the neighborhood

A man was shot a few months ago on my street. I was at home on a conference call. It was a sunny day and after the police and the ambulance came, all the kids went back to whatever they were doing outside.

From what I read and what I've been told the man didn't live in the neighborhood. He was a "bad apple" and had been in trouble before. He had crossed the wrong people. But he was visiting his mother, who as it turns out wasn't home. He died.

I told at least a dozen people the story. This man’s death became a bragging right. I told his story because it spoke to the character of my neighborhood, it ruggedness, it's toughness and my own by extension. And yes, it makes me sick to think I could be that callous, to treat his life as fodder for gossip, the seed of this blog post, but I couldn't and still can't resist.

When I heard the shots, I didn't do anything. I was still trying to tell myself they weren't gunshots,but cars don't backfire three times in succession. My apartment-mate had called down to the street, "Is everyone okay?" Even at the time, it seemed an absurd question. But it wasn't a scenario, either of us were used to. And in her way, she was trying to help.

A friend asked me later if I had called the police. It hadn't even occurred to me. I stayed on that conference call, shaken but not really wanting to believe the worst.

Only a few days ago, I saw a group of teens shouting loudly in the street and a car take off after a boy who was running. "Get him. Run over the n#%&@r," one boy shouted. Another girl in the crowd screamed, "That's my cousin." She was crying, hands in her hair, bending over as if she might collapse, a few girls held her up. I kept thinking, "How many boys can outrun a car?"

I'm only a guest in this neighborhood, even though I've been here for over five years. There is a linguistic, racial, and economic divide that separates my side of the street from those across the way. The fighting frightens me more than I want to admit, but it doesn't affect me anyway near as much as it effects the neighbhorhoods real tenants. The grieving mother, the scared cousin and the alternately tough and terrified manboys that find themselves running down my block. but mostly it makes me sad to think that in all this time I've probably never said even a "hello" to any of them.