The police received a grant to catch speeders and drugs on our street. They pull people over all night and give them sobriety tests before our front door. Literally right out front, blocking our car in the driveway. This is probably bad karma, but they can be funny to watch. Funny in a "sad that I'm living in a place where human freedom and dignity carries such a small value but still finding it hillarious to watch drunk people stand on one foot and stagger through a straight line" kind of way.
We are in a crowded neighborhood, a house sandwiched between a ghetto beauty shop and an old 50's gas station. A few blocks away is a mission and a few blocks the other direction is the salvation army store and shelter, so there are lots of wandering homeless. If you leave anything on your porch it will be stolen by someone who probably needs it more than you. A block away, just past the local meth lab is a river and a set of train tracks. Across the bridge is a dive bar, 2 strip clubs, a gambling place, a new gay bar, a pool hall. The other direction is a bunch of bodega's plastered with hideous yellow sale signs and dollars or cents in the name.
There are lots of sex offenders living close by, but this is true of anywhere. Look your neighborhood up on the sex offendor site sometime if you want to be frightened. Perhaps they go overboard with the sex offendor label though. I met a man who was nearly put on it for being caught by police urinating on a wall behind a bar. But I digress.
Now we are flooded with police. This is a polarizing place, a violent place, a place of cracked roads and inexplicable coyotes, domestic shouting matches and cracked streets. I have a new band together and this is where we practice, microphone stand making shadows in the blue flashing lights, distant boat and train whistles and rattling homeless carts. It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood. How about you?
|
Loading...