Community Spirit (Part 2)
Our landlord has replaced the light on the back porch twice. Three lights, and none have worked more than two weeks. We've got a string of holiday lights running down the banister. They're there more to keep the cockroaches at bay than to provide any sort of usable light. So when the first police cruiser drove by, its lights lit up the porch like fireworks.
I was smoking my last cigarette before I turned in when three more cruisers and a paddy wagon sped by, stopped at the next block, and made what seemed to be a improtu roadblock. Pecan Avenue was lit up like New Year's Eve in Times Square.
I set up watch on the front porch, drink in one hand and cigarette in the other.
I wasn't there long before the thirty-something long-haired blonde from up the block walked by. His assesment of the situation: "Some guy crashed a car on Thomas Street and fled. They shined a searchlight in my face, before they realized I wasn't who they were looking for. I'm not black."