By Eric Blauer
The pool table had to go to make room for more stylish wood and metal seats to accommodate the bulging gentrification crowd.
The last place that had one pool table, had removed it. It was the only spot that I could take my aging friend who lives in the neighborhood to shoot some pool for 50 cents, now it’s gone. Our humble outing was a ritual that made the mostly homebound, TV watching, slowly fading man, kinda’ giddy. The prospect of beating me at a game he considered himself a hustler at, was a highlight in his week.
The look on his face when we walked into the establishment and he saw the pool table gone was heartbreaking. The disappointment in his voice when he tried to ask the guy behind the bar where it went and why, was a stab in my feels.
We left because I couldn’t afford another $40 lunch without the justification of at least the pool time together. We drove out of his neighborhood to look for someplace to eat but the one other restaurant he was wanting to go to had been turned into an antique shop like the other 25 on the street.
So finally we went back to the one place to get a burger by his house that isn’t fast food or doesn’t feel like one of ‘those places’ that the poor or blue collar can afford.
It was packed.
It was loud.
It’s hipsterish.
Everyone is pretty much up and coming or been there and ruling.
He stood out and I stood out with him.
He was discombobulated by the noise, by his recent fall that left his leg sore, his face scratched up and his brain kinda skipping on a scratch of fear, aging and his world closing in on him. Life is sucking him into his comfy chair, locked away in his old house, now even walking is hazardous to his health.
He couldn’t order, he couldn’t pick from the selection of teas, he just sat there looking at the table.
After eating, bathroom breaks, helping him put himself together we left. I had to guide him outside along the fancy sidewalk with its dangerous slopes into rock and grass beautifications. I helped lift him awkwardly into my truck as he rambled about me taking him to the hospital, a place that I think he feels safe at in his increasing state of vulnerability. I told him he didn’t need to go and that I had to take him home.
After I shut his door, I found my self gasping a “Lord have mercy” prayer of angst as I realized our times together were changing. Emotions started pressing in on me as I pulled out of the new parking metered spots.
“I hope I don’t lose you…as my friend…I hope we are friends for a long time,” is what he said underneath his breath as he exited my truck. The moment was almost slow motion and his words hung desperately in the air, like a football thrown that I didn’t know how to catch. I reassured him, but my words felt weak in the face of the reality he is living.
As I drove home to my own low income, gentrifying neighborhood, I fully succumbed to the cloud of melancholy. I am not sure what the answers are to all these complex issues, all I could think to do was write about what gentrification looks, sounds and feels like to some people who are cash poor.
Sorry to hear your experience Eric. As a fellow poor person, who was recently homeless, I’ve compiled a list of great places I have been in Spokane that are laid back and have pool tables. Very reasonably priced food and pool cost only 50 cent…
The Satellite Diner
nYne Bar and Bistro
El Que
Safari Room Fresh Grill & Bar
The Black Diamond
One of my favorites is One Bridge North, super quiet during the morning and into late afternoon. There are about 20 more places, you can check them out on Yelp.
Hang in there… all is not lost buddy!
Thanks for the list Spoon. The issue I was trying to address is the challenge of gentrification and the loss of neighborhood spots for elderly or mobility challenged community members to access by foot. There’s a growing trend to reclaim cheap rent places to build hip spaces but at the cost of displacing neighborhood faces. It’s cool to go drive to these spots and partake of the newest trendy vibes and be unaware of what or who has been eclipsed.
Thanks, Eric. You are so right. We need a culture that is much more hospitable to the weaker and poor than our consumer , money and accumulation driver one.
Great article, Eric. As a West Central-ite, I see this happening, too, and I hope we can find ways to bring our neighborhood closer together through the transitions it’s going through now.