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I had a really interesting evening tonight. I drove over to East Durham to attend an organizing rally for Senator Bernie Sanders as he gears up to campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. I parked in the little league parking lot on the corner and walked to the house where the event was taking place. There were some people hanging around and I made a nametag and walked in. I followed signs to the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to pee in the middle of the event and then went back outside to where people were milling about. I looked around and no one introduced themselves right away and I thought it would be nice to have the lawn chair I had left in the car. I walked back down the street to the car to get the lawn chair and was met by a guy coming across the parking lot and talking to me. I was immediately uncomfortable, assuming he was going to ask me for money. He started telling me how he had been run over by a four wheel drive truck and had to have three surgeries on his leg, which he showed me. Then he was telling me that his family used to get a gift card from Catholic Services for the grocery store but they had just shut down this week and he had not been able to get groceries. I told him that I didn’t have any money because I didn’t have any money and I didn’t want him to waste his time giving me a spiel if it wasn’t going to pay off for him. He said he didn’t want to ask me for money but that since I had a car could I take him to the grocery store and help him get some groceries. I looked at my watch and said that I needed to be at a meeting. It was 7:15 and the thing was supposed to start at 7 with the speech internet broadcast at 7:30 which I didn’t really want to miss as it seemed like a good opportunity to meet some progressive minded people in Durham and to see how grass roots organizing happens for political campaigns. He told me it would be really quick because the grocery store was just up the street and he had memorized how to get there and he only needed four things and it would only take five minutes and we could use the express checkout and it wouldn’t take long. I started to make an excuse about going to the meeting but it felt really disingenuous because the meeting didn’t need me there. I wasn’t going to change anyone’s thoughts on things and Bernie Sanders was only going to say things I already agreed with so it didn’t really matter if I was there when it started or not. I told the man to hop in and I would take him to the grocery store. He told me his name is Matthew. I told him I am Pete. He told me how Catholic Services used to give them a gift card to help get groceries but they had shut down just this week and he couldn’t get groceries. He told me he could get everything he needed for less than forty dollars. I told him that I don’t have a job right now and I wasn’t sure I could spend forty dollars. He sort of negotiated for twenty and I was non-committal explaining that I could help him out with dinner for tonight but since I don’t have a job I couldn’t just buy all his groceries. He said he could definitely keep it under twenty dollars. I stopped trying to explain things. He gave me directions which was easy because it was all straight on the same road. He had me turn into a parking lot and said the building was the grocery store. He had mentioned Lowes at the beginning so I assumed we were going to a Lowes foods. However, as we came around the building to the front it was a dollar general. I wasn’t really familiar with Dollar General and didn’t think it was really a grocery store per se. We went in and he got a cart which made me a little uncomfortable and the looks I got from people made me wonder how I was being perceived. I wasn’t the only white person in there but I think it was clear that I wasn’t familiar with my surroundings and didn’t quite belong. I followed Matthew through the store and he said he was looking for the Gain laundry soap. I told him I thought we were just there to get food. He kept looking for Gain. He asked someone who worked there if they had the Gain laundry soap. They pointed to were the soap is. He looked around and found some laundry soap that looked like it would work and put it in his basket. I explained to him again that I didn’t mind buying food but I preferred not to buy household items. He seemed to get nervous and said he only needed four things. It occurred to me that he had a list in his head and if he couldn’t get the first thing on the list it might really mess up the rest of the list. I also couldn’t find a price on the laundry detergent he had picked up and it took a while for me to realize that everything at the dollar general is a dollar. He picked up three or four packs of hot dogs and a bag of frozen french fries. I started to ask him if he needed buns for the hotdogs as we approached the checkout but I didn’t say anything because I was still trying to get my bearings in these surroundings. He put his items on the conveyor and the lady rung them up for six dollars and change and I swiped my credit card. As we walked back to the car he asked, “Did I do good? I only got four things.” I said, “Yes, You did good.”
As we drove back I asked him if he grew up in Durham. He said he moved here. I asked how long has he been in Durham. He said five years. I asked where he was before he was in Durham. He said he grew up in somewhere New Jersey, way up North, but he moved here when he was young, when he was thirteen. I asked how he ended up in Durham. He said his Dad liked it here and moved here to work at a car company (GME Chrysler, he said) putting cars together and his mom landed a job at Duke and they both retired from those jobs before they died. Then I asked how old he is now. He said he is forty six. He showed me where his house is and I dropped him off. He thanked me for taking him to the grocery store and I said he was welcome and to have a nice night.
I got back to the Bernie Sanders meeting at 7:40. The speech was already well underway and he spoke about money in politics, single payer healthcare, wealth and opportunity inequality, institutional racism, and ending discrimination of all sorts. There was discussion afterward of various ways we could help organize in Durham and build a grassroots movement to work toward all of these noble goals and, hopefully, elect Bernie Sanders along the way to help out at the top. I think that is a good approach but I had a hard time focusing on presidential politics and couldn’t stop thinking about Matthew.
Matthew clearly has some intellectual disability. I couldn’t tell if that was a result of the accident he had but I sort of suspect it might be. Maybe they moved here to be near Duke for the surgeries he spoke of. I don’t know the story but I am interested. The Durham I grew up in 20 years ago was divided by race but was just black and white. The side of town where I met Matthew is a place I was taught to be afraid of when I was growing up. Now there are lots of Hispanic as well as black people in that neighborhood and it is on the expanding line of gentrification sweeping outward from Durham’s city center. There are lots of houses in disrepair but more houses in various stages of complete overhaul as people buy them and fix them up. I wonder what Matthew’s story is. I wonder what will happen to him if the church based services that people rely on to fill the gaps in the state safety net are no longer available. I wonder what will happen in East Durham as the hipsters and speculators buy up all the houses and flip them for a profit as they drive up rents. I wonder what will happen to all of us as we elect a new president in 2016 while NC continues to disenfranchise its minority and poor voters. I wonder what part I will play as the story unfolds.