Along the sidewalks of Allied Drive in the year of 2005, my memory flashes to the smell like dry wood and smashed grass. The green leaves of the old trees were the perfume of the street.
At first, the neighborhood felt unfamiliar, and I did not know anyone in the area. We only knew our Latino friends, Rita and Antonio, who chanted in my ears with beauty about a house on Allied Drive where the rent was $300 per month. Who were we to say no to our friends?
Big windows of my home faced Allied Drive, gleaming, and brightening the shadow of the street. All houses were old and built of dark yellow brick. No matter what, I was blessed to call it home.
The neighborhood of Allied Drive felt ghostly and silent in the day, nothing like the warmth of home in the Andes village. Here, the wind whispered through the branches, “Immigrant, and not from here.” Seclusion was free for me.
Then something happened with the nights. People gathered on the sidewalks.
Allied Drive was filled with words: the grass and yards around buildings, in the parking lots. Words come from everywhere.
Yelling.
Talking.
Laughing.
Babies crying.
Moms whispering.
All at once on Allied drive.
Who could sleep in that noise?
Sleeping at night became a nightmare. Winter was rigid and stiff. Parking lot was muddy and wet. With my van, trapped in the mud, I had to push and have help to move it. Rita and Antonio gathered at my place and sometimes at their place, but then we gathered less and less.
Everything changed when Antonio was diagnosed with cancer. Not many nights passed, when under the light of the stars a crow sang its last song and Courageous Antonio breathed his last breath. His eyes faded in rest and his spirit flew high, very high in the sky, and around the neighborhood of Allied Drive.
Rita was left behind, alone in the neighborhood. “I am leaving Allied, going back home,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
After they left, for me, Allied drive was like fire that had gone out once cracking with warmth and energy. It was now cold and quiet, only the ashes of what had been.
None of the people on Allied spoke Spanish, except the Spanish whisper of the landlord’s wife, a woman in her 50s whose chihuahua barked tirelessly and who rarely appeared around the building. People would toss around strong phrases about Allied: “Dangerous place to live” and “not too safe for strangers dwelling here.”
The landlord would always say, “We are remodeling the space. We will put a new carpet down soon and a new lock for the door.” But summer and winter came and went and they never came to change a thing. Always the same while I was living there.
Living on Allied Drive, I felt so much fear. Food that we ordered would not come. The police would not set foot on the street.
At the same time, it was home.
Allied Drive taught me so much.
To value and prize every breath of my lungs.
To know that rain is not going to wet me anymore.
To know that I don't have to sleep outside on cold nights anymore.
No matter what Allied was in 2005, as an immigrant in a new place, I found in this place a sort of home, where my dreams were free to roam.
Aída Inuca is a Kichwa indigenous woman originally from the Andes in Ecuador who now lives in Madison. She is a mother, daughter, sister and wife.
