Free The Subprimes by Karl Taro Greenfeld Page B

ignoring the studied looks she was getting, the whispers. How many young, pretty women just show up on motorcycles in subprime squats? Not many, Sargam knew, but she was used to explaining herself and allaying suspicions. And she was careful to keep her eyes off any of the attached men.
    But this Ryanville was different from the others she had passed through. Here they seemed to have created some order in their lives, organized enough to have a little party, and toughenough to keep out the tweakers who could be relied on to ruin such affairs.
    â€œYou wanna dance?” Darren asked.
    â€œNot yet,” Sargam said. “How many of you live here?”
    â€œAbout a hundred,” he said and explained that the core was a group of about a dozen families with children. After running off the meth heads who had been there when they came, they figured out where the aquifer was capped and drilled a tap into the valve pipes at the end of Yucca. As more subprimes arrived, the first families made up the rules: no hard drugs, no criminals. Nobody wanted the law to come sniffing around, and so far, there had not been any incidents.
    â€œThe closest supermarket is forty-five minutes away and we make two runs a week. But we’re also growing beets, carrots, radishes, onions. With water anything is possible. We have a few goats. You probably heard the chickens. Hard to keep the coyotes off them.”
    Later, there was a bonfire in the backyard while a Latino man strummed his guitar and sang quietly in English. He wore a leather vest over a white T-shirt, faded jeans, and white high-top sneakers. His lidded, black-olive-colored eyes gave him a sleepy look, and even when he sang, he seemed weary as he enunciated the lyrics.
    I got a letter from the government the other day
    I opened it. It said they were suckers
    You think a free man would give a damn
    About their taxes or whatever?
    Â 
    I got a letter from the creditor the other day
    I opened it. It said they were rerating me
    You think a broke man would give a damn
    About their FICO or whatever?
    Â 
    I got a letter from the banker the other day
    I opened it. It said they were repossessing me
    You think a subprime man would give a damn
    About their underwater or whatever?
    Â 
    I got a letter from the student loan the other day
    I opened it. It said they would take my pay
    You think an unemployed man gives a damn
    About their garnishing or whatever?
    Â 
    I got a letter from you the other day
    I opened it. It asked if I was free
    You think I have anything holding me?
    About two seconds flat and I was gone to you
    The group gathered around the fire, sitting on broken-down lawn chairs, benches fashioned from salvage wood, and wool blankets spread on the dirt. The temperature had dropped and Sargam found herself pulling her leather jacket tight around her. The group had been singing along and hooting but now the guitar player was singing a softer song, in Spanish. A pack of dogs had gathered at the flickering edge of the light, watching the fire.
    Darren found his way to where Sargam was standing. He had in his arms a blanket that he shook open and spread out.
    She felt the hot air of the fire against her face. She looked at the happy people, all the faces made soft orange by the light, the easy smiles, the gentle nodding to the music. Why couldn’t every one of these abandoned developments find this sort of low buzz of contentment?
    It was not perfect, she knew. Darren had filled her in. The kids didn’t have a school. The men were struggling to pay for thegas that took them to those few menial jobs they could get. They would run out of wood. They would run out of propane. They would never run out of coyotes, dust, heat, sun, and cracked lips; everyone stank of sweat, and you couldn’t keep yourself clean. But they were free here in a way they had never been back in their foreclosed homes, or in underpass Ryanvilles, or driving slow and scared down darkened