I saw when we pulled up to the curb in front of house #4. Old charm again. This time, a Tudor style. I envisioned Christmas lights twinkling through the windows, a snow-covered sidewalk, and a wreath hung jauntily from the door in December.

I heard a dog bark as we climbed the front steps. Mr. B wiggled the key into the lock.

“I hope they put the dog away before they left,” he said over his shoulder.

He pushed open the door and took a few steps into the living room. Like two eager kids, we closely trailed him. A snarling Rottweiler appeared in the kitchen doorway a room away. In a split second, the animal started clawing his way, lips flapping, across the expanse of the living room’s wood floor, bent on meeting us as soon as possible. Just before the dog could introduce himself, though, Mr. B hustled us out, yanking the door shut with a bang. He secured the lock and smoothed his hair.

“So that house’s out,” he said.

We got back in the car and called it a day.

Husband resumed his work schedule for the week and continued his temporary living arrangements, couch hopping between my brother’s and sister’s houses in south Minneapolis. Homeless, I headed back up north to Mom and Dad’s. With both little ones in diapers and one breastfeeding, the six-hour trip took eight.

Husband fielded house listings from Mr. B. I couldn’t hop on the road for home tours at the drop of a hat, so he would weed out the undesirables and tell me about the promising ones, which we noticed were immediately snapped up. I told Husband he knew what I liked and to just pick one and make an offer if he got the chance.

Early in May, Mr. B contacted us with another lead. This time, the house wasn’t going to be advertised. It belonged to his son’s best friend, and he’d consider selling it for the right price. Husband made an appointment to see it. Afterward, he called me.

“It’s good,” he said.

“As in, I’d like it?”

“You’d love it. Might be your dream house.”

His description sounded like the house my grandparents had owned in south Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood. He sent seventeen pictures by email, and excitement bubbled up in me. A small Craftsman-style meets bungalow. The kind Sears Catalog sold back in the day as a kit house. And yes, my dream house. I urged him to make an offer, and he did. The homeowners accepted.

Soon I was making the trek back down to Minneapolis. Husband and I parked the car in front of our future house. The homeowner, Brian, fresh scrubbed and smiley, walked us through it for Husband’s second viewing and my first.

“My wife had two babies in this house,” Brian said. “I mean, in this house. Don’t know what’s so bad about the hospital.” He showed us the two main level bedrooms that had hosted the home births.

“Wow,” Husband said.

An overloaded coat rack obstructed the view through the living room window and a massive dog kennel blocked movement in the tiny kitchen, but none of that tainted my first impression; I could envision our future there. Back again in the car after the tour, my heart was on fire.

By the end of May, we signed the papers. We were homeowners. And on June 1, having moved all our furniture and boxes in, we looked out at our north Minneapolis neighborhood from windows that belonged to us.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The backstory

September 11, 2001. That dark Tuesday for the country was the beginning of a new day for my family, but we didn’t know it then.

I heard the news of the terrorist attacks from a friend who called me, breathless, early that morning. In a fog, I watched news coverage later that day in the waiting room of a clinic in our town of Sierra Vista, Arizona. Ricka, just eleven days old at the time, screamed during her appointment when the nurse pricked her heel, squeezing out a single drop of blood for each spot on a card for the lab. Distracted, I took my healthy baby home when it was over.

Wide-eyed and incredulous, we sat in front of our television for days like the rest of the country. I nursed Ricka, and Flicka, who was only twenty-two months old, played on the floor in front of the TV. I recall several living rooms in those days. Our viewing of the nightmare rotated from our living room to our friends’ living rooms, as if watching the horrors on TV in someone else’s house would bring fresh answers, a sound conclusion.

As usual, we Border Patrol wives stuck together. Our husbands continued to go to their jobs on the Mexican border, their station located in the town of Douglas, Arizona. Just because the country was grieving didn’t mean there wasn’t work to do. Maybe even more work now. America wasn’t impenetrable anymore.

Husband worked hot, dusty shifts in the desert. He had been unsatisfied with his job since its beginning three and a half years earlier, and I wondered if he would ever be happy in a job. It didn’t help that his work on the border seemed meaningless to him. The same groups of people crossing over without documentation would be caught in the desert, gathered up, brought to the station to be “idented,” and sent back to Agua Prieta, Mexico, only to return the next day to the same agents, the same scenarios.

Husband came home with stories. Fathers abandoning their families in the desert to escape to the U.S. alone. Desperate mothers tossing their babies over the steel fence separating the U.S. from Mexico. Federal agents finding drugs in a desert also littered with garbage, discarded clothing, full and empty mayonnaise jars—and sometimes a dead body. Eventually, the government instructed the agents to look the other way from illegal border crossings. The success rates would look better that way, and it was all about the numbers. Husband wanted out.

The unabating sun, the choking sandstorms, and Husband’s uniform—stained from the red clay soil of the Sonoran desert—reminded us we were far from where we came. We had two babies, and their mere existence in the world nudged me daily.

Go back home!

We heard reports in our town of “particulate matter”—dried feces—in the air we breathed, higher rates of childhood leukemia, drug use amongst kids as young as third grade, the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country, and eventually it wasn’t just Husband looking for a way out. Something had stirred in me too.

We kept our ears open. Husband applied for jobs elsewhere—the northern U.S. border as a Border Patrol agent, anywhere as a Secret Service agent, and the Grand Canyon as a Forest Ranger. But it was 9/11—the bleakest of America’s tragedies—that was our way out. The Federal Air Marshal Service under the Department of Homeland Security was suddenly hiring hundreds of new air marshals to supplement their paltry number of pre-9/11 agents.

Nothing about the federal government moves quickly, but the hiring process for Federal Air Marshals was expedited due to a new national sense of insecurity. They demanded coverage, and now. Husband and most of his friends from the Border Patrol in Douglas, Arizona, were hired. Abruptly, our lives changed. The mild winters, monsoon seasons, and slow-paced desert lifestyle came to an end. By March 22, 2002, we handed our house keys to the landlord, slammed the U-Haul doors shut for the last time, tossed one last look behind us at the Huachuca Mountains, and started our trek north.

We spent our first night on the road in a cheap motel in Deming, New Mexico. A long enough travel day for a six-month-old and a two-year-old, we decided. Burrs peppered the carpeting in that motel room, so we kept our shoes on.

We hit blizzard conditions in Nebraska, and memories of my northern Minnesota upbringing smacked me in the face. Oh, that’s right. That’s how winter feels. I was sorry the little ones were wearing light fleece jackets and that I had stepped into flip-flops that morning, but it was cozy in the cab of the U-Haul truck.

Having survived the trip from southeastern Arizona to northwestern Minnesota in four wintry days with a baby, a toddler, our miniature dachshund, and all our earthly possessions, we wended our way to my parents’ home in Newfolden, Minnesota. It was my first time seeing their new house and new dogs—a fresh life together in their almost thirty-eight years of marriage. I pulled Mom and Dad into vice-grip hugs, relieved Dad wasn’t greatly changed from the last time I saw him. The fear I nursed on the trip was that he was worse and no one had told me. But he was between chemo treatments, enjoying an upswing in energy, and ready to play with his little grandgirls.

I looked at Husband. We had made it. I squeezed him tight. We were starting something new. He was a Federal Air Marshal now and would report the next week to a training academy. The girls and I would stay at Mom and Dad’s for as long as it took to find a house in the Twin Cities where Husband’s new station would be.

We didn’t know that in eight weeks, we’d have found our first home—a 1919 stucco—and be living in North Minneapolis, an area we knew nothing about.

We had no idea what was about to go down.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Note

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.