Monday, May 23, 2011

The Speedy Batman/Speakeasy of the East Side

A few days back, I was enjoying the brief stint of decent weather on my front porch, sippin' on tea and juice and listening to Rick Flair mashups, when I was approached by a scrawny but muscular man probably in his late forties wearing a plain black T-shirt, denim shorts, workboots and sunglasses. The first thing he said to me was, "There was a black man on your porch the other night." The man was black himself, though he said "black" in an accusatory fashion. "You notice anything missing?"

 "Not really," I said, though that might have been the fate of our old half-functional vacuum that had sat neglected on the front porch for some time before, I began to notice, apparently disappearing.

The man continued, "I saw him, and I said, 'You know these folks?' and he said, 'Yeah, Joe live here.' and I said, 'You don't know who live here; now get off this porch before I beat yo ass.' I told him that and he took off."

"Well," I said. It occurred to me that the man speaking to me might well have been the same man that rang my doorbell a few nights back, whom I saw walking away when I answered the door. I remembered no intervention. "Appreciate it, I guess."

"Yeah. I'm friends with the chief of police, you know him?"
"I know of him."
"Well I'm friends with him, and when they got a murder or something, need to find a man, they call me. And then I go find them and kick they ass."
"No shit."
"Yeah man. So if I see someone strange comin' on your porch again at night, I'm'a kick they ass too."
"I don't know about that."
"Man these realtors, they don't tell you shit. All they want is your money. They don't tell you nothin' about the area."
"Yeah, they just don't want that much of my money is the thing. I know exactly where I live."

I live just on the east side of Athens, GA, already one of the poorest municipalities in the nation, and while my street itself is not rough, comprising mostly old black families that have been there for generations and own the houses and have jobs, it is not far off from some of the more notorious development projects and the tent city by the river and railroad tracks, both hubs for poverty and crime. Still, I recognize most of the people that I see on the street, I'm friends with my neighbors, and I have yet to experience a break-in, unlike my previous college apartment a block from campus.

"See, I do cocaine myself," the man went on, "I get high. I smoke crack... but I work for it. So I'm just saying. You ever need someone's ass gettin' kicked, you know where to find me." No I didn't. "Also, if you ever need beer on a Sunday or something."
"Oh, I've got that one covered," I said.
"Hey, man, you mind if I have a cigarette?"
"Sure, whatever."

And he left. The speedy Batman/speakeasy of the East Side, up in smoke, on his way, surely, to do a line with the commissioner over an ice cold Sunday beverage. I wish I could pull some sort of moral out of this. If stimulated, even the destitute dream of justice and social freedoms? Complicated excuses raise more suspicions than they alleviate? Don't watch stupid videos outside if you don't want to look like a naive white kid? Entertainment gets you free stuff? Either way, my character profile of this area is constantly widened.