muthafuckin drive by
this afternoon was spent doing car things, redoing some of the upholstry. I was working in the back near justins shop, he was in and out doing his fire things, then he loaded his truck up and left. I finished up and went inside.
just as i get in my room i am sitting on my couch and i hear "pop pop pop pop pop pop pop!" now, explosive 'pops' are not a foreign sound either in this neighborhood or living over a pyrotechie shop (did i write about how i woke up the other morning because something literally *exploded* downstairs and knocked stuff off my walls?). but these particular pops were scarier because a) i knew justin was not home blowing things up b) they were coming from the street side of the house, not the shop side c) they got louder as they went - the last pop was probably right in front of my house.
i actually dropped down off the couch for a minute to make sure i wasnt infront of the streetside window. I waited a few minutes and took a look outside and i couldnt see anything so i went back in. Then about ten minutes late the sirens started running up the street.
They yellow taped an entire block off in between the liquor store (22nd street) and the baptist church (24th street), from sidewalk to sidewalk (my house is on the corner of 26th - there arent any odd numbered streets). Firemen came, then the ambulance, then the news trucks.
of course people seem to get shot out here just about nightly. Wednesday there were only two, a few blocks in the other direction. Tuesday, four. Not sure if anything happened last night, it takes a day or two for it to make it to google news, if it makes it at all.
so i stood on the corner for a while watching - still just wearing my socks, i didnt bother with shoes since i was just wandering out of my house. Some of the neighbors showed up and stood there with me. Somebody said it was "a light skinned dude" that got shot and i automatically took an inventory of the handful of 'light skinned dudes' that i knew in the area - probably a total of six. But i wasnt clear about wheter 'light skinned dude' meant white or just high yellow african american.
I met a few of them. They talked about how usually nobody cares cuz its just 'blacks killing blacks' and we joked that if i got shot the cops would be all over that. There was a girl about my age that lives a few blocks down - she said she remembered when i moved in - "about a year ago". I guess the white punky kids in my house stand out pretty clearly in this neighborhood. Brightly you might say.
She talked about how she lost her eight month old baby - natural causes i think - and how whenever she hears a gun go off she just feels bad for the momma. "Cuz its one thing to lose your baby after a few months but after eighteen, twenty years..."
Then the older woman who lives next door startes talking - she said she was something like seventy five years old - she looks a lot younger. She said she had thirteen children(!). She said she was walking next to my house ("right down there" she said, and pointed to someplace just past my car) a bunch of years ago with one of her sons and somebody came up from behind them, shot him in the face and ran. The blast threw her down to the ground and she got all scraped up. She went over to her son and kept her hand over him to stop the bleeding - it turns out he got shot in the upper part of his neck. She was quiet for a little bit and no one wanted to ask if he was okay or not. Finally she said he was 'lucky' and they said he might not be able to talk after, but he can now and he's alright, and we all stopped holding our breath. She said she knew what to do to stop the bleeding 'on instinct' "cuz she was a momma."
So this is the way i finally meet the neighbors - from watching the white police scoop up a dead guy from down the block. Nice. I didnt actually see that much - no bodies - it was too far away.
This morning cokeboy gave couchdude a talking to. Rosie asked him to last night i think. Told him to leave. I guess he was stealing more and more food (and lots of alcohol) from rosie, and grabbed a bunch of money from eli's piggy bank too.
When i came home though he was sitting on the porch. He looked pretty rough. The door was locked but i didnt want to deal with any of that so i didnt say anything when he came in after me - i just went straight into my room for a bit. I think he might have just gotten some more of his stuff and left. Or maybe he stole some more shit for good measure -he certainly didnt leave any money for the pg&e bill that rosie told him to pay.
so it all makes me curious about who the 'light skinned dude' who got shot was. That would be... i dont know. weird? I didnt want him on the couch but i didnt want him dead either.
as a weird balance to all this fucked up neighbor hood stuff, the guy next door saw me going out to my car today and gave me a big box of asparagus to share with the house. he runs some kind of help-house that strikes me as pretty damned sketchy a lot of the time. he seems real nice, but theres a bunch of mad sketchy dudes who are in and out all the time. anyway he gets food and clothing donations a lot and always offers stuff if theres more than he needs.
Theres one guy who rides a bike up and down the street at night, he goes up to the corner, circles around, whistles at someone, and just generally looks like he's being sketchy. Keri thought he was the guy who was breaking windows about this time last year, but i havnt noticed him since then.
He came up to me last night while i was messing with my car. I've been working on the wiring so the inside looks like its been completly stripped. No radio. No plastic trim even. Just wires and metal. He asked me something about where 'the foundation' was - except i know he goes there all the time. I just said 'i dont know man' and remembered that my knife was onthe seat next to me just in case.
He acted like he was all offended that i was being 'rude' and i just said that he was in the wrong neighborhood for friendly at nine oclock at night. He went away to be sketchy someplace else.
Did i mention i put an alarm in my car this time?
part of me thinks i should just move someplace else, but then i get all angry that it would mean moving someplace 'whiter' and how wrong that all is. that nobody cares about the neighborhood enough to even notice that it shouldnt be this bad. i dont mean the people who live here either, these are all good people, in fact most of them probably see me as a little sketchy - i look wierd, i dont go to church - but no cops are around most of the time (not that i'm a fan, but it is supposed to be a governmental service), nothing gets fixed up, theres obviously very little money going into general upkeep of anything. i think they're right, nobody gives a shit if black folks kill black folks.
just as i get in my room i am sitting on my couch and i hear "pop pop pop pop pop pop pop!" now, explosive 'pops' are not a foreign sound either in this neighborhood or living over a pyrotechie shop (did i write about how i woke up the other morning because something literally *exploded* downstairs and knocked stuff off my walls?). but these particular pops were scarier because a) i knew justin was not home blowing things up b) they were coming from the street side of the house, not the shop side c) they got louder as they went - the last pop was probably right in front of my house.
i actually dropped down off the couch for a minute to make sure i wasnt infront of the streetside window. I waited a few minutes and took a look outside and i couldnt see anything so i went back in. Then about ten minutes late the sirens started running up the street.
They yellow taped an entire block off in between the liquor store (22nd street) and the baptist church (24th street), from sidewalk to sidewalk (my house is on the corner of 26th - there arent any odd numbered streets). Firemen came, then the ambulance, then the news trucks.
of course people seem to get shot out here just about nightly. Wednesday there were only two, a few blocks in the other direction. Tuesday, four. Not sure if anything happened last night, it takes a day or two for it to make it to google news, if it makes it at all.
so i stood on the corner for a while watching - still just wearing my socks, i didnt bother with shoes since i was just wandering out of my house. Some of the neighbors showed up and stood there with me. Somebody said it was "a light skinned dude" that got shot and i automatically took an inventory of the handful of 'light skinned dudes' that i knew in the area - probably a total of six. But i wasnt clear about wheter 'light skinned dude' meant white or just high yellow african american.
I met a few of them. They talked about how usually nobody cares cuz its just 'blacks killing blacks' and we joked that if i got shot the cops would be all over that. There was a girl about my age that lives a few blocks down - she said she remembered when i moved in - "about a year ago". I guess the white punky kids in my house stand out pretty clearly in this neighborhood. Brightly you might say.
She talked about how she lost her eight month old baby - natural causes i think - and how whenever she hears a gun go off she just feels bad for the momma. "Cuz its one thing to lose your baby after a few months but after eighteen, twenty years..."
Then the older woman who lives next door startes talking - she said she was something like seventy five years old - she looks a lot younger. She said she had thirteen children(!). She said she was walking next to my house ("right down there" she said, and pointed to someplace just past my car) a bunch of years ago with one of her sons and somebody came up from behind them, shot him in the face and ran. The blast threw her down to the ground and she got all scraped up. She went over to her son and kept her hand over him to stop the bleeding - it turns out he got shot in the upper part of his neck. She was quiet for a little bit and no one wanted to ask if he was okay or not. Finally she said he was 'lucky' and they said he might not be able to talk after, but he can now and he's alright, and we all stopped holding our breath. She said she knew what to do to stop the bleeding 'on instinct' "cuz she was a momma."
So this is the way i finally meet the neighbors - from watching the white police scoop up a dead guy from down the block. Nice. I didnt actually see that much - no bodies - it was too far away.
This morning cokeboy gave couchdude a talking to. Rosie asked him to last night i think. Told him to leave. I guess he was stealing more and more food (and lots of alcohol) from rosie, and grabbed a bunch of money from eli's piggy bank too.
When i came home though he was sitting on the porch. He looked pretty rough. The door was locked but i didnt want to deal with any of that so i didnt say anything when he came in after me - i just went straight into my room for a bit. I think he might have just gotten some more of his stuff and left. Or maybe he stole some more shit for good measure -he certainly didnt leave any money for the pg&e bill that rosie told him to pay.
so it all makes me curious about who the 'light skinned dude' who got shot was. That would be... i dont know. weird? I didnt want him on the couch but i didnt want him dead either.
as a weird balance to all this fucked up neighbor hood stuff, the guy next door saw me going out to my car today and gave me a big box of asparagus to share with the house. he runs some kind of help-house that strikes me as pretty damned sketchy a lot of the time. he seems real nice, but theres a bunch of mad sketchy dudes who are in and out all the time. anyway he gets food and clothing donations a lot and always offers stuff if theres more than he needs.
Theres one guy who rides a bike up and down the street at night, he goes up to the corner, circles around, whistles at someone, and just generally looks like he's being sketchy. Keri thought he was the guy who was breaking windows about this time last year, but i havnt noticed him since then.
He came up to me last night while i was messing with my car. I've been working on the wiring so the inside looks like its been completly stripped. No radio. No plastic trim even. Just wires and metal. He asked me something about where 'the foundation' was - except i know he goes there all the time. I just said 'i dont know man' and remembered that my knife was onthe seat next to me just in case.
He acted like he was all offended that i was being 'rude' and i just said that he was in the wrong neighborhood for friendly at nine oclock at night. He went away to be sketchy someplace else.
Did i mention i put an alarm in my car this time?
part of me thinks i should just move someplace else, but then i get all angry that it would mean moving someplace 'whiter' and how wrong that all is. that nobody cares about the neighborhood enough to even notice that it shouldnt be this bad. i dont mean the people who live here either, these are all good people, in fact most of them probably see me as a little sketchy - i look wierd, i dont go to church - but no cops are around most of the time (not that i'm a fan, but it is supposed to be a governmental service), nothing gets fixed up, theres obviously very little money going into general upkeep of anything. i think they're right, nobody gives a shit if black folks kill black folks.