The People Behind My Eyes

I watched Fife Senior playing the virtual reality game Simcity. Simcity is a virtual reality game where you build your own city and run it as mayor. The game then throws different scenarios at you such as the need for public programs, hospitals, schools, recycling programs and a host of other things. The game also lets you know when citizens complain or demand changes. In the beginning his city had no place to put trash so it was all over the streets. Then they wanted a new school and a new hospital. Every day he tells me a little more about Fife City and how hard it is to run it and keep it going. When his city goes broke he has to find a way to make money so he can fund public programs and such.

All of this is just a game. I don’t live in Fife City run by Mayor Fife so I don’t benefit from public aid or get protection from his police department. I live in Indianapolis where huge, huge deficits were created because someone treated our economy like a game. Politicians played Russian Roulette and pointed the gun not at themselves but at the citizens of Indianapolis. Due to increased property taxes homes that were paid off were lost to the city. A ninety year old woman put a gun to her head because she lost her home. An 88 year old man down the street from me has to leave his home. Like the house I live in his property taxes increased by 300 percent. That’s three hundred percent. Many, many families have fallen to property tax increases. Add to this burden the cost of electricity, fuel and food and you’ve got a lot of tense and angry people. Families that once did well are barely making it. No wonder people are on edge. To add to a general sense of anger in this city we’ve got on our backs increased taxes for Lucus Oil Stadium. This humongous stadium cost tax payers millions of dollars. We lost a few schools and didn’t get the policemen we were supposed to get. However, we do have a very nice stadium in the middle of downtown that houses one of the worst football teams this season, the Indianapolis Colts.

While building Lucus Oil the city used the power of Imminent Domain to force the sale of surrounding properties. One such property had been family owned for a very long time. They fought long and hard but lost. Yes, they got $17 million dollars for it but they didn’t have much of a choice. The city was going to take it. The family settled for being beaten instead of totally screwed by the state of Indiana.

This is the city I live in. This is a tiny picture of reality with real lives and real consequences for mistakes and failing or out right criminal activities practiced in the name of law. You might ask yourself, is there anything good going on right now? Yes, some citizens like myself have been thrown a crumb. I do not intend to sound sarcastic because this crumb in my particular household makes a difference. In the last month I was given a twenty dollar increase in my food stamps. I went from $50 to $70 per month. No, that’s not a lot of money but that small crumb is a blessing to me. It lets me get a little bit ahead in this “game.”

So what does $20 extra for food a month get a single person household? It gets two packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts (3 lbs each), a two pound bag of meat balls and two 8 oz bags of Kraft shredded mozzarella cheese.

I feel sort of …I don’t know…. uneasy about writing how grateful I am for this raise because it may sound … I don’t know the word I’m looking for. I want to write it though because even small changes can make a difference in how a person lives. This is a good thing for me because it means less anxiety, one less thing to think about during the month.

While I sit at my table with twenty dollars more each month there are too many families living in shelters because their homes were stolen due to high taxes. While I enjoy a little extra each month there are families with no heat because the cost is too high or their car hasn’t moved because they can’t put gas in it. So yes, this small crumb makes me grateful. It makes me grateful but it also gives me a moment of pause for those who are falling behind. I can only shake my head or bow at it were at the conditions I see around me.

Unlike the people in Fife City who disappear when he powers down, this living citizen keeps on chugging along, keeps on plugging away in her own small corner of Indy. For this meager existence I am grateful.

Austin

Crumbs at My Table-Tuesday, November 04, 2008-12:25AM EST