Exodus on Main Street

When I first met Paul, he looked like he had been shrunk inside his clothes. A blue blazer, worn to a ragged edge at the bottom, met his knees, which were about an inch higher than the end of his "old selling tie." Judging by the height of the veins mounted on his skull, Paul was the type of guy who probably mowed the grass around his predestined funeral plot every month, just to be sure he wasn't caught off-guard. It was coming any day.

Paul was in the real estate business, but he had been in it too long. Either that, or his parole officer didn't have trouble convincing the people at the real estate agency that Paul's 40-year stint in an upstate New York lockup for drowning cattle had really brought him up to speed on the real estate market in Philadelphia.

You see, people like Paul are important to my new home, Manayunk. They are the established community, the cornerstone of a whitewashed safe house for new college graduates who buy car alarm systems at the first sight of melanin. The new population that is establishing itself in Manayunk has been growing rapidly, bringing in new public houses chock full of kids still hung over from four or five years of convincing their laptops to somehow vomit them up a finance degree and $40,000 a year.

Impressed by our Irish Catholic surnames, Paul informed us that we had "come to the right place." Paul definitely grew up in Philadelphia, in a small Irish enclave, surrounded by family and poverty. I am sure that Paul, undereducated and bored, spent his summers on Coney Island playing Zydeco tunes on a plastic comb for nickels.

Paul walked us around the house, commenting on the cleanliness of the tenants. These were the new enemies of the community. Brand name clothes were set neatly in rows, as if they had been arranged scientifically, configured for the perfect amount of appeal when coupled with an opulent SUV and about six Coors Lights. This was a cry for help. Had to be. This tenant knew people were looking at the place today. I should have called this kid's MBA program to get him enrolled earlier so he could stop this sham.

Paul didn't even realize this new population was a threat. He didn't realize that the real estate boom was also causing a mother of three to call the cops at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday morning because of the people next door, who were attempting to relive the life they had a year ago over some bitchin' Verve Pipe bootlegs.

The locusts aren't really that bad. After all, they throw a good portion of their unearned paychecks down their throats on Main Street, running scared from the fact that their one secure truth in life is that their 401K is very, very stable. The community may disintegrate.

This year, there are about 32 percent fewer families in Manayunk than there were in 1980. I guess it's unfair to place the blame solely on the Jettas that line Main Street or the guy pumping the Dirty Vegas box set out the speakers of his Escalade. Fingers need to be pointed at whoever decided to revitalize Main Street. It was an innocent enough request, but without realization of the consequences. It's like Field of Dreams, except, when you build it, Ray Liotta comes out wearing a ribbed tank top and spitting game at your little sister while fronting James Earl Jones a q.p. of schwag.

We took a place on top of the hill in Manayunk. If this doesn't separate me from the problems in Manayunk, then I'm going to drink fashionable martinis and work out until mesh really brings out the structure of my torso. I may as well accept it. There are at least 10 more years of wading through throngs of mentally vacant pick-up lines, unhappy rebels trapped in clothes they hate, and sorority misfits stuck with façades the gym can't erase -- all abuzz with the possibility of ending their weeklong blight.

Poor Paul doesn't even realize that this very contingent, coupled with the long lines for the bathrooms, may be the reason he has had to resod his plot twice in the past few months. He doesn't care, really. He's too close to dying to worry too much about the future, and it sure as fuck beats playing a comb for British tourists and sleeping on the dock. When he does pass, Paul won't be held up as the embodiment of a revolution or some sort of cultural upheaval or foundational evidence of a massive social coup. Paul will just be another open house near Main Street for a couple of unwillingly sober Villanova grads to move into.

Daz Morrell is a Temple University student. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.

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