Note: This excerpt is from the Pushcart Prize-nominated Pigtown by Anthony Roberts, published by Red Dashboard Publishing.
Now back in the neighborhood, a stranger on the streets I once roamed, as foreign as a tourist from Iowa who had gotten lost looking for the Inner Harbor. The house where I grew up, torn down, a vacant lot they had attempted to turn into a community garden now resembles a cemetery. As a teenager, I spent as little time here as possible, seeking out the culture in other parts of the city this neighborhood lacked.
I stopped in the middle of Scott Street, next to the spot where I had stolen my first car stereo from a Pontiac Fiero. The corner of Hamburg where I kissed my first girlfriend. I stood in the middle of Sterrett Street, the locals giving my strange looks as I remembered the night I’d been jumped, learning what brass knuckles and a skateboard to the back of the head felt like. All within ten seconds of each other. Four of those guys were dead now, and the fifth will die in prison. I feel no pity.
Anthony Roberts is a veteran of Baltimore and Afghanistan. He currently lives in New Jersey in a home with beautiful views and interlocking fields of fire.
Listen to our Savage Wonder episode with him here.
He is the author of the Pushcart Prize-nominated Pigtown and The Clearing Barrel.
You can follow him here.
Learn more about the Veterans Repertory Theater here.