Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.
(Wherein the author expounds upon his deep disgust and hatred for the city he once loved so dearly.)
Dear Dayton,
I know we used to be kinda tight – but never really all that close somehow, even though you were always in my heart when i was away. You’ve got to admit, i’ve been trying like hell to get reacquainted with you these last few years. Really, the love has never diminished.
Until now. You have shown me your true colors; the ones i always secretly knew existed in the back of my mind, but never wanted to actually admit to myself were there. I loved you, and you have used me. You were using me all along, weren’t you? Well, my love: fuck you right back. I hate you. I seriously wish that i didn’t, but there it is: i do.
When i first moved into your diseased little middle-American labor-driven bosom, i knew that something didn’t feel quite right. That warm glow just wasn’t there.
Your only value is in history. You’re only good for one-night stands, a casual drive-by down the Oregon District during happy hour. Nothing more. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
I should have known better. Your gay neighborhoods are too straight, your gay business district too laughably tiny. You’d think i didn’t care, but i do. Diversity is the spice of life, Dayton. For a saucy little dish such as yourself, you need to mix it up a little better. You are still segregated, no matter what you say. You don’t even provide bus service to the malls from the West side. Come on! Why is that, Dayton? Seriously now – give me a straight answer, and don’t think too hard for something pretty to say. We know, we all do. Such a pathetic, racist little weasel.
And speaking of people who aren’t where they should be, where is your middle class, anyway? My only choice with you is to live by rich white Beamer-driving dickheads, or in the ghetto. I’d love to live somewhere in between, but you neither have that, nor do you have any means for me to get there. My advice to you in this regard: get jobs. And pay people what they’re worth. And when the UD kids graduate – kick ‘em out. Back to wherever their filthy rich little behinds came from. Give the rest of us some space to get ahead, instead of whoring yourself out to the foreign-born Easterners, who bring their decadent and depraved “me-first” ways from across the Appalachian range to our once-proud mud-whipped riverbanks!
This brings me to my last point. Since the vast majority of your residents are poor and undereducated (do you even know what a school levy is??), it’s no wonder at all why everybody in the heart of the city is a criminal. You can’t go anywhere around you anymore without risking life and/or limb! Is it much of a stretch to imagine why even the police are fearful of your slums? What you need is industry. Enterprise. Something people can believe in, that gives ‘em a real, honest goal to work towards. But all you care about is bling and fireworks, and taking what you can from those who cannot afford to give any more. Ah, but you are at least good at that: crushing the tender souls of those who could have provided you with peace, and with comfort in your premature old-age.
I call bullshit on you, Dayton Ohio. The Wrights and the Ketterings and poor sweet old Mister Dunbar are all choking on their worms because you have forgotten what made them and yourself so great, back in the foggy mists of your bygone golden age! You are a rotten, stinking pusbag of a city, and you need some serious bitch-slapping to force you to get your shit together. Look at you! You smell of piss and hobo vomit, and your wrinkles are like vast crevasses, eager to swallow men whole. When is the last time you actually felt good about yourself? Honestly? Your glory days long gone, you are relegated to retelling the same old tired stories of your wonder years, the twinkle in your eye having vanished many years back.
It’s high time for me to leave you once again for greener pastures. No, don’t say that! I never, ever wanted to just give up on you. Not once! But sadly, you have left me finally with no choice.
From now on, and until you change your ways, and i mean really seriously take a good long hard look at yourself and actually change your ways… you are dead to me. You will one day soon be that thankfully nearly-forgotten ex-, about whom i tell horror stories to my new friends, in a far-off place, away from you and your putrid, decaying streets filled with haunted, meth-hollowed eyes and rivers of discarded waste and gutter-bile.
I honestly do wish you the best, really. But good riddance, when i leave you forever. This time i really truly mean it.
