In 1989, the Red Hot Chili Peppers played at Shafer Court on the VCU campus, Gwar was spewing blood and guts citywide and it seemed like everyone was at the Village drinking coffee and getting the breakfast special with a waiter with Buddy Holly glasses.
I was a student at VCU, half my head shaved, Doc Martins on my feet and a baby in my belly.
Yeah, that wasn’t really part of the plan.
I was twenty years old carrying eighteen credits and pregnant and all I knew was that I was screwed. The dad was in a band called Avail that had some local popularity prompted in part by the naked crowd surfing that was occurring at their shows and a member of the band called Beau Beau who ended every show with either stitches a healthy bruise somewhere on his body or a back flip.
The band died a quick, small death with a funeral like no other at the Metro on Grace Street; there were many naked smiling people and it was sad the band whose catch phrase was “poor ugly happy” died such a sudden death. I felt like Yoko breaking up the band with my brand new baby on the way.
I headed home to Northern Virginia, sober and somber, to have a baby and “be responsible”.
It didn’t take long until we were back in Richmond with our boy whom we called Beau G Banks. We hated the suburbs and Richmond was a forgiving city to have a kid in; it was a kind city for poor people.
Richmond didn’t care that I had no driver’s license because everywhere a young mother needed to go could be accessed by bicycle or bus.
Richmond entertainment was cheap and involved many nights something so simple as porch sitting and people watching with a cold beverage close by.
The thrift store, the grocery store up the street, the college I was sporadically attending, the art museum I worked at, the libraries I borrowed books at and the parks I threw a blanket and a book down at in were all within my grasp and most importantly…free.
My son attended a school called William Fox, the finest in public education that Richmond had to offer and even the welfare office was in walking distance.
Housing for college students was in abundance and cheap. I lived in a house with five of those band members plus my little family and we paid a mere eighty dollars each. My son and I used the sidewalk outside of our house like a playground, playing foursquare and learning how to ride a bike over its bumpy terrain.
Life was good and Beau thrived despite the odds his young and now divorced parents had placed on him.
Beau attended Maggie Walker High School and graduated from there with eight classmates that he had shared circle time with fourteen school years before.
Now my son attends the same college I did.
He walks the same path to get there down West Main Street and though some of the buildings he studies in have changed and they’ve added more dorms and the student center has things like Taco Bell and a bowling alley, it’s really not much different.
In the city itself, the art museum has expanded, the libraries offer books on line, the parks have disc golf and paddle boats but it is still a city that you can hear a rumor like Avail’s old band member Beau Beau is running for mayor in a few more years and it just might be true.
The day I moved here for college I knew I’d stay, I just didn’t know I’d never leave.
I have grown up here and so have my children. I have watched people die here and I have watched people be born. My children have been educated in its’ schools, I have worked in its’ institutions, I have sweated on its basketball courts and my husband has fought its’ fires as a member of the Richmond firefighters.
It is where my children’s story starts and where my story will probably end.
My fervent hope is that it ends in fine Richmond tradition with me on a porch, a cold one in my hand, my husband by my side and a thousand stories of the city I love in my heart.
About Rebecca Suder