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Nine Inch Brains And Packin' 8.8.98
"Its not that bad around where you live," Kevin said. No single
assessment of this area says it all, not the rap lyrics--"Man this world we
livin in ain't nothin but drama, everyone wanna harm ya," nor me saying--"The
corner of Dumaine and Broad has a long history of criminal drama, some days
it seems like a post-apocalyptic nightmare out there, and then we might go for two or three weeks running where there is no visible activity at all."
Last night sitting on the porch listening to Van go on about Isaac (aka. BB),
who is the latest in a long line of tenants over at the hitman's house. BB
is no longer an official resident of the house as his mama threw him out
for stealing twenty dollars from her purse. Some days BB and J Nixon run
around together and other days BB and Van are best pals.
"He don't come back with my money or that inner tube for my bike and I'm gonna
hurt the motherfucker, and J too if he wanna stand behind it."
"Oh, J's talking like that?"
"Yeah man."
"That would hardly be an afternoon's work do you think?"
"Nah man, waste of my time and energy, but this the third time BB run this
game on me."
"Hard to be friends with someone always taking you for a fool."
"That's it, slim."
BB's a pretty likeable drunk and he goofs with the neighborhood kids, which is
nice, but we had a long talk the other night and I quickly put him in that
category called--Trust him as far as I can throw him.
"Like sometime maybe you come home from work and I see you and I buy you a
beer, and we be chillin' out here, and then sometime when I need a beer or
somethin' you would be there for me."
"It may work that way BB, or it may not."
"Okay, okay," BB laughs, realizing I may be a chump of a different order.
But last night is pretty quiet, very little traffic. And the teenage girls
across the street are probably bemoaning this, but when Van goes around
the corner for a beer, the scene changes abruptly, and there is in front of me
five or six shiny new cars driven by young men, and the girls, perhaps over
eager, jump to it, and are out in the street performing flirtation services.
Now the first two cars, the Maxima, and the 4Runner, seem pretty happy about
this turn of events as they are surrounded by teenage girls, eager to please
or tease. The third car in line, however, a gold Saturn occuppied by two
handsome, yet surly and ignored youths, quickly go from interested to
impatient.
"Niggers be rolling around here," I hear the driver say, and watch him as he
surveys the street. But as the girls do not seem to know these boys (which
makes me a little nervous), and surly angst seems to be their only stock in
the charisma trade, the boys, not knowing what else to do, get angry and start
honking their horn. The first two cars join in thinking this is all good fun,
and the girls are laughing and screaming and the Dumaine Symphony is short
lived as the passenger in the gold Saturn steps from the car and...the Maxima
and the 4Runner take off for the corner, where, with super revved engines and
squealing tires, they fishtail onto Broad and into the night. The other five
or six cars follow suit and quick as that Dumaine all sleepy again.