"Everybody in America was supposed to grab whatever he could and hold onto it. Some Americans were very good at grabbing and holding, were fabulously well-to-do. Others couldn't get their hands on doodley-squat." -Kurt Vonnegut
As the rain gave way to a melancholy overcast, I walked down and stood where Washington meets Meridian at "The Crossroads of America," in the wealthiest nation on earth. I was sort of searching for a sense of Kurt Vonnegut, so I stood for awhile at that spot he describes in his book. Looking around for literary genius, I found homeless men and women on every street corner. It was as if seats had been assigned by the Chamber of Commerce. The men and women held scrawled cardboard signs that told pieces of stories that did not end well.
I found it somehow heroic, if not at least decent, that the city of Indianapolis didn't attempt to harass, or arrest, or lock-up, or ship off or otherwise hide these down on their luck citizens like many other places do. Right there they were, in sharp contrast to America's philosophy that poverty is a crime, some of the most oddly optimistic people on planet earth.
Over on Senate an articulate Army veteran sat cross legged out of work. We talked about the weather. On Illinois a grandmother nodded hello as she shook out her umbrella. Here on Meridian someone's little brother smiled at me despite his situation, as snappily dressed disdainful businessmen rushed around us from one stone building to the next.
This Indianapolis kid didn't have doodley-squat in the eyes of those gentlemen. But through the mist on Meridian, the proud war monument reaching desperately skyward, it was clear the kid had found genius of his own. It seemed to me that he only needed a living wage, or a place to stay, perhaps some food to eat, and something on which to write it all down.
