Freedom Point: Part II

Seymour, Indiana, is a city with a population of 18,101, though it feels like much smaller. It has churches on just about every other block and not a high rise to be seen anywhere. Not the image that pops into a person's mind when the hears the word “city”, unless he happens to be from a city of 18,101 or less.

I stayed in Seymour for three weeks after I arrived to the US to start college. I stayed with Chris, a half-Peruvian, half-Caucasian who was born and raised here and met me in Peru where he went to high school for two years, living with his aunts. He thinks Seymour sucks, which I can completely understand. After being here for three straight weeks and visiting a couple of times afterwards, I think this place sucks too. Even John Mellencamp, who was born and raised here and written songs about it probably thinks it sucks too. Maybe that's why he lives in Bloomington. It takes a lot to dislike a place that holds an annual parade in your honor, and Seymour, whatever it is, has lots and lots of it.

According to Chris, people here have high but superficial aspirations. Every now and then you run into someone who wants to start their own business or become a lawyer and things like that. Mostly practical stuff. Then you run into people who wear visors with the beak on the side, talk “ghetto” and ride around in their parents' cars in the middle of the night with rap music blaring from their speakers; skinny white guys who think that repeating the word “motherfucker” makes them “gangsta”. I think someone ought to shoot them in their faces. I would do it myself, but I'm too pretty for jail.

Freedom Point: Part I

I'm standing outside Freedom Point, a local hangout, asking questions to random people walking in and out, telling them I'm doing a survey for an article I'm writing, when this kid who looks about ten years old keeps screaming “Don't talk to him! He's one of them fucking cops! Fuck them cops” I fight the urge to dropkick him in the head because that would be illegal, and a student visa is a very fragile status. Instead, my friend, Chris, explains that I'm just writing an article on small town life for my school newspaper (I'm not, it's an essay for a creative writing class). When my presence there is explained, the kid starts to shout “Don't fucking talk to him, he's one of them fucking journalists! You can't trust them fucking journalists!”

I think back to the one time in my senior year of high school when my creative writing teacher commented on one of my short stories. There was a ten year old kid who started swearing non stop, and she said it wasn't believable. Too unbelievable, in fact, that it wouldn't even be appropriate for the dream sequence in which this character was swearing. My creative writing teacher's obviously never been to Seymour.