My Uber driver broke down on the way to the airport on the short trip from Downtown Dallas to Fort Worth International.
Not mechanically, you understand. Her car was just fine.
She broke down emotionally, crying and then sobbing as we traveled together to make my flight to D.C. I left her with every last bit of weariness, frustration and sadness spent out in her car.
I think it was the relief of one decent fare in her day that triggered it all. A $32 dollar ride, that’s all it took. $32 dollars — not much, enough to puncture through the act of holding it all together when things seem too hard to bear. She tells me she cannot take much more of this, or the empty hours of nothingness or $5 for a two block ride with no thank yous and no smiles.
Like the thousands of others, she is not an Uber driver by profession. She is an IT worker, qualified and hard-working, but like so many other Americans, finding herself suddenly unemployed. She has twins at home and rent to pay. After the first stimulus check she has not seen another and doesn’t know if another will come.
She asks me why the politicians don’t seem to care.
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The truth of this lockdown is that it is bearable for many people; those with fully paid-up homes, investments with brokers, and savings their family can depend on too.
I see them on my morning jog to the park in Preston Hollow here in Dallas, striding out of their multi-million dollar homes in the sunshine in their yoga pants and perfectly balanced boobs, accessorized with a Corgi or a husband.
“Good morning” they say positively as I pass (something that doesn’t happen in my country but a truth of this one). And it is another good morning here on millionaires row. Every morning is. And I am happy for it too.
I take a video of their palatial homes in one street to show my children. If Disney built homes, they would look like this. I see one magic castle after another, all different yet similarly perfect, with manicured lawns and Mexican gardeners bustling about to keep it just so.
It’s the yard signs that take a bat to your face.
I suspect just like the housewives in suburban Minnesota, they think these signs will protect them when this country descends into unholy chaos after the election is called. They think the mob will treat their turreted fortress more kindly if they say they support black lives.
They are mistaken.
I wonder when they last held a black man’s hand, or took a black friend for dinner. I wonder if a black family is part of their daily life. I don’t see any here, not on the jog to the park, or at the tennis lesson these cookie-cutter women attend.
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When did the private expression of free will become these screaming yard signs physically placed into the public square? These signs don’t just have the candidate's name but an entire statement on ‘what this house believes’.
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