Adam probably doesn't want me broadcasting to the world that we indeed live in the ghetto (you know, that whole internal monologue mantra he's got going), but last night proved it.
"As a crowd gathers round an angry young man,
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand,
In the ghetto".
Okay, maybe I'm being a little overdramatic, but there were shots that rang out, and there was a crowd of people fleeing the scene...once the cops showed up. I went to bed last night around midnight, only to be awakened at 12:45am by the sound of firecrackers--bang, bang, bang, bang. Adam was working in the office, but didn't respond, because people in our neighborhood set off firecrackers anytime of year. But it was the sound of screaming men and women afterward that made me think that this time the sound hadn't really been pyrotechnics. As the screaming and yelling grew louder and longer, I called out to Adam, who joined me at our bedroom window. We heard 3-4 more bangs, more yelling, then the sound of police cars arriving at the scene, which must have been only one street over from ours. A steady stream of people started pouring onto our street--several of them running, presumably, from the squad cars--talking trash, laughing or sounding really upset. We started seeing the police cars enter our street, and the officer got out and started frisking some of the individuals who had been running. I heard one officer yell out, "Why are you running?". We definitely live in a cop-aversion neighborhood, so to many folks, I think it's normal to avoid the cops. At one point, I saw a young man attempt to run up our long, dark driveway to hide; I yelled at him from the window to get off my property and he did, not knowing who the crazy lady yelling from the dark house could be. For the next two hours, squad cars patrolled my street, pulling over and temporarily detaining and questioning loiterers who were acting suspicious.
The whole debacle was a real let-down for me, as I have tried for 6 years now to prove to Adam that we actually do live in a decent neighborhood. The people here might be poor, I'd say, but they are just good people trying to do right by the community and get along. Last night was sort of the final straw for my increasingly weak argument. All of my ideas for community-building, neighborhood outreach and social activism seem to be gurgling clockwise down the toilet. How can I reach out and convince a neighborhood of people to take the next step to community improvement when they seem happy to watch it slide downhill? I'm not saying the entire neighborhood is like this; certainly there are people like Mrs. G. who have been here for years and years, and are just trying to live out a peaceful retirement. And folks like our other neighbors, young 20-somethings who work several jobs to meet their mortgage, keep their property neat, and are all the things one would want in a neighbor. However, it seems as though the more negative element--loiterers who hang out all hours of the day and night, blast their music at 2am on a weeknight, throw their trash all over the street without care, and conduct shady dealings in broad daylight--are slowly but surely taking over. I'm not scared, but I'm definitely feeling more cautious. Gone are the days when I'd prop the front door open at night to let in fresh air in the hot summer months. I watch everyone now with a slightly suspicious eye, especially since Mrs. G. saw a young man trying to get into her car a few weeks ago.
Thing is, I'm not ready to give up on my community. I still believe whole-heartedly that the right person with the right experience could change this place around. Problem is, I'm less and less sure that that person is me.
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