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“I gotta go, man!”
“Just quick,” he says, handing me the pen. “Sign. It’s just a purchase order for the festival.”
The festival is a giant pain in my ass. Ozzy’s idea, all of it. But we’ve finally bought the last piece of property we need to redevelop the Gingerbread neighborhood and people are pissed off about gentrification.
OK, yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. But we honestly don’t want to kick low-income people out so we can make a boatload of money. We want to lift up the neighborhood for everyone. So this festival is our way of letting the neighborhood know we’re all in this together. We want them to stay, enjoy the new safer, trendier neighborhood, and spruce up their aging homes. We’re even putting together loan packages so we can help them renovate and raise their property values and become part of the transition.
I don’t know if it’s working—yet—but we’re doing our best to win them over.
When we took on this project we knew some people would be forced out of the neighborhood. But if what we’re doing ends up changing all the things that make Gingerbread so interesting, then what’s the point? We can restore all the old Victorian houses and paint them up pretty, but people already come to Gingerbread for night life and restaurants and the houses are mostly all shit. People don’t come for the houses. They come for the food, and the music, and the art, and the people.
There’s a fine line between rehabilitation and annihilation and neither Ozzy nor I want to be on the wrong side of this once it’s done.
Which is part of the reason I’m trying to rent a space in the Creative Co-Op. That’s where the neighborhood artists create.
And I just happen to be a drummer. Well, not since freshman year of college, actually. And that was a good fifteen years ago. But I still have the old kit and I think inserting myself into the artists’ community will show the neighborhood I’m one of them.
Ozzy, well, he’s not so sure. He’s worried about my renewed interest in drumming because of how into the ‘scene’ I was back when we first met. I had to talk him into spending almost two hundred thousand dollars cash purchasing this creative space and tonight’s meeting is Judgment Day. I have to defend my application to the Creative board.
Yeah, it’s gonna be a disaster. I can already tell. For one thing, I have to call them Mr. This and Miss That. No first names allowed. Weird and sorta pretentious for a group of artists, if you ask me. But I think they already hate me and that’s part of their you’re-not-welcome-here plan.
They’re totally gonna deny me. And I hate being denied. Fucking hate it. I don’t care what that says about my character, it’s just a fact. That’s why we have all the property in Gingerbread in the first place. I bartered and negotiated until those people decided they couldn’t afford to say no.
Not helpful when you’re trying to win people over and convince them you’re not out to ruin the culture they’ve carefully cultivated over the past fifty years. But we’ve got a good plan, we really have.
I sign the paper, thrust the pen back at Ozzy, and rush out the door to my waiting car. It’s a good thirty minutes in traffic to get over there and by the time I’m walking into the co-op, I’m stressed, and late, and running my fingers through my hair so the long strands that are usually perfectly groomed kinda hang over in my face.
Just… please. Get me through this ambush with a yes. That’s all I’m asking for. One. More. Yes.
“Mr. North, I presume,” a man wearing a vintage army jacket and baggy ripped jeans says, as I stop in the lobby and look around.
Hmmm. Interesting place. There’s about two dozen offices down the long, wide hallway and each one of them is made of glass on all sides. This gives me a glimpse of my new neighbors as they work. A few are painting. One is doing ballet at a barre. One is playing the violin, swaying back and forth like he’s caught in a trance. And one is a goddamn mime—black leotard and scary black and white makeup on her face. Doing that whole glass room thing, even though she’s actually in a glass room.
What the fuck am I doing? I do not belong here. I’m wearing a ten-thousand-dollar suit, a fifty-thousand-dollar watch, and I was brought to this meeting by my company driver.
“Mr. North?” the man asks again.
“Yes,” I say, turning to him. “That’s me. But you can call me—“
“Mr. North.” The man smiles. “Pleasure to meet you,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m Mr. Garcia.”
OK. So that’s how it’s gonna be. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Garcia. This is a great place. I had no idea it was so… modern.”
