Alone Together

What looks like an empty field is a burial ground.

I am so impossibly tired of hearing about the restaurant across the street.

Every time someone mentions us, it is almost always in conjunction with the place that “serves the best fries in town” or “has the juiciest burger three years in a row.” Says who? Some kid with a zillion followers on social media? Let me say it clearly: We. Do. Not. Care.

Instead of “researching” burgers and fries, perhaps someone should cross the street to realize this field only looks empty. I am here with hundreds of others, quite literally discarded and forgotten. On this clear day, we actually had two visitors. Two! People come into the nearby facility and never glance over here to give any of us a second thought. And clearly I understand why - it looks like empty land.

I can only imagine people driving by wondering why this prime corner of real estate is empty. Wondering who will finally buy it up to put up apartments that will blow down in a hurricane. Wondering why a drug store or bank chain isn’t clamoring for the real estate.

And really, even though I am cynical - and I have every right to be - I can’t blame the passersby. There is only one sign indicating the cemetery’s name. No plaque. No story. No nothing. You have to look online, and I was again shocked to see these two (did I mention TWO?!?!) visitors did just that. I could hear them discussing our stories. Wondering this time about US.

“So, wait, this story says there are 522 graves here, but does that also mean there are 522 people or more?,” I hear her ask her friend.

“How was the cemetery found if there are no records?” He asks her this as she is reading the story, no doubt learning the grave sites were segregated by race and even class.

“It says someone tried to develop it. Shocker…” Thankfully I could see her eye roll and knew sarcasm in my time. She was, in fact, not shocked at all.

“It’s the potters field, so it’s no wonder there is nothing here. These people were devalued in life, so it’s not surprising they’re also devalued in death.”

Someone gets it! We have nobody come see us. Come leave flowers or flags or candles or teddy bears on our graves. Nobody can keep our legacies alive because nobody knows who is buried here. We were people with stories and lives and contributions before society decided to cast us aside.

We all struggled in some way. Many of us were poor and without homes. Many also had the misfortune of being born Black and poor, quite literally a deadly combination in the U.S. The word people call us is indigent. It sounds so vile coming out of your mouth. Like spit and venom. Piss and vinegar as my dad used to say.

My story is valuable. Like many families, mine lost everything during the Great Depression. Before that, my dad was a successful citrus farmer. We weren’t one of the citrus dynasty families, but we did well enough to know we would have three meals a day. Then Florida’s boom went bust several years before the Depression hit the U.S. hard. A virus destroyed our entire field - and our family - and we could never recover. We ended up floating between friends’ houses while my dad tried to find another job, but that was near impossible with so many providers being in the same sinking ship.

When my dad died about a decade later, we were so poor we could not afford a funeral so the potters field it was. Me? I ended up here with him because I ended up homeless when he died. Mom had already remarried someone up north after the bust, and I never heard from her again after that. She wanted to leave this state and all it took from her behind. We were collateral. I think dad died from a broken heart. With no siblings, I was on my own. I never went to college and could rarely hold down a job. I saw no point, if I am being honest with you.

Why bother working hard when it can all be ripped away? I died on the streets about five years after my dad. I was only 35. Not yet a man, yet far from a boy. They didn’t call it suicide back then, but I got enough alcohol to do the trick. Nobody claimed my body, and I was secretly glad because I could be reunited with my dad. He loved me. He did his best. I can’t say the same for myself.

Is this a legacy I want to share? Not likely. But does my life still matter? Unequivocally yes.

That is why I made sure to hang onto every second of these people standing on the corner wondering about us. About our lives. Who we were. Why nobody cared enough to keep a record. I hear words I cannot understand - “state of exception,” “necronationalism,” and “biopower.” These kids must be smart, or at least know enough fancy language to fool me. They’re taking pictures. He has one of those shutter cameras, while she is using what I know are cell phones.

I see the people across the street using them to snap pictures of their fries and burgers. I see them posting those staged photos online so strangers can give them validation. Turn the damn lens across the street and snap a picture of the field. Of our sign. Figure out who we are.

Our stories are more important than the ones they pretend are real. We are real. We are alone together.