after Cathy Park Hong
Exhibit A: If one looks close enough, it can be determined
that the two of them are holding hands. Their fingers link
together, resting on the console. A water bottle shifts
its weight in the cupholder beside them, leaning
from one side to the other whenever the road curves.
Exhibit B: A billboard advertises tours of a state penitentiary.
The illustration, both prison and haunted house.
This is excitement, the ad implies. Join us.
Exhibit C: An interracial couple in a Chevy Traverse
drives along the I-70 East. The husband’s hands rest
easy on the wheel, balanced between 10 and 2.
The vehicle is cherry red. A rental, allowing his name
and face to remain unseen if the license plate is run
by officers. They are not really from Florida.
Exhibit D: Boots, bologna, bullets! A fourth b-word is listed,
but my eyes are caught by the signs that follow—calling
for 45’s return, Jesus is coming—and I forget.
Exhibit E: The couple recently learned the woman’s ancestors
owned enslaved persons. On the 1840 census, they brought
captives to Missouri from what is now West Virginia.
Exhibit F: My love takes me to the river.
We step into it with our sandaled feet. I am surprised
by how cold the water feels on my skin.
Exhibit G: Red and blue lights flash
from the top of mobile surveillance towers.
A resident can see its declaration of permanence
from a window, from a couch, from their kitchen sink.
Exhibit H: The husband’s family did not arrive
to Missouri until a second wave of Great Migration.
His father comes from Alabama and his mother,
Mississippi. They carry stories that her husband hears
now. These are not the wife’s stories to tell.
Exhibit I: But ask me the definition of a carceral city.
I can show you. Look.
Exhibit J: The couple has practiced how
they would respond, how they would smile, which one
of them would talk. This is to say, if they
were to be pulled over, the husband’s ID and insurance
are already available. No need to reach, no need for pockets.
Exhibit K: He takes me to the Mississippi. Where the muddy laps
against cobbles, a catfish decays. Its body is beached
like a beluga I can almost remember. A crisis
had led it to shore. The fish and I almost the same size.
Exhibit L: At a park, the trees offer shade that brings relief.
The couple arranges their chairs under a lace of branches.
They sit beside his mother, his aunts, and cousins. Plates of ribs
and green beans steady on their knees. They nod and listen.
Exhibit M: The more the woman learns
about her fifth great-grandfather, about her family’s position
as enslavers, the more she has to ask,
about herself and her country. What this asking looks like,
how it manifests, develops in accordance with her understanding.
Exhibit N: We count the increase of cruisers. It would not be difficult
to argue a clear correlation between neighborhoods
and the number of officers on duty.
Exhibit O: Beer! The fourth “b” on the sign is beer.
Exhibit P: Ask about the carceral state. About carceral capitalism.
Exhibit Q: Another billboard. This one encourages passers-by
to consider a career in criminal justice, markets scholarships
to those who pursue this discipline. A young man looks out
from the advertisement. His arms are crossed, white as mine.
Exhibit R: Records show that officers in St. Louis
stop, ticket, or arrest African Americans for walking in the streets
instead of the sidewalks. Their fines provide revenue
to the local government.
Exhibit S: I do not know the names of these trees,
but they hold the park like comfort. We gather under them.
We try to guess their ages, our heads tilted back to see
how far into the sky they stretch.
Exhibit T: In “Fear and Loathing: Public Feelings in Anti-
prison Work,” Jessi Lee Jackson and Erica R. Meiners write:
“[C]rime porn often presents a view of prisons and urban
ghettoes as ‘alternate universes.’” Such a deliberate creation
promotes a sense of the unreal, distanced from the self
and therefore perceived as unnecessary to critique.
Exhibit U: Not far from the park are the husband’s early years.
Exhibit V: On my husband’s childhood street, a surveillance tower
is stationed. Right here, beside the house that grew him,
the tower is made of white metal, white paint.
There is a constant echo of patrol.
Exhibit W: The city is famous for barbecue and segregation.
Exhibit X: The surveillance tower is planted in the street,
nothing at all like a tree.
Exhibit Y: From the Chevy, the husband shows his wife
the sidewalks. They are not maintained by the city
like they are in other neighborhoods. He points out
how roots reach—how concrete lifts and crumbles.
Exhibit Z: My husband takes me to the Mississippi.
We step into the river, with both of our feet.
