The City Installed Red Light Cameras
by Chris Corlew
The City installed cameras to take pictures of license plates running through red lights. The Mayor said it would help prevent crime by possibly one hundred percent in our lifetime. The Chief of Police said flagged plates could lead to the serving of enough backlogged and outstanding warrants to have what he called a “ripple effect.” This new measure could take untold numbers of monsters off our streets. The Chief Medical Examiner said it could prevent at least one in a hundred deaths. The Mayor came back and said, Thank you and God bless America.
Twenty years ago, a hundred people were murdered in our neighborhood. Ten years ago, that number was fifty. Five years ago, that number was ten. This year it was zero. Still, on sleeting winter days when the heat had been shut off, the cops came and knocked on our doors. Still, the cops came to the parks and tossed our cookout blankets whenever we wanted to enjoy the summer sun shining its yellow warmth on us. Still, the cops came and felt our pants whenever we walked to the corner store for a stick of butter and a loaf of bread. Whenever unconfirmed evidence of something happened, blue and red lights flashed in the background of news cameras and showed up on TVs in living rooms in houses in other neighborhoods.
We had been minding our business. We took the train to work. The teamsters got up early and drank from thermoses, and the musicians got up late and played open mics. The retirees sat under umbrellas in their courtyard and hollered greetings at the kids cooling off in the playground sprinklers. We ate tacos on sidewalks. We ignored the mailbox for days. We paid our rent two days before it was due. We shoveled our sidewalks and never called dibs. We weren’t what they call “Model Citizens” but we helped each other.
One day Mr. Hank checked his mailbox and was on the sidewalk and yelling about a ticket he never physically got but was past due. He was waving a letter, crumpling between his fist and the wind.
They gave it to me seven, he said, but now I owe seventy times seven!
Of course we were concerned. A few neighbors on the first floor went to console. Offer tea. Of course everyone believed it must be some mistake. Of course Mr. Hank could contest a ticket and of course any judge would be sympathetic to an aging elementary school janitor. Of course a bunch of us went to court to advocate on his behalf. Of course none of our efforts mattered.
After Mr. Hank’s seventieth day in jail, we were allowed to visit. They shot my debt up while I’ve been in here, he said. How do I pay? We told him it wasn’t fair. We told him we were writing letters. Making phone calls. We told him to hang strong. The neighborhood was behind him. Then we left and drove the four hours back home.
We would visit weekly at first. Take turns baking vegetarian lasagna or green bean casserole. Mr. Hank would eat quickly out of the Tupperware container and say thank you. Everything they feed me here has pork in it. It was usually then that we’d cry together. Then the metallic bang and a guard yelling that visiting hours were over.
Eventually we cobbled together enough tips and spare change to pay Mr. Hank’s original debt. The Judge reminded us of the late fees. We asked how much are the late fees, and The Judge referred us to The Office of Parking Enforcement. The Office of Parking Enforcement said they would send a letter with the amount soon. A month later they said the same thing. A month later they said the same thing. A month later they said the same thing.
Within a year of the red light cameras being installed, no one had rear-ended anyone for going through a red light. Within a year, we started leaving for work an hour earlier and driving under the speed limit. We became quieter. We stocked up on plastic chairs and started calling dibs on spaces up and down the block. We took turns shoveling the sidewalk in front of Mr. Hank’s house, then one day we forgot whose turn it was. When the weather warmed up, less music spilled out of open windows. When the playground sprinklers turned on, the water pressure was lower than it was before.
The news began wondering if The Mayor would be President one day.
Finally we gathered and made signs. JUSTICE FOR MR. HANK and ABOLITION NOW and such. We took the train to march on City Hall. We were a hurtling mass of red-hearted optimism. We had comfortable clothes and signs and bullhorns and strollers. We smiled at each other. We clapped each other on the shoulder. We were thawing.
At City Hall, cops stood in formation with riot shields and batons. Tall and still as skyscrapers except for swiveling heads and gum-chewing jaws. They watched us chant with our signs. They watched Mary, who owned Finnegan’s Pub, speak. They watched as Tom from the Local 527 spoke. Some of them even shook their hips—slightly only a few seconds—when Terry and Andres broke out their guitars. But they never said anything. The Mayor never emerged. We were chastened. We took the train home.
Shut in my studio apartment with the windows closed, I microwaved some macaroni and cheese and cracked a beer. A delivery truck started backing up. The warning beep echoed a steady metronome that made me jump, then silence. I saw The Mayor doing an interview on the news. Saying, thank you and may… and I clicked it off. The squish of my spoon in mac and cheese. The ticking second hand on my watch. The air still.
Chris Corlew is a writer and musician living in Chicago. His work has appeared in Cotton Xenomorph, Whisk(e)y Tit, Moist Poetry Journal, Cracked.com, and elsewhere. He can be found blogging at shipwreckedsailor.substack.com or on Bluesky @thecorlew.