Cairo

I hesitated about even doing an interview in Illinois on this trip. My home state always feels a bit too backyard. Like I already know its contours. What else could I learn? Especially compared to all the other states I’ve never been. I know this is wrong but the little impulse in my head is there every time. At the very southern tip of Illinois, as far down as you can go, is a small town called Cairo where the Ohio meets the Mississippi River. 

I stopped in the remnants of a gas station on the North side of town where I was instructed promptly that the town rhymes with “marrow” not “Spyro.” All that’s left of the old gas station is the mini-mart. But that little mart serves as the central grocery for the town of 1,500 or so. Behind the counter is a pleasant Yemeni man, happy in his position as town grocer, checking in on an encyclopedic list of personal detail about the half dozen regulars who stop by. He’s shy about his English in front of an outsider like me, smiling but denying my request to talk on the record. He recommended I talk with one of his customers instead. 

Jaalah Barbar came in moments later for a couple of cherry Now-and-Laters. She was bright eyed with a thoughtful cadence to her speech. The first question, about respect drew out a reflection on consistency. 

“With respect it’s all about a mutual understanding I think. That both people are treating each other kindly, that both of you are good people who give. But then again, sometimes you see those same people kind to your face and then you hear them sayin ass about you behind your back. So you’ve gotta trust that the other person is consistent too for them to be worthy of trust.”

Her first answer struck me with how socially bound her definition of respect is. It’s a commodity earned by social consistency and consensus. It’s very much a community value. But unlike in others I’ve talked to, she seemed to load that community value with as much frustration as she did pride. Jaalah was born and raised here in Cairo, and visibly limited by it.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I can say, it’s not a good place. Growing up here, it’s like you’re starting at the bottom of the totem pole and you’ve gotta work so much harder to get anywhere good. That’s the challenge with a good life from a place like this. A good life depends so much on your surroundings, your stability, your community, nature.

Nature might be most important of all those. Here in Cairo it’s like nature is against you. The city floods every year. It’s so often we have a ‘flood season.’ It’s a good year when you can say you didn’t get your house totally flooded. Right now I’ve got water residue in my basement. Now that doesn’t matter much to me, the floods. I’ll walk the flooded streets here in bare feet. You know we’re real country people down here. This whole community is built now from people that came from the slaves that used the river to get here from. Missouri. So the river water isn’t scary or anything for all of us but it’s tough to feel like you’re always fighting the world around you.”

The beautiful thing about talking with Jaalah was that she led the conversation naturally between my questions like she knew them beforehand. I asked now what it meant to have dignity.

“I think it comes down to your name. If that’s taken from you, there’s not much else you can do meaningfully. You build a reputation, a career, a sense of self on your name and if that name gets ruined in front of people, there’s not much you can do. Me for example, I have two last names, one of them is the Native American name. I don’t use that one out of respect for the tribe. 

That’s probably not so true here but that’s because no one cares enough anymore in Cairo. The whole town is different from how it used to be even 5-6 years ago. Everything has just deteriorated so much. 

We had what I’d call a ‘high year’ a little while back; we got a Subway and a Fish Market but that all went down. People stealing and stuff. Just made it impossible. Bunch of people thought it would just always be there, and they could get as much free food as they wanted. Then sooner. Or later they just failed. They’ve been sitting empty for a year or so now. 

Or just look down at the ‘historical stuff’ down on the south side of town. You walk by that and you can hear the sound of deterioration in your ears. And there’s really no coming back from that. It feels like the town is dying.”

Here she offered the purest distillation of the small town quandary that I’ve heard yet. I listened to her speak nearly uninterrupted except for an occasional “tell me more about that” as she laid out the blueprint for the problems of rural America. 

“Whatever help there might be, it just took too long. Down here the government doesn’t help either. We’ve got all these government buildings and all but there’s no help to keep the town alive. Not much you can do now. We’re too far gone. So we have to do it on our own. The only way we get by is by helping each other. Like look that guy across the street. He doesn’t own that building but there he is cutting the grass. 

Still there’s not much we can do to reverse the deterioration. I’m hoping to finish up CNA courses and get out of town. Maybe I’ll go to Dallas, I’ve got family down there. But our minimum wage is better here in Illinois. I don’t know exactly. I just know there’s nothing for me here.”

I remember the grocer behind the counter saying that the town was shrinking and coming apart. Jaalah knew it too. And I presume part of the reason is because it was losing people like her.