BEDROOM COMMUNITY

I roam the streets at night alone. The sound of a barking dog or an overhead Delta 747 is all I have to comfort me, for I live in Peachtree City, bedroom community. No one is awake here at night, the Waffle House stands almost empty, missing it's native gathering of truck drivers, wrestling aficionados and fans of the hardened artery. In a Fayette county town like this one, or neighboring Tyrone, or even quieter, Brooks, there is no noise at night, for Atlanta's work force is asleep. We're called a bedroom community for this very reason.

Our $200,000 homes serve as apartments during the workweek, as simple shelter from the corporate storms that rage on streets like Marietta and Peachtree. Children cry, nanny's weep. Golf carts recharge idly, standing as metaphor for sleeping mothers and fathers that don the face of executive during daylight hours yet now, seek to recoup energy in the scant hours of night. Now impotent, they anxiously toss and turn in slumber, comforted only by the finest mattress a burdensome living can buy. Giving testament to their drive to find rest, they don't even notice the 11 O'clock news anymore, which to retain attention, now must dress itself worse than any Ponce De Leon prostitute. (And, my apologies to the hookers.)

Shadows make play in desolate cul de sacs and parking lots throughout my city. Alone they yearn for activity, only giving thanks to the streetlights that keep them alive till dawn. Barely the changing of the day and all lays quiet. Only a tenured phys ed instructor could compete with this lack of animation.

Adversely, Atlanta stands alive and vibrant in the night. This same city fueled by these sleeping ones' blood, sweat and careers remains vibrant and noisy, churning out art and fury side by side. Underground is crowded with tourists and policemen, Little Five Points is teeming with alternative. And Buckhead? Buckhead is jammed with the beautiful; all dancing the tango of romance, love and "I've really never done this before."

In Atlanta, those that never sleep are the very tribe that we in the bedroom community try to evade. They might represent our past of frenzy and party, mistakes we none too soon can forget, nor be tempted by again. They might be our fear of failure, embodied in those that remain and stagger only because they have nowhere to return. Those that never sleep in Atlanta might be the sort that we fear because they are the ones who seek to take the things we have so steadily worked for and so fervently want to hold on to; until we sell them at a really good discount when we have a yard sale.

Why we have these fears or even if we have these fears is debatable. Yet our city does remain quiet, our roads dormant in this midnight hour. A noisy siren shrieks in the distance. It's not a police car chasing a criminal. It's not a roaring fire truck saving the innocent from the grip of death. In Peachtree City, it's just someone's guarded Jaguar with a sensitive alarm.

Billy Murphy - 8/14/97