Allison Little

The Woman In The House On The Corner 

The house on the corner of Cherry Street was fairly notorious for a while.  It belonged to a very ill old woman. 

I’d only ever seen her twice, and it was all when I was very young. 

One time I saw her burying her dead cat in the garden. Another time she was planting lavender flowers in a large, cracked container. 

I never really got a good look at her, as I was busy both of the times I saw her. 

On my way to a soccer game with my dad. Walking to the zoo with my aunt. 

I like to think she looked like a truly sweet woman though. A truly sweet and kind old woman. One with aspirations and goals and a lovely life that no one else could see. One that had a good existence despite the cruelty around her. 

It makes me happy to think that. Though I know it’s unrealistically wishful thinking. 

I remember how she was brought up in nearly every conversation the adults had at play dates. You know the kind. When the kids are all busy playing games, and their parents sit around drinking coffee and beer and gossiping in the living room. 

 They would talk about how gorgeous her house could be if she took better care of it. How the trash covering her yard was ruining the neighborhood. How she was probably a crackhead or drunk since she never left her house. How she was a lazy, worthless pig that didn’t care about the image of Cherry Street at all! When in reality she was clearly just sick. 

Probably abused. Grew up in a time she couldn’t ever have gotten help.  And had no one to even push her towards getting some regardless. Just trying to get by. Trying to live. 

Look, I don’t know the reason she piled her yard with furniture and toys and broken trinkets. I don’t know why when you looked into her windows all you could see was more of the same. What others considered “trash”, that I consider to have been cries for help. 

They would take photos of her home. Marvel at its cluttered nature. Complain to the authorities of how “disgusting” she was. Mock her very being until the day she died. 

I was nineteen when it happened. When the neighborhood heard the news. And I could feel the wave of relief wash over all of Cherry Street when it did. 

Finally there was nothing “disgusting” to hurt the neighborhoods image.  Finally the “lazy shut in” could “rot in hell.”  Finally that junker of a home could be sold to someone more “fit” to inhabit it. Finally the people could have something new to gossip about. 

 I was horrified when I heard people say those things. y own family. My neighbors. The people I cared about. 

 Calling each other to celebrate a woman's death. 

 I was revolted by their words. Sickened that the death of a poor, ill old lady could evoke such a feeling of joy.  

She wasn’t hurting anybody. She never did anything wrong. She was just a broken, forgotten, soul. A soul surrounded by people so obsessed and fascinated by her illness, that they would revolve their every conversation around it. Around her problems, but never around ways to help her solve them. Around ways to report her, but never to anyone who could help. Hoarding their horrific gossips the way she hoarded all her things. 

 I was and am repulsed by that street. It’s why I moved away. Far, far away.  And though, I don’t know for sure. I think I’m finally beginning to understand the woman in the house on the corner.  For I too can see the appeal of building a wall of things around me. To keep those things dear because you never know when you may need them. Because objects cannot say such terrible things about you. Because even though, a cluttered and “disgusting” mess may prevent you from ever leaving. It will also prevent the truly disgusting people from ever coming in. 

 I don’t know who lives in the house now. I don’t know if the neighborhood’s changed since I left. And frankly, I don’t care. I’m not going back. 

 I never got a chance to know that woman. But I have to admit, I regret not going to her funeral. 

 Either way, despite my disbelief in a God I like to imagine her afterlife. In the largest, most beautiful home you could ever imagine. Big enough that all her belongings could be spaced out. Playing with her cat. Planting more flowers. Being happy, and blissfully unaware that her home on the corner was talked about and cared for more than she ever was. 

Written By: Kimberly Ashanna Kadian Francis 

As of April of 2024, there have been sixteen reported school shootings. Three were on college campuses and thirteen at K-12 schools. 444,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the Russian invasion, and more than 31,000 have died in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The United States is the largest weapons supplier in the world.  

Hulbert Waldroup expressed his concerns about gun violence at home and abroad in his artwork. The show in the Mildred I. Washington Gallery at Dutchess Community College showed Waldroup’s portraits of the victims from the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre on December 14, 2012, in Newton, Connecticut.  

After killing his mother, Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School where he shot twenty-six children and their teachers, and then committed suicide. His mother took him target shooting with an AR-15, even after she noticed warning signs of his mental health issues.  

Hulbert expressed that if Lanza’s mother had exposed him to exploring his creative side, instead of taking him to the shooting range, he may have found different outlets to express himself rather than picking up a rifle that resulted in a massacre. 

In Waldroup’s paintings, you can see the bullet holes in the victim’s body, then the soul of some of the victims leaving their naked bodies in the different mortuary dimensions as they are realizing that they are dead. The paintings show the victims on the autopsy tables with green forests and light blue skies or in empty dark rooms.  

“Art can be about serious subjects at times and not making art to be happy, especially when there are serious issues in today’s world. In dark times, you can’t always expect an artist’s paintings to be joyous all the time,” Waldroup explained. Therefore, due to the seriousness of ongoing issues with gun violence, Hulbert uses his paintings to provoke thought. Some of his idols have painted the issues of their times in their societies, such as Michelangelo and Dali.  

Waldroup’s painting, “The Rape of the Yazidi Women,” presents the rape, murder and enslavement of the Yazidi women of Iraq by ISIS. The Yazidi faith is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. Less than a million followers who mostly live in the heartland of Iraq were protected by Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s 5th President. After his death and the departure of US armed forces, ISIS used US military tanks and guns to seize power. ISIS enslaved the women and killed the Yazidi men. Then they forced the eradication of their traditions and faith. In the painting, Waldroup placed a peacock above the Yazidi woman. The peacock is the god of the Yazidi. She looks up at her god, as consciousness leaves her body during the sexual assault by the ISIS gang. 

Hulbert Waldroup was born in 1966 in a suburb of Chicago. This is where he developed his love for painting and eventually studied at the American Academy of the Arts. He recalls his first time seeing paintings in a basement filled with artwork. At the age of thirteen, Hulbert sold his first painting. Hulbert’s artwork has been featured in the U.S. and abroad. He is mostly recognized for the mural of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. Diallo, a twenty three-year-old student, was shot by police as he returned home to his apartment in 1999. After fifteen years, Waldroup restored the mural which had been the subject of numerous news articles in major newspapers.