Writer's Block: Who's in your neighborhood
I woke up this morning at 4am to get ready for work. I go to sit out on my roof and enjoy the morning silence as I do every morning. Today, though, who should be awake but four kids from my block smoking up. I've known these kids since I was tiny and it is incredible to think that we all started off the same. We would all get wet around the fire hydrant and then go exploring our alleys. They would come over every day and we would eat the pears off of my tree. And now? I'm waking up to go to work and they have been smoking all night. I'm going to start school and they are going to start their initiations. I have traveled and they have never taken the Metra downtown. I'm working to get the hell out and they are working to stay the hell alive. It is so strange to talk with them and reminisce about old times. We still chill together, but there is no denying that things are simpler when you are young.
Now we are all growing up and my block is changing for the worse. I used to think that I lived on a pretty quiet street compared to rest of this neighborhood, but I was wrong. I forgot that all the kids, myself included, have grown up and while some of us are still in school, most of them have dropped out and joined gangs. Two shoot outs, one in front of my house and another on the corner, in one week have made me realize this. Had I not run to make the early train back home and had taken the one half an hour later, I would have either been caught in the middle, or at the very least I would have seen everything. And these are the kids I used to play hop scotch with.
Strange.
Now we are all growing up and my block is changing for the worse. I used to think that I lived on a pretty quiet street compared to rest of this neighborhood, but I was wrong. I forgot that all the kids, myself included, have grown up and while some of us are still in school, most of them have dropped out and joined gangs. Two shoot outs, one in front of my house and another on the corner, in one week have made me realize this. Had I not run to make the early train back home and had taken the one half an hour later, I would have either been caught in the middle, or at the very least I would have seen everything. And these are the kids I used to play hop scotch with.
Strange.