God's Pocket

Richard Shellburn: [writing] Until recently, you only had to die once in this city... even if you came from God's Pocket. There was a time when a 23-year-old working man could die once, have the event noticed in his local newspaper, and then move on to his reward without the complications of an additional death. Leon Hubbard's death was reported incorrectly by this newspaper last week. But, then, Leon Hubbard wasn't important.

Richard Shellburn: Leon Hubbard was like the other working people of God's Pocket: dirty-faced, uneducated, neat as a pin inside. They work, marry, and have children who inhabit the Pocket, often in the homes of their mothers and fathers. They drink at The Hollywood, or the Uptown Bar, little places deep in the city. And they argue there about things they don't understand... politics, race, religion. And in the end, they die like everyone else; leaving their families and their houses and their legends. And there is a dignity in that. We owe Leon Hubbard an apology, and all the people who knew him and loved him and worked with him. If we stop listening to Leon Hubbard's story and all the neighborhood stories like it, eventually the neighborhoods will stop listening to ours.