I went walking through the neighborhood Saturday with the Mayor, business owners, other interested residents and several police officers. I'm always out walking in the neighborhood anyway, and I was interested in hearing what people had to say. The business owners in particular are becoming desperate over the activity associated with the drug trade. It's been getting much worse lately and having a negative effect on business, even beyond the down economy, which is bad enough.
The tour ended at a local restaurant, where everyone gathered at a table by the window facing the street, and each gave their horror stories of what occurs around their businesses every day, at all hours. They were talking about their interactions with the drug dealers when one person pointed out the window to say "and there's the worst of them, right there". I turned and looked, with everyone else, and he was looking right back, fully aware that something was going on that concerned him. One woman with a store on that corner said she's talked to him, asked him why he's out there, and he's told her straight out that there's a lot of money to be made and he's not going away.
The business owners see it all the time, but I'm out there walking through it all the time. One of the officers asked me what I thought about all of it, as someone who lives here. I replied that I don't antagonize the drug dealers, for safety's sake. I'm always there, they accept me as a fixture of the neighborhood and we pretty much mind our separate business. I may have lost my protective neutral status, unfortunately.
The next night, Sunday, I was wandering through the area trying to decide where to eat. I could hear someone keeping in step several paces behind me, with the shuffling sound of denim scraping the pavement. This continued on around the corner and down the block, while I went on with business as usual, looking at a neon sign I wanted a photo of, although I didn't care to take my camera out just then. Before reaching the end of the block I stepped over to the curb and paused as if to consider the restaurants across the street, actually to let the follower pass. Then I fell in behind him, and he turned to see what I was doing, the same person who had been identified as the "worst" on Saturday. I was deliberately not looking straight at him.
He turned the corner, sticking to the territory of his block, and I crossed to the next block to go to a taco place, which had just closed and locked the door. I retraced my steps, took the photo I wanted, and went back through the heart of this territory to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant. The mood on the streets was very militant, with groups of men in hooded sweatshirts walking together, animated, loud, swinging fisted arms for emphasis - not at all like the normal business of a night, when they space themselves out along the sidewalks as sentries and to direct buyers.
The only other time I've come close to having a problem on the streets, it was not with a dealer, but an addict. He was on the streets for a long time and I had unpleasant encounters with him daily, sometimes several times a day. He was a young man, toothless, hair lank and dirty, overall filthy, aggressively approaching with the same whining plaint each time, asking for money for food, for hygiene, obviously desperate, but it was also obvious that he was more desperate for drugs than for anything else. He would never remember that he had already been in my face once, twice or three times that day, ten times that week, and I finally lost tolerance for him. One night fire flashed from my eyes and I didn't bother with any of the usual courtesies, just walked on. I guess that made him angry in turn, because he followed me. I wasn't worried and wouldn't have gone anywhere where there weren't people about, but some other street habitue, someone who knew him, saw what was afoot and stopped him to talk, defusing whatever the situation might have been. The addicted young man disappeared from the streets for a while but then I saw him again last year, all cleaned up. He still didn't remember me and politely asked for a bible donation or something like that. I haven't seen him since and think maybe he finally got off the streets for good.
That was an addict, but the dealers are something else entirely. That wasn't a brain addled addict following me the other night, it was someone with a large financial interest at stake, someone who remembered me from one glance through a window. I prefer being invisible, a neutral, non-threatening presence, and although I'm usually pretty good at it I certainly went into the spotlight this time. It seems certain there will be a war on my streets. There will be increased police activity, which normally hopscotches from one area to the next, moving the drug activity about and giving the current neighborhood, and businesses, a breather for a time - but this time may be different. The economy of the drug trade is shaken up along with everything else, the drug cartels are at war with each other, and that violence is spreading. I fear that this neighborhood is where the dealers will hold their ground; they consider it "their" neighborhood and the rest of us as newcomers, upstarts. For now, I maintain an uneasy neutrality and cross the borders at will, but wonder if I will have to choose sides and find a barricade in the near future.
The tour ended at a local restaurant, where everyone gathered at a table by the window facing the street, and each gave their horror stories of what occurs around their businesses every day, at all hours. They were talking about their interactions with the drug dealers when one person pointed out the window to say "and there's the worst of them, right there". I turned and looked, with everyone else, and he was looking right back, fully aware that something was going on that concerned him. One woman with a store on that corner said she's talked to him, asked him why he's out there, and he's told her straight out that there's a lot of money to be made and he's not going away.
The business owners see it all the time, but I'm out there walking through it all the time. One of the officers asked me what I thought about all of it, as someone who lives here. I replied that I don't antagonize the drug dealers, for safety's sake. I'm always there, they accept me as a fixture of the neighborhood and we pretty much mind our separate business. I may have lost my protective neutral status, unfortunately.
The next night, Sunday, I was wandering through the area trying to decide where to eat. I could hear someone keeping in step several paces behind me, with the shuffling sound of denim scraping the pavement. This continued on around the corner and down the block, while I went on with business as usual, looking at a neon sign I wanted a photo of, although I didn't care to take my camera out just then. Before reaching the end of the block I stepped over to the curb and paused as if to consider the restaurants across the street, actually to let the follower pass. Then I fell in behind him, and he turned to see what I was doing, the same person who had been identified as the "worst" on Saturday. I was deliberately not looking straight at him.
He turned the corner, sticking to the territory of his block, and I crossed to the next block to go to a taco place, which had just closed and locked the door. I retraced my steps, took the photo I wanted, and went back through the heart of this territory to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant. The mood on the streets was very militant, with groups of men in hooded sweatshirts walking together, animated, loud, swinging fisted arms for emphasis - not at all like the normal business of a night, when they space themselves out along the sidewalks as sentries and to direct buyers.
The only other time I've come close to having a problem on the streets, it was not with a dealer, but an addict. He was on the streets for a long time and I had unpleasant encounters with him daily, sometimes several times a day. He was a young man, toothless, hair lank and dirty, overall filthy, aggressively approaching with the same whining plaint each time, asking for money for food, for hygiene, obviously desperate, but it was also obvious that he was more desperate for drugs than for anything else. He would never remember that he had already been in my face once, twice or three times that day, ten times that week, and I finally lost tolerance for him. One night fire flashed from my eyes and I didn't bother with any of the usual courtesies, just walked on. I guess that made him angry in turn, because he followed me. I wasn't worried and wouldn't have gone anywhere where there weren't people about, but some other street habitue, someone who knew him, saw what was afoot and stopped him to talk, defusing whatever the situation might have been. The addicted young man disappeared from the streets for a while but then I saw him again last year, all cleaned up. He still didn't remember me and politely asked for a bible donation or something like that. I haven't seen him since and think maybe he finally got off the streets for good.
That was an addict, but the dealers are something else entirely. That wasn't a brain addled addict following me the other night, it was someone with a large financial interest at stake, someone who remembered me from one glance through a window. I prefer being invisible, a neutral, non-threatening presence, and although I'm usually pretty good at it I certainly went into the spotlight this time. It seems certain there will be a war on my streets. There will be increased police activity, which normally hopscotches from one area to the next, moving the drug activity about and giving the current neighborhood, and businesses, a breather for a time - but this time may be different. The economy of the drug trade is shaken up along with everything else, the drug cartels are at war with each other, and that violence is spreading. I fear that this neighborhood is where the dealers will hold their ground; they consider it "their" neighborhood and the rest of us as newcomers, upstarts. For now, I maintain an uneasy neutrality and cross the borders at will, but wonder if I will have to choose sides and find a barricade in the near future.
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