WAUWATOSA, WIS.
5:30 a.m.
Roughly 9 percent of Wauwatosa’s population is awake. Virtually all of these men and women are wearing Under Armour. Stepping into two to four inches of snow for a three to five mile run, they ask themselves “Why am I doing this?” and promptly respond “Because otherwise I’d be fat and ugly and unfulfilled like everyone else.” Comforted, they run.
6:00 a.m.
Roughly 80 percent of Wauwatosa’s dogs are awake, their bladders full.
6:30 a.m.
Schoolchildren, ages 11 to 18, wake up, reset alarms, sleep more, awaken again. They stumble into bathrooms and urinate heartily, in toilets and showers both. Boys shave at varying degrees of superfluity, mostly with electric razors. A select few girls, ages 12 to 14, have risen early specifically to shave, though with non-electric razors. Most girls opt against doing this for another week or so, it being winter, i.e. jean season.
The schoolchildren prepare breakfasts of all kinds: Pop-Tarts, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, instant oatmeal, toast, frozen bagels, frozen waffles, toast with honey, OJ, grape juice, cold pizza, frozen french toast sticks, cigarettes, etc.
They brush their teeth and self-examine for acne.
Parents administer Adderall to children, Zoloft to themselves. They chase Nyquil with Dayquil, coffee with Aspirin. Later in the day, a 16 year old boy will claim to be “robotripping” on shoplifted cough syrup to boys who will mostly just laugh at him for it.
7:15 a.m.
Roughly 60 students, ages 14 to 18, are scattered through the Wauwatosa High School lobby. They have been awake for an hour and a half and have taken a city bus here from their homes in Milwaukee. They are the benefactors of a county educational program which daily ships urban students to suburbs to improve their learning. They are almost entirely black. They will not leave school until 4:15 p.m., when the most convenient city-bound bus arrives. One of this program’s primary fruits is approximately four Wauwatosa boys per day turning to their friends and quietly asking: “Why are the black people always hanging out in our lobby?”
7:40 a.m.
Men and women ages 27 to 38 walk their young children to school. They ask questions about the child’s daily routine and listen intently to the answers. They hold hands as they approach streets and spend many seconds checking intersections. If, upon being dropped off, their children cry, the parents smile inwardly as they leave. If the children run through the classroom to play with toys and friends, the parents swallow back tears, waving unnoticed goodbyes.
Some older students walk to school in well-established, text-regulated groups. Others walk alone, hoping to bump into a friend or acquaintance on their way. Still others walk alone quickly, headphones in, hoping to avoid chatty acquaintances so early in the morning. Some prepare for class by climbing into friends’ minivans…They emerge minutes later in a cloud of smoke, stinking of Axe, their eyes vascular.
8:15 a.m.
Men and women back out of their driveways in Subarus, Volvos, Honda Accords, Honda Civics, Toyota Prius’s, SUVs, Audis and just a few Mini Coopers. They are divided here between AM and FM radio. Within FM, they are divided between NPR and the Greatest Hits of the Eighties, Nineties and Today. Some drum their wheels and hum along to a song by Jack Johnson. “I like this guy,” they think.
9 a.m.
Shops are opening or have opened. They are folded in clumps into residential Wauwatosa. There is a hardware store, a Little Caesar’s, a bakery, a deli, a candy store, a candy-and-hot-dog store, a McDonalds, a Starbucks, a drycleaner, a nail salon, two beauty salons and more. Virtually all are manned by one-time students of Wauwatosa High School. No longer students, they are now cashiers, bakers, butchers, Customer Assistants, Sales Representatives, Sweepers, Washers, etc.
Offices are quiet. Men and women walk past each other’s open doors, peering in, saying “good morning.” They wonder if they should stop and say more. They decide not to and head back to work.
12:15 p.m.
At lunch, a boy in plaid shorts freestyles to a handful of lampshade haircuts. Two girls (and the boy who follows them around) half-giggle, half-sing a number from the previous night’s Glee.
In the shops, the ex-students lean against counters and drink Mt. Dew. They wait for the after school rush. Sometimes a mild schizophrenic will come in and pass the time, unnerving a handful of men and women, here to escape their offices over lunch.
Returning to their offices, the men and women make plans for dinner, wondering whether to get groceries before or after picking their children up from school.
At school, teachers tire. They grant in-class work time. Students use this to sleep and listen to iPods. They play iPod games and talk about awards shows. They do homework for other classes and plan to play Guitar Hero after school.
Everyone waits for school to let out.