Summertime Brownouts
Eventually, as the years passed and I grew closer to adulthood, more and more of my neighbors acquired air conditioners. This would have been great if the electricity had been up to handling the increased load. Unfortunately, it was not. So we would get brownouts.
We would be sitting inside with a fan blowing 85 degree heat on us when all of a sudden the TV would snap off with a click! The lights would go out and the fan would wind down. Then we would hear our neighbors one by one coming out onto their front porches to discuss this latest power failure. The weird thing about a brownout it that it's small. Sometimes we would have power while the people across the street were in darkness. Sometimes the brownout would extend all the way to Fox Park. On those nights I would go out wandering. I would explore the darkness like it was a new toy, wandering down alleys sending out feelers, looking for danger. Being a teenager, I was totally convinced that I could handle anything. After all, I had seen a biker almost die. I had sniped at my friends with a homemade pull-tab gun. I had walked through the projects alone at one in the morning... I could cope with anything lurking in the humid blackness that engulfed my neighborhood from time to time. Riiiight.
One night, I decided that I needed to go get cigarettes in the middle of one of these brownouts. The streetlights were out almost all the way to the Vicker's Gas station, so I strutted through 4 blocks of murky night, totally unafraid. The lights were on at the station, and there were 4 adolescent boys hanging out by one of the pumps. I sized them up; decided I could take out any two of them if need be, and went inside to buy my cigarettes.
When I came back out of the store, the boys appeared to be talking themselves into something... and I started to smile.
I sauntered slowly into the darkness, mentally egging them on, "Are you gonna be chicken, or will you dare to follow me?" They took the bait and started after me. Heh. I extended my senses and heard one of them whisper, "We really gonna do her?" That was all I needed to hear. My adrenaline shot up and I broke out in goose bumps. This was danger, and I was so riding that rush. I heard them quicken their pace, their cheap tennis shoes slapping the sidewalk behind me, so I sped up myself. I could almost feel their breath on my neck when I broke into a run. My brain had kicked into over-drive. I thought, "I can outrun them!"
Instead I dashed around a corner into an alley. I ran past an empty glass bottle, rejected it as a weapon, thought about scaling the cast-iron drainpipe to my right, decided it would take too much time, debated running the length of the alley to the glowing street beyond, and did none of it. This all flashed through my head in a split-second as I picked the darkest spot I could find and turned to face my would-be attackers bare handed.
They came around the corner and lost their nerve. All the shit that I had seen and experienced and kept quiet about came welling up inside of me, and I yelled at them, "You want to rape me!? Come on! Not one of you will be walking out of here, I guarantee it!"
The little bastards went back to the Vicker's station. I was left shaking from head to toe, stunned with myself and stunned at the world in general. These boys were probably around my own age of 16. I don't think any of them could have talked themselves into actually raping me, and I'll bet I scared the hell out of them. They probably thought I had a gun or something; after all, it was dark in that alley.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Saturday, July 05, 2003
Independance Day
You would think that a neighborhood living under the crushing weight of poverty would not spare any money for fireworks, wouldn't you? That might be so for other areas, but my neighborhood was full of Hoosiers, (see glossary) so our 4th of July would start in mid-June.
Most kinds of pyrotechnics were illegal in the city of St. Louis, so getting ahold of some meant a daring run out to Molly Brown's Fireworks, and a stealthily circuitous route back into the city. You couldn't ride a bus with a bag full of explosives, even back in the 80's, therefore a car was your only option. Molly Brown's sat right outside of St. Louis County, and the cops would sit up on a hill watching people pull out of the lot, just waiting for someone to be stupid enough to cross the county line. They would pull you over, confiscate your entire stash, and generally laugh at you to boot. It sucked. My neighbors would try to time their runs to periods when the cops would be busy elsewhere. They would drive out there every week and buy a small assortment, then dash back. The hope was that the cops would let you keep your stuff if it was a small enough collection. They usually did let you keep it, if what you had bought seemed reasonable.
Trust me, there was nothing reasonable about the quantity of fireworks set off in my neighborhood.
The all-time favorites were bottle rockets and m80's (which you can't buy anymore). Bottle rockets were cheap, so you could buy hundreds for a pittance and keep yourself occupied all night long. My neighbors didn't buy bottle rockets by the hundreds, they bought them by the thousands. Every weekend for a month, the sky would be lit with crappy little bursts of sparks, and every morning afterward the street would look like Barbie's war zone. Countless blackened beer bottles would be lying in the gutter, and little cardboard tubes on little red sticks were all over the place. How attractive.
As the 4th drew nearer, people would become more and more careless with their hoards of things that go bang in the night. By the time the first weekend in July rolled around, you could actually sleep through the noise. Then the hoosiers would break out their guns. I tell you there's nothing like hearing drunken fools firing rounds into the air, and wondering if any of those little balls of lead would finally punch through your already leaky roof and hit something. It always struck me as terribly wasteful. Ammunition is meant for killing things. It doesn't even make sparks. It just goes way up, then comes back down again. Stupid.
Of course, smart people understand the theory of gravity. Perhaps those idiots think their bullets are, even now, orbiting the planet.
Believe it or not, trying to murder clouds was not the most idiotic thing they'd do around Independance Day. Remember those M80's I mentioned earlier? Those would be placed under holey coffee cans, dropped into the sewers, stuffed into newspapers, flung at passing vehicles or flung at your friends.
Bottle rockets had endless uses also. You could shoot them at your pals and have "bottle rocket wars". You could break off the stick and toss them in the air, just to see which way they'd go. And, best of all, you could twist a bunch of the fuses together, then light them. Wow! Flaming projectiles going every which way but up. This would go on for a month. Mom was afraid to send us to the store after dark. She had a genuine fear of us being maimed by fireworks. All we were allowed to buy were those stupid black snakes and sparklers.
I'm amazed my friends still had all their digits. Guys could prove their toughness by holding a firecracker in their fingers and setting it off, the bigger the better. These are the same guys who spent a summer raiding their dad's stash of rimfire .22 rounds and setting them off with a hammer, so you know they put very little value on safety.
When we finally moved out of our neighborhood, it was over the 4th of July weekend. We would pick up a load of boxes with all the windows rolled up on the car, then drive them to our nice peaceful new neighborhood. It was so quiet there, we wouldn't want to go back. We would go back, of course, rolling up the windows again as we entered "the danger zone" (as we started calling it). The last load was packed at 1 in the morning, and small children were still out in the street setting off fireworks. I was 19 when we moved off of California Avenue, and it made me sick when I saw those children who were still stuck there in a place I had come to think of as Hell on Earth. They were blissfully unaware of the horrors lurking around them as they played with their explosives. Just as I had been when I was their age.
Innocence is more beautiful than a sunset, and it lasts longer. ;)
You would think that a neighborhood living under the crushing weight of poverty would not spare any money for fireworks, wouldn't you? That might be so for other areas, but my neighborhood was full of Hoosiers, (see glossary) so our 4th of July would start in mid-June.
Most kinds of pyrotechnics were illegal in the city of St. Louis, so getting ahold of some meant a daring run out to Molly Brown's Fireworks, and a stealthily circuitous route back into the city. You couldn't ride a bus with a bag full of explosives, even back in the 80's, therefore a car was your only option. Molly Brown's sat right outside of St. Louis County, and the cops would sit up on a hill watching people pull out of the lot, just waiting for someone to be stupid enough to cross the county line. They would pull you over, confiscate your entire stash, and generally laugh at you to boot. It sucked. My neighbors would try to time their runs to periods when the cops would be busy elsewhere. They would drive out there every week and buy a small assortment, then dash back. The hope was that the cops would let you keep your stuff if it was a small enough collection. They usually did let you keep it, if what you had bought seemed reasonable.
Trust me, there was nothing reasonable about the quantity of fireworks set off in my neighborhood.
The all-time favorites were bottle rockets and m80's (which you can't buy anymore). Bottle rockets were cheap, so you could buy hundreds for a pittance and keep yourself occupied all night long. My neighbors didn't buy bottle rockets by the hundreds, they bought them by the thousands. Every weekend for a month, the sky would be lit with crappy little bursts of sparks, and every morning afterward the street would look like Barbie's war zone. Countless blackened beer bottles would be lying in the gutter, and little cardboard tubes on little red sticks were all over the place. How attractive.
As the 4th drew nearer, people would become more and more careless with their hoards of things that go bang in the night. By the time the first weekend in July rolled around, you could actually sleep through the noise. Then the hoosiers would break out their guns. I tell you there's nothing like hearing drunken fools firing rounds into the air, and wondering if any of those little balls of lead would finally punch through your already leaky roof and hit something. It always struck me as terribly wasteful. Ammunition is meant for killing things. It doesn't even make sparks. It just goes way up, then comes back down again. Stupid.
Of course, smart people understand the theory of gravity. Perhaps those idiots think their bullets are, even now, orbiting the planet.
Believe it or not, trying to murder clouds was not the most idiotic thing they'd do around Independance Day. Remember those M80's I mentioned earlier? Those would be placed under holey coffee cans, dropped into the sewers, stuffed into newspapers, flung at passing vehicles or flung at your friends.
Bottle rockets had endless uses also. You could shoot them at your pals and have "bottle rocket wars". You could break off the stick and toss them in the air, just to see which way they'd go. And, best of all, you could twist a bunch of the fuses together, then light them. Wow! Flaming projectiles going every which way but up. This would go on for a month. Mom was afraid to send us to the store after dark. She had a genuine fear of us being maimed by fireworks. All we were allowed to buy were those stupid black snakes and sparklers.
I'm amazed my friends still had all their digits. Guys could prove their toughness by holding a firecracker in their fingers and setting it off, the bigger the better. These are the same guys who spent a summer raiding their dad's stash of rimfire .22 rounds and setting them off with a hammer, so you know they put very little value on safety.
When we finally moved out of our neighborhood, it was over the 4th of July weekend. We would pick up a load of boxes with all the windows rolled up on the car, then drive them to our nice peaceful new neighborhood. It was so quiet there, we wouldn't want to go back. We would go back, of course, rolling up the windows again as we entered "the danger zone" (as we started calling it). The last load was packed at 1 in the morning, and small children were still out in the street setting off fireworks. I was 19 when we moved off of California Avenue, and it made me sick when I saw those children who were still stuck there in a place I had come to think of as Hell on Earth. They were blissfully unaware of the horrors lurking around them as they played with their explosives. Just as I had been when I was their age.
Innocence is more beautiful than a sunset, and it lasts longer. ;)
Friday, June 27, 2003
Hanging Out
A favorite pasttime in my neighborhood was "hanging out". This meant being anywhere with nothing to do. We would hang out at the gas station and giggle over the mechanic's cute butt. We would hang out on a porch and stare at the bus people. We would hang out at the used car lot and pretend to be bus people ourselves, but the best place I ever found to hang out was a house that was being renovated. Whoever was fixing the place up never locked the door, so at 3 in the afternoon, I'd meet my "boyfriend" there and we'd sit and talk about growing up. I was maybe 10 years old, so we never kissed or held hands, we would just talk.
It was so wonderful to sit on a new hardwood floor, surrounded by sawdust and fresh plaster, talking about things you could never say outside in the real world. We'd say things like, "When I grow up, I want to go to college and be a -insert white collar job here-." I used my boyfriend to work out an entire business plan, that would culminate in me owning a horse ranch. He used me to work out a plausible way to get a scholarship and become a doctor.
Let me explain why we couldn't express those kinds of dreams outside of our safe house, and why a scholarship was every child's hope.
Poor people don't get student loans. Period. (yes, I know this is a falsehood, and I dare you to walk into any inner city neighborhood and ask a kid how you get to college.) Any suggestion of college within hearing range of an adult always yeilded the same results-
Me: "I'm smart, and I'm going to college!"
Adult: "Really? How do you plan on getting there?"
Like it's some far off country surrounded by man eating wildebeasts, not some achievable goal
Me: "Well..."
Adult: "Because let me tell you something, little missy, We don't go to college."
Me: "But"
Adult: "College is for people with money. Do you have money? Do you have the kind of money it takes? You think you can just get a loan? Like for a car? Well you Can't! Give it up kiddo, it ain't gonna happen. Ain't nobody in his right mind gonna give you any cash to go to college, no matter how smart you think you are. You ain't good enough, you got nothin' they want, and they ain't gonna invest in you."
If I was lucky, the adult in question had vented enough, and would shut up. If I was unlucky, they would keep going until I would finally cry. I hated crying in front of adults, especially because tears would usually bring a look of contrition to their face and they'd say, "Well, you might get a scholarship. But you're white, so don't count on it."
My mother never ranted at us that way. When we brought up college to her, she would sigh and say, "Well, we'll just have to work extra hard on getting you a scholarship. You can do it, you're both smart. God blessed you with a good head on your shoulders, it's up to you to use it."
Sometimes we'd have to hear about how she gave up her scholarship so she could get a job, and help put her brothers and sisters through school. Sometimes she'd talk about how when dad left, he took our college money. That one always gave me an empty pain in my chest.
Once upon a time, I had a dad and a house, and my own back yard where we grew vegetables. I was 5. We would get a dollar a week for the chores we did, and half would go into our college fund. We'd go to the bank and put 2 quarters every week into a book with a chipmunk on it, and mom would match it. We also put away half of any other money we received. This meant birthdays, Christmas, Easter and the kindness of strangers sent us to the bank to stash some cash for college.
In the 2 and a half years we lived there, we put away better than $700. When dad left, he emptied our college fund. I didn't know about it until I told mom to take some of my college money to pay the bills. That's when she told me we didn't have a penny for schooling, because our bastard father had taken it all. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomache. All that money... all that saving instead of buying toys or candy... gone? I didn't want to believe her. Gone??
What kind of person takes college money? What kind of person thinks it's ok to steal a child's hope for her future? I spent days wandering around feeling cheated, for once seeing the world as an ugly place where nothing is safe. It was just... gone. Poof! Sorry, start over. What the hell?
How do you resolve "your dad just couldn't handle the responsability" with "he took everything"? There is no resolution, you just have to suck it up and move on, which is what I did.
A few years later, when mom broached the idea of filing for divorce, my sister and I said in unison, "Good. It's about time."
We did both eventually go to college. I went for art, and J became a physician's assistant. (the kind of PA that requires residencies, not the thing you can earn at a tech school.) She got student loans and a scholarship, I paid out of pocket and took only the classes I wanted. I'm terribly proud of my sister.
A favorite pasttime in my neighborhood was "hanging out". This meant being anywhere with nothing to do. We would hang out at the gas station and giggle over the mechanic's cute butt. We would hang out on a porch and stare at the bus people. We would hang out at the used car lot and pretend to be bus people ourselves, but the best place I ever found to hang out was a house that was being renovated. Whoever was fixing the place up never locked the door, so at 3 in the afternoon, I'd meet my "boyfriend" there and we'd sit and talk about growing up. I was maybe 10 years old, so we never kissed or held hands, we would just talk.
It was so wonderful to sit on a new hardwood floor, surrounded by sawdust and fresh plaster, talking about things you could never say outside in the real world. We'd say things like, "When I grow up, I want to go to college and be a -insert white collar job here-." I used my boyfriend to work out an entire business plan, that would culminate in me owning a horse ranch. He used me to work out a plausible way to get a scholarship and become a doctor.
Let me explain why we couldn't express those kinds of dreams outside of our safe house, and why a scholarship was every child's hope.
Poor people don't get student loans. Period. (yes, I know this is a falsehood, and I dare you to walk into any inner city neighborhood and ask a kid how you get to college.) Any suggestion of college within hearing range of an adult always yeilded the same results-
Me: "I'm smart, and I'm going to college!"
Adult: "Really? How do you plan on getting there?"
Like it's some far off country surrounded by man eating wildebeasts, not some achievable goal
Me: "Well..."
Adult: "Because let me tell you something, little missy, We don't go to college."
Me: "But"
Adult: "College is for people with money. Do you have money? Do you have the kind of money it takes? You think you can just get a loan? Like for a car? Well you Can't! Give it up kiddo, it ain't gonna happen. Ain't nobody in his right mind gonna give you any cash to go to college, no matter how smart you think you are. You ain't good enough, you got nothin' they want, and they ain't gonna invest in you."
If I was lucky, the adult in question had vented enough, and would shut up. If I was unlucky, they would keep going until I would finally cry. I hated crying in front of adults, especially because tears would usually bring a look of contrition to their face and they'd say, "Well, you might get a scholarship. But you're white, so don't count on it."
My mother never ranted at us that way. When we brought up college to her, she would sigh and say, "Well, we'll just have to work extra hard on getting you a scholarship. You can do it, you're both smart. God blessed you with a good head on your shoulders, it's up to you to use it."
Sometimes we'd have to hear about how she gave up her scholarship so she could get a job, and help put her brothers and sisters through school. Sometimes she'd talk about how when dad left, he took our college money. That one always gave me an empty pain in my chest.
Once upon a time, I had a dad and a house, and my own back yard where we grew vegetables. I was 5. We would get a dollar a week for the chores we did, and half would go into our college fund. We'd go to the bank and put 2 quarters every week into a book with a chipmunk on it, and mom would match it. We also put away half of any other money we received. This meant birthdays, Christmas, Easter and the kindness of strangers sent us to the bank to stash some cash for college.
In the 2 and a half years we lived there, we put away better than $700. When dad left, he emptied our college fund. I didn't know about it until I told mom to take some of my college money to pay the bills. That's when she told me we didn't have a penny for schooling, because our bastard father had taken it all. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomache. All that money... all that saving instead of buying toys or candy... gone? I didn't want to believe her. Gone??
What kind of person takes college money? What kind of person thinks it's ok to steal a child's hope for her future? I spent days wandering around feeling cheated, for once seeing the world as an ugly place where nothing is safe. It was just... gone. Poof! Sorry, start over. What the hell?
How do you resolve "your dad just couldn't handle the responsability" with "he took everything"? There is no resolution, you just have to suck it up and move on, which is what I did.
A few years later, when mom broached the idea of filing for divorce, my sister and I said in unison, "Good. It's about time."
We did both eventually go to college. I went for art, and J became a physician's assistant. (the kind of PA that requires residencies, not the thing you can earn at a tech school.) She got student loans and a scholarship, I paid out of pocket and took only the classes I wanted. I'm terribly proud of my sister.
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Charity Work
During the early years of living on California Avenue, it seemed that every month we went to the St. Vincent De Paul Society. They would give us food and toilet paper. They would also give Mom a check to help pay the bills. She hated asking for help. It was just one of those odd parts of life for us. Every Sunday we'd drop a dollar into the Vincent De Paul poor box, then once a month we'd go ask them for food and money. I know that my Mom's hope was that she wouldn't have to ask, and our meager offering was her way of trying to pay them back. To this day I still drop whatever spare cash I have into any charity box I come across.
Those wonderful men at Vincent De Paul never judged us, they never looked down on us, they just helped.
A few years later, the De Guire family opened Hosea House and started giving away clothing to the neighborhood kids. It started off in their home, but it quickly moved to the nearby church. St. Francis De Sales had a highschool on their grounds. The highschool had long since closed, so they turned it into Hosea House. You could go to them for food, toiletries and assistance with your bills.
I remember the winter they were selling shoes for dirt cheap. It was late in the day when we got there, so the shoes had been pretty thoroughly picked over. We each had fifty cents to buy shoes with, but nothing really fit. Mom spotted some boxes with our sizes marked on them. Size 8 for me, size 7 for J... perfect! She pulled down the boxes and said, "Oh, these are heavy," so we resigned ourselves to wearing hiking boots to school. She opened the top box and inside were a brand new pair of snow white ice skates. The other box held new skates too. I held my breath, wishing that I could have those beautiful skates. I wanted them so badly, and I was so very afraid to ask.
We used to take several busses to get to Stienberg rink in Forest Park, just to go skating. Ice skating was one of my freedoms. I'd go around and around the edge, trying to gain the confidence to do a spin. I never got up the courage to try a jump, so I settled on speed skating. I used to do my best to keep up with the men in their fancy snow suits, whizzing around the track on their razor blade skates. I got to where I could go just as fast, but not for very long. I'd close my eyes and think about going to the olympics and maybe, just maybe, bringing home some money for my family.
They were asking a dollar for the skates. We had fifty cents each. Our mom looked at the skates and sighed, then she put back the work shoes she had found and gave us each a quarter. She said, "It's fate that these were here in your sizes. It's late, ask them if they'll take 75 cents." I argued with my mom and told her she needed shoes, I did not need ice skates.
I was putting them back when a woman who worked there came over and said magic words, "It's after 5, everything is free."
I swear, I floated home. Heh, I never did go to the Olympics, but I got a chance to dream.
Oddly enough, that wasn't the story I was going to tell. Here's that story...
In 1982 we got hit with a blizzard of immense proportions. The California bus ran that morning, but mom had to hitch a ride home, because the busses couldn't make it through the snow. She had told us, "There's a big snow storm comming, so run to Hosea House and get some food for Mrs. P, you know she needs it, and she can't get out in this weather." We saw Mrs. P in the spring and fall, the rest of the time she laid in bed. It was always too hot or too cold for her, and we had gone with Mom to bring her food before. We had never gone alone, though. We fretted about what we would do if they didn't believe us, but mom had asked, so we had to go.
We got out the sled and bundled up... and walked out the door into a wall of white. I don't really remember how we made the 3 block walk to Hosea House. I remember seeing a guy on skis, and I remember being so cold my knees didn't want to bend. The sled kept getting bogged down in the snow, and we would stop to clear it, then lift it atop the snow again. It would be all covered again in 5 minutes, but we kept trying, and eventually we made it to Hosea House.
Ah, the blessed warmth that awaited us! We were greeted cheerfully. Mom had called from work, and they were expecting us. They let us sit and dry our mittens while they loaded our sled with food. I was almost warm by the time they were done.
The snow wasn't nearly as heavy on the way home, but the sled sure was. It kept tipping to one side and spilling the boxes, so one of us would pull, while the other walked alongside and kept the sled steady. We took turns all the way to Mrs. P's apartment, then we carried the boxes to her door and knocked. When she opened the door and saw 2 little girls between a mountain of food, she cried -and it made the whole trip worthwhile.
I understand now that Mrs. P was a very sick old lady, with chronic pain and a lot of depression. I know now that she was all alone in the world, and the blizzard had terrified her. But all I could think at the time was, "Please God, don't make me have to carry this stuff to her kitchen, I can't fit the boxes through."
She was a serious pack rat, and there were little 6 inch pathways through her heaping stacks of old clothes and older newspapers. Her house always scared me a little. I was always afraid something would move, and I'd have to face down the biggest cockroach in the world. Or worse yet- be covered in lots of little roaches. Ew.
We did not have to carry the food to the kitchen. She had set up a hot plate on the windowsill, so we made some room near her bed and left the boxes of food there. She tried to pay us, but we wouldn't take it. We knew she didn't work, and in our world work=money. If someone didn't have a job, you never, never take money from them. We told her thank you for the offer, but our mom had asked us to do this, and her smile was reward enough, thank you.
During the early years of living on California Avenue, it seemed that every month we went to the St. Vincent De Paul Society. They would give us food and toilet paper. They would also give Mom a check to help pay the bills. She hated asking for help. It was just one of those odd parts of life for us. Every Sunday we'd drop a dollar into the Vincent De Paul poor box, then once a month we'd go ask them for food and money. I know that my Mom's hope was that she wouldn't have to ask, and our meager offering was her way of trying to pay them back. To this day I still drop whatever spare cash I have into any charity box I come across.
Those wonderful men at Vincent De Paul never judged us, they never looked down on us, they just helped.
A few years later, the De Guire family opened Hosea House and started giving away clothing to the neighborhood kids. It started off in their home, but it quickly moved to the nearby church. St. Francis De Sales had a highschool on their grounds. The highschool had long since closed, so they turned it into Hosea House. You could go to them for food, toiletries and assistance with your bills.
I remember the winter they were selling shoes for dirt cheap. It was late in the day when we got there, so the shoes had been pretty thoroughly picked over. We each had fifty cents to buy shoes with, but nothing really fit. Mom spotted some boxes with our sizes marked on them. Size 8 for me, size 7 for J... perfect! She pulled down the boxes and said, "Oh, these are heavy," so we resigned ourselves to wearing hiking boots to school. She opened the top box and inside were a brand new pair of snow white ice skates. The other box held new skates too. I held my breath, wishing that I could have those beautiful skates. I wanted them so badly, and I was so very afraid to ask.
We used to take several busses to get to Stienberg rink in Forest Park, just to go skating. Ice skating was one of my freedoms. I'd go around and around the edge, trying to gain the confidence to do a spin. I never got up the courage to try a jump, so I settled on speed skating. I used to do my best to keep up with the men in their fancy snow suits, whizzing around the track on their razor blade skates. I got to where I could go just as fast, but not for very long. I'd close my eyes and think about going to the olympics and maybe, just maybe, bringing home some money for my family.
They were asking a dollar for the skates. We had fifty cents each. Our mom looked at the skates and sighed, then she put back the work shoes she had found and gave us each a quarter. She said, "It's fate that these were here in your sizes. It's late, ask them if they'll take 75 cents." I argued with my mom and told her she needed shoes, I did not need ice skates.
I was putting them back when a woman who worked there came over and said magic words, "It's after 5, everything is free."
I swear, I floated home. Heh, I never did go to the Olympics, but I got a chance to dream.
Oddly enough, that wasn't the story I was going to tell. Here's that story...
In 1982 we got hit with a blizzard of immense proportions. The California bus ran that morning, but mom had to hitch a ride home, because the busses couldn't make it through the snow. She had told us, "There's a big snow storm comming, so run to Hosea House and get some food for Mrs. P, you know she needs it, and she can't get out in this weather." We saw Mrs. P in the spring and fall, the rest of the time she laid in bed. It was always too hot or too cold for her, and we had gone with Mom to bring her food before. We had never gone alone, though. We fretted about what we would do if they didn't believe us, but mom had asked, so we had to go.
We got out the sled and bundled up... and walked out the door into a wall of white. I don't really remember how we made the 3 block walk to Hosea House. I remember seeing a guy on skis, and I remember being so cold my knees didn't want to bend. The sled kept getting bogged down in the snow, and we would stop to clear it, then lift it atop the snow again. It would be all covered again in 5 minutes, but we kept trying, and eventually we made it to Hosea House.
Ah, the blessed warmth that awaited us! We were greeted cheerfully. Mom had called from work, and they were expecting us. They let us sit and dry our mittens while they loaded our sled with food. I was almost warm by the time they were done.
The snow wasn't nearly as heavy on the way home, but the sled sure was. It kept tipping to one side and spilling the boxes, so one of us would pull, while the other walked alongside and kept the sled steady. We took turns all the way to Mrs. P's apartment, then we carried the boxes to her door and knocked. When she opened the door and saw 2 little girls between a mountain of food, she cried -and it made the whole trip worthwhile.
I understand now that Mrs. P was a very sick old lady, with chronic pain and a lot of depression. I know now that she was all alone in the world, and the blizzard had terrified her. But all I could think at the time was, "Please God, don't make me have to carry this stuff to her kitchen, I can't fit the boxes through."
She was a serious pack rat, and there were little 6 inch pathways through her heaping stacks of old clothes and older newspapers. Her house always scared me a little. I was always afraid something would move, and I'd have to face down the biggest cockroach in the world. Or worse yet- be covered in lots of little roaches. Ew.
We did not have to carry the food to the kitchen. She had set up a hot plate on the windowsill, so we made some room near her bed and left the boxes of food there. She tried to pay us, but we wouldn't take it. We knew she didn't work, and in our world work=money. If someone didn't have a job, you never, never take money from them. We told her thank you for the offer, but our mom had asked us to do this, and her smile was reward enough, thank you.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Eating
If you haven't guessed from previous writings here, we were poor. We were not destitute, we were the kind of poor where you make $100 a year too much, so you can't get food stamps or AFDC. Practically every meal was home cooked, and dinner fell into 3 basic categories- 1/2 lb hamburger with noodles, Rice a Roni stuffed into green peppers, and Totino's party pizza. We had Totino's once a week. We could buy 2 pizzas for a dollar, and we would each get 2/3's of a pizza. Mom always picked the smallest, plainest slices. She would carefully pick the pepperoni cubes off of her slices, and make 2 equal piles for us. There were quite a few nights where she would say she wasn't hungry, and she wouldn't eat at all. We would try really hard on those nights to not be hungry also, so that she could have some left over. We would eat very slowly, and exclaim loudly about how good it was. We'd ask her over and over, "Are you sure you're not hungry?" Then the plates would be clean, and there was no food left for mom.
As we got older, and roamed farther from home, we learned ways to fill our bellies before dinner time. The walk to the grocery store took us past a mulberry tree, so we would stop stuff our mouths with berries -run to the store -run back to the tree, and stuff ourselves again. In a pinch, grass makes a good filler. Yes, I ate grass. I ate bark and leaves and orange peels too. A little bit of bitter goes a long way toward supressing an appetite.
During summer vacation, we could always bum some crackers off our friends. We learned how to make Halloween candy last 'til Christmas. Christmas candy can stretch to Valentine's Day, and those chalk-like conversation hearts could float us through Easter.
Where did her $120 a week go, you ask? Well, taxes knocks it down to about $95. There were bills and rent to pay, and our tuition for Catholic School was almost two thousand dollars. (mom got a grant to help pay for it) Plus, there were foods my Mom refused to do without. We always had milk, provided we drank no more than 3 cups a day. We always had whatever fruit was in season. We had meat 4 times a week -if you count those pepperoni cubes on the Totino's pizzas, and once a month or so, Mom would buy cheese. So, we weren't starving, by any means. We were just very hungry.
If you haven't guessed from previous writings here, we were poor. We were not destitute, we were the kind of poor where you make $100 a year too much, so you can't get food stamps or AFDC. Practically every meal was home cooked, and dinner fell into 3 basic categories- 1/2 lb hamburger with noodles, Rice a Roni stuffed into green peppers, and Totino's party pizza. We had Totino's once a week. We could buy 2 pizzas for a dollar, and we would each get 2/3's of a pizza. Mom always picked the smallest, plainest slices. She would carefully pick the pepperoni cubes off of her slices, and make 2 equal piles for us. There were quite a few nights where she would say she wasn't hungry, and she wouldn't eat at all. We would try really hard on those nights to not be hungry also, so that she could have some left over. We would eat very slowly, and exclaim loudly about how good it was. We'd ask her over and over, "Are you sure you're not hungry?" Then the plates would be clean, and there was no food left for mom.
As we got older, and roamed farther from home, we learned ways to fill our bellies before dinner time. The walk to the grocery store took us past a mulberry tree, so we would stop stuff our mouths with berries -run to the store -run back to the tree, and stuff ourselves again. In a pinch, grass makes a good filler. Yes, I ate grass. I ate bark and leaves and orange peels too. A little bit of bitter goes a long way toward supressing an appetite.
During summer vacation, we could always bum some crackers off our friends. We learned how to make Halloween candy last 'til Christmas. Christmas candy can stretch to Valentine's Day, and those chalk-like conversation hearts could float us through Easter.
Where did her $120 a week go, you ask? Well, taxes knocks it down to about $95. There were bills and rent to pay, and our tuition for Catholic School was almost two thousand dollars. (mom got a grant to help pay for it) Plus, there were foods my Mom refused to do without. We always had milk, provided we drank no more than 3 cups a day. We always had whatever fruit was in season. We had meat 4 times a week -if you count those pepperoni cubes on the Totino's pizzas, and once a month or so, Mom would buy cheese. So, we weren't starving, by any means. We were just very hungry.
Monday, May 26, 2003
It Came In A Plain Brown Wrapper
My cousins came to St. Louis to visit for a few weeks, so for 14 glorious days we got to see how suburban teens acted. It was fabulous! I got to see my cousin, M (the eldest of us 4) topless. She was dancing down the hallway singing, "I have watermelons, you have mosquito bites!" Her breasts were, indeed, pendulous.
I was 13, and just beginning to discover that I could turn heads just by walking down the street. I had not yet figured out what to do with my new found power. My cousins taught us how to run outside and tease the neighborhood boys, then run inside all flushed with success and giggle 'til we turned purple.
So, M did her "watermelons" dance, then put on a top and we went out to tease the boys...
and couldn't get their attention.
They were watching some older teens drive up and down the street with a giant fake penis stuck on their antenna. They were honking, and one boy was shaking the antenna, just in case you hadn't noticed it before hand.
Eventually, the teens got tired of the thing, and tossed it to the boys we'd been playing with. Now it was the boy's turn to tease us. They'd unzip their fly, and stick the dildo in their pants and chase us around. We would giggle and scream, and blush a lot, then run into the safety of the house. Then we'd rush back outside to be chased some more. It was so much fun.
One time we ran down the stairs and opened the front door and found it jammed in the screen door. We screamed and slammed the door on it. After we had caught our collective breath, we retrieved it and tried to chase the boys around with it. The funny thing about a penis is you can't scare a boy with it. I guess since they have their own, it has no power over them. (sigh)
So we took it upstairs and presented it to my Mom. She was shocked to the roots of her hair. She took it outside and shook it at the boys, and yelled at them for being crass.
All the boys went inside, and that ended our fun for the day.
My cousins came to St. Louis to visit for a few weeks, so for 14 glorious days we got to see how suburban teens acted. It was fabulous! I got to see my cousin, M (the eldest of us 4) topless. She was dancing down the hallway singing, "I have watermelons, you have mosquito bites!" Her breasts were, indeed, pendulous.
I was 13, and just beginning to discover that I could turn heads just by walking down the street. I had not yet figured out what to do with my new found power. My cousins taught us how to run outside and tease the neighborhood boys, then run inside all flushed with success and giggle 'til we turned purple.
So, M did her "watermelons" dance, then put on a top and we went out to tease the boys...
and couldn't get their attention.
They were watching some older teens drive up and down the street with a giant fake penis stuck on their antenna. They were honking, and one boy was shaking the antenna, just in case you hadn't noticed it before hand.
Eventually, the teens got tired of the thing, and tossed it to the boys we'd been playing with. Now it was the boy's turn to tease us. They'd unzip their fly, and stick the dildo in their pants and chase us around. We would giggle and scream, and blush a lot, then run into the safety of the house. Then we'd rush back outside to be chased some more. It was so much fun.
One time we ran down the stairs and opened the front door and found it jammed in the screen door. We screamed and slammed the door on it. After we had caught our collective breath, we retrieved it and tried to chase the boys around with it. The funny thing about a penis is you can't scare a boy with it. I guess since they have their own, it has no power over them. (sigh)
So we took it upstairs and presented it to my Mom. She was shocked to the roots of her hair. She took it outside and shook it at the boys, and yelled at them for being crass.
All the boys went inside, and that ended our fun for the day.
Saturday, May 24, 2003
Riding The Bus
Growing up, we had 2 methods of transportation, our feet and the Bi-State bus line. Saint Louis sits right at the edge of Missouri, and Illinois is just a short hop across the river. The two states have busses that run between them, and all over the cities and counties around them. Each bus line is named for the biggest street it drives on, or a neighborhood it travels through. The California bus ran right down our street from 4:30 am until about 2:00 am.
Weekday mornings would bring the California bus every 10 minutes, and the bus was always packed with people going off to their 9-5 jobs. The evening rush would bring the same people home again. The times in-between were the best for people watching.
My sister and I got to experience welfare moms sitting and chatting while their children ran up and down the aisle, teenagers with their funny clothes and loud radios, the homeless -which you sat as far away from as possible, unwashed bodies being fragrant things- and perverts, who were also avoided at all costs.
Bus people really fell into three categories. There were people going about their business, people who were into everybody else's business, and people who had no business being out in public.
One day, J and I were riding the bus to the swimming pool, when a man gets on the bus and sits across from us. We picked up that particular musky smell that means "pervert" coming from him. If you think pervs don't have a smell, you either never lived in a city, or you haven't ridden the bus enough. My sister and I got up and moved to the back of the bus. We sat facing each other on the bench seat in the very back, and put our legs up on it to take up as much room as possible. After a few stops, the pervert got up and moved to the back of the bus. Now we were stuck. If we tried to move to the front, he would try to touch us. If we stayed where we were, he would eventually move all the way back and touch us. Needless to say, we did not want to be touched.
.ew.
Have I mentioned that my sister and I are both rather bright? We waited for an opportunity to bolt for freedom, and it came shortly. A group of teenagers got up to get off the bus, and we used them as a shield to get past the perv, touch free.
We didn't want to get off and walk the rest of the way to the pool, so we ran to the front of the bus and sat behind the driver. Like an obedient dog, the pervert followed us. He sat directly across from us and adjusted his cut-off shorts. That was when we saw his very engorged penis. It was sticking out of his left pants leg. We were very uncomfortable, and a good deal frightened too. we held each other's hand and tried not to look at him, or that hideous thing peeking out of his shorts at us.
Thank God for those people who get into everybodies business. We would probably still be riding the bus, afraid to get off, if it weren't for busybodies. A wonderful middle-aged woman, with huge breasts and a tiny leather handbag, moved from her seat and saved us. She came down the aisle like a stately rhinocerous, clutching her little handbag before her, and sat down right next to us.
She looked at us and smiled, then she turned her head and stared at his penis. She just sat and stared, and his erection fled like shadows before the sun. He moved his seat again, and our avenging angel followed him.
He left the bus at the very next stop.
Thank you to all the busybodies out there for standing up and doing something. You're not only saving children, you're teaching them lessons too. Our savior never said a word. She didn't have to. Her eyes were the only weapon she needed to wither him away to dust.
Growing up, we had 2 methods of transportation, our feet and the Bi-State bus line. Saint Louis sits right at the edge of Missouri, and Illinois is just a short hop across the river. The two states have busses that run between them, and all over the cities and counties around them. Each bus line is named for the biggest street it drives on, or a neighborhood it travels through. The California bus ran right down our street from 4:30 am until about 2:00 am.
Weekday mornings would bring the California bus every 10 minutes, and the bus was always packed with people going off to their 9-5 jobs. The evening rush would bring the same people home again. The times in-between were the best for people watching.
My sister and I got to experience welfare moms sitting and chatting while their children ran up and down the aisle, teenagers with their funny clothes and loud radios, the homeless -which you sat as far away from as possible, unwashed bodies being fragrant things- and perverts, who were also avoided at all costs.
Bus people really fell into three categories. There were people going about their business, people who were into everybody else's business, and people who had no business being out in public.
One day, J and I were riding the bus to the swimming pool, when a man gets on the bus and sits across from us. We picked up that particular musky smell that means "pervert" coming from him. If you think pervs don't have a smell, you either never lived in a city, or you haven't ridden the bus enough. My sister and I got up and moved to the back of the bus. We sat facing each other on the bench seat in the very back, and put our legs up on it to take up as much room as possible. After a few stops, the pervert got up and moved to the back of the bus. Now we were stuck. If we tried to move to the front, he would try to touch us. If we stayed where we were, he would eventually move all the way back and touch us. Needless to say, we did not want to be touched.
.ew.
Have I mentioned that my sister and I are both rather bright? We waited for an opportunity to bolt for freedom, and it came shortly. A group of teenagers got up to get off the bus, and we used them as a shield to get past the perv, touch free.
We didn't want to get off and walk the rest of the way to the pool, so we ran to the front of the bus and sat behind the driver. Like an obedient dog, the pervert followed us. He sat directly across from us and adjusted his cut-off shorts. That was when we saw his very engorged penis. It was sticking out of his left pants leg. We were very uncomfortable, and a good deal frightened too. we held each other's hand and tried not to look at him, or that hideous thing peeking out of his shorts at us.
Thank God for those people who get into everybodies business. We would probably still be riding the bus, afraid to get off, if it weren't for busybodies. A wonderful middle-aged woman, with huge breasts and a tiny leather handbag, moved from her seat and saved us. She came down the aisle like a stately rhinocerous, clutching her little handbag before her, and sat down right next to us.
She looked at us and smiled, then she turned her head and stared at his penis. She just sat and stared, and his erection fled like shadows before the sun. He moved his seat again, and our avenging angel followed him.
He left the bus at the very next stop.
Thank you to all the busybodies out there for standing up and doing something. You're not only saving children, you're teaching them lessons too. Our savior never said a word. She didn't have to. Her eyes were the only weapon she needed to wither him away to dust.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
The Sad Story of Mr. Brown
Mr. Brown was the first American black man to move onto our street. He bought the house at the corner of California and Sidney. Everybody liked Mr. Brown. He was a homeowner, not just some renter like the rest of us. Actually owning the property you lived on was the dream of every kid in our neighborhood. Having your own place, instead of being subject to the whims of landlords was an awesome concept. Mr. Brown didn't just own his place, he fixed it up too. We'd see his whole family out sweeping the sidewalk, picking up trash, mowing the lawn or planting flowers. By the end of his first summer, he had the nicest place on the block. We were proud of Mr. Brown, and he inspired a lot of other people to fix up their places also. He raised us to a higher standard.
Mr. Brown only had 3 children, but he was perpetually sheltering one extended family member or another. You'd just get to know cousin what's-his-name, and he'd be back on his feet and moving out. Mr. Brown probably helped out every family member that asked. The universe paid him back by sending his brother-in-law to live with them.
Mr. Brown's brother-in-law got out of jail and needed a place to stay for a while. My good and charitable neighbor opened his home to this beast, and for 3 weeks I crossed the street, rather than walk in front of Mr. Brown's house. You don't make it to adulthood in my neighborhood without being able to smell bad from a mile away. This in-law was bad.
He took Mr. Brown's 2 youngest daughters out of the house late one Saturday night, and raped them on a neighbor's front porch.
The little old lady who lived there was awoken by their cries. She called the cops, then took her rosary into the basement and prayed all night long. The cops took the monster away, an ambulance took the girls to the hospital, and darkness fell over my neighborhood.
By Sunday morning, everyone knew what had happened. Crowds kept forming in front of Mr. Brown's house, and an auntie kept coming outside and asking everyone to go away. No one knew what to do, but we all wanted to be a support for the Browns.
Sunday afternoon, Mr. Brown came home to get some clothes and things for his girls, and he got hit by a car. Let me re-phrase that. A blue four-door car full of hoosiers had been sitting on the corner all day. When they saw Mr. Brown, they assumed he was the rapist, so they squealed around the corner and hit him. Then they put the car in reverse and drove over him. When he got up, they ran him down again. They tried to run him over a fourth time, but Mr. Brown was able to run into his house.
I had been sitting on my porch waiting for Mr. Brown to come home, so I could tell him we're praying for him and his family. I saw the car hit him the first time. I was one of many people who called the cops. I was on the phone when I heard gunshots. Mr. Brown had gotten his shotgun and was blowing holes in the blue car. "You go, Mr. Brown!" I thought.
The car took off, and Mr. Brown crossed the street to the payphone and dialed 911. The cops showed up and saw a black man with a shotgun using a payphone, and shot him 6 times in the back.
He was arrested and taken to the hospital, and he came home in less than a week. He had amazing powers of recovery. He actually came home before his daughters did. Mr. Brown's troubles did not end there. Somebody out in hoosier land still seemed to think he was responsible for something, and cars would drive by flinging things at his house. The first time someone shot out Mr. Brown's front window, we moved.
That's how I got out of my neighborhood. It became too scary for even us, and we got the fuck out.
Mr. Brown was the first American black man to move onto our street. He bought the house at the corner of California and Sidney. Everybody liked Mr. Brown. He was a homeowner, not just some renter like the rest of us. Actually owning the property you lived on was the dream of every kid in our neighborhood. Having your own place, instead of being subject to the whims of landlords was an awesome concept. Mr. Brown didn't just own his place, he fixed it up too. We'd see his whole family out sweeping the sidewalk, picking up trash, mowing the lawn or planting flowers. By the end of his first summer, he had the nicest place on the block. We were proud of Mr. Brown, and he inspired a lot of other people to fix up their places also. He raised us to a higher standard.
Mr. Brown only had 3 children, but he was perpetually sheltering one extended family member or another. You'd just get to know cousin what's-his-name, and he'd be back on his feet and moving out. Mr. Brown probably helped out every family member that asked. The universe paid him back by sending his brother-in-law to live with them.
Mr. Brown's brother-in-law got out of jail and needed a place to stay for a while. My good and charitable neighbor opened his home to this beast, and for 3 weeks I crossed the street, rather than walk in front of Mr. Brown's house. You don't make it to adulthood in my neighborhood without being able to smell bad from a mile away. This in-law was bad.
He took Mr. Brown's 2 youngest daughters out of the house late one Saturday night, and raped them on a neighbor's front porch.
The little old lady who lived there was awoken by their cries. She called the cops, then took her rosary into the basement and prayed all night long. The cops took the monster away, an ambulance took the girls to the hospital, and darkness fell over my neighborhood.
By Sunday morning, everyone knew what had happened. Crowds kept forming in front of Mr. Brown's house, and an auntie kept coming outside and asking everyone to go away. No one knew what to do, but we all wanted to be a support for the Browns.
Sunday afternoon, Mr. Brown came home to get some clothes and things for his girls, and he got hit by a car. Let me re-phrase that. A blue four-door car full of hoosiers had been sitting on the corner all day. When they saw Mr. Brown, they assumed he was the rapist, so they squealed around the corner and hit him. Then they put the car in reverse and drove over him. When he got up, they ran him down again. They tried to run him over a fourth time, but Mr. Brown was able to run into his house.
I had been sitting on my porch waiting for Mr. Brown to come home, so I could tell him we're praying for him and his family. I saw the car hit him the first time. I was one of many people who called the cops. I was on the phone when I heard gunshots. Mr. Brown had gotten his shotgun and was blowing holes in the blue car. "You go, Mr. Brown!" I thought.
The car took off, and Mr. Brown crossed the street to the payphone and dialed 911. The cops showed up and saw a black man with a shotgun using a payphone, and shot him 6 times in the back.
He was arrested and taken to the hospital, and he came home in less than a week. He had amazing powers of recovery. He actually came home before his daughters did. Mr. Brown's troubles did not end there. Somebody out in hoosier land still seemed to think he was responsible for something, and cars would drive by flinging things at his house. The first time someone shot out Mr. Brown's front window, we moved.
That's how I got out of my neighborhood. It became too scary for even us, and we got the fuck out.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Mothers Day
Every Mothers Day, we would get up when the birds started singing, and begin plotting breakfast for mom. Since our dad wasn't around, she'd get the same treatment for Fathers Day. My poor mom suffered through toast with peanut butter and rice krispies, toast with margarine and sugar on top, under cooked eggs, burnt bacon, even leftovers -the one year we had nothing else in the house.
Her favorite treat was a bananna split, so one year she got a bananna split breakfast. We had one brown-spotted bananna we had been hoarding for a few days, so we cut it in half and scooped out the pink part of neopolitan ice cream. (that being the only ice cream available) We poured butterscotch syrup on top and covered it all in Cheerio's. Mom got this "breakfast" in bed with a glass of orange juice and all the dandelions from the back yard. She went into raptures over how this was her favorite food, how thoughtful we were! We bounced all over her bed, while explaining how the Cheerio's made it breakast, and the O.J. made it well-rounded! She ate about half of it, exclaimed she was full, and put the other half in the freezer to "save for later." I hope to god she pitched it when we weren't looking.
Oddly enough, there wasn't any ice cream in the freezer when Mother's day came around after that.
Every Mothers Day, we would get up when the birds started singing, and begin plotting breakfast for mom. Since our dad wasn't around, she'd get the same treatment for Fathers Day. My poor mom suffered through toast with peanut butter and rice krispies, toast with margarine and sugar on top, under cooked eggs, burnt bacon, even leftovers -the one year we had nothing else in the house.
Her favorite treat was a bananna split, so one year she got a bananna split breakfast. We had one brown-spotted bananna we had been hoarding for a few days, so we cut it in half and scooped out the pink part of neopolitan ice cream. (that being the only ice cream available) We poured butterscotch syrup on top and covered it all in Cheerio's. Mom got this "breakfast" in bed with a glass of orange juice and all the dandelions from the back yard. She went into raptures over how this was her favorite food, how thoughtful we were! We bounced all over her bed, while explaining how the Cheerio's made it breakast, and the O.J. made it well-rounded! She ate about half of it, exclaimed she was full, and put the other half in the freezer to "save for later." I hope to god she pitched it when we weren't looking.
Oddly enough, there wasn't any ice cream in the freezer when Mother's day came around after that.
Friday, May 09, 2003
Bikers' Code of Ethics
Most South Side neighborhoods had a gang of bikers. Ours had the Saddle Tramps. I have a huge respect for bikers. They have a very specific code of conduct. Part of that code was to protect "women and children". This did not mean "don't beat your wife", but it did cover "don't let anybody insult your wife".
One evening, a friend comes banging on our front door, and says,"You gotta see it! There's a biker gonna bleed to death in the alley!" So, of course, we rushed out to see the bleeding man. We ran all the way up the street and across Lynch to see...
an ambulance.
Damn! We never get to see the really cool stuff, we thought. There was a huge crowd behind the ambulance, so we waited figuring we might get to see something as the ambulance went by. We waited and waited, a small group of young teens, hanging out at the corner of an alley, restlessly hoping for a little bit of gore.
The ambulance started moving slowly toward us, but the crowd didn't break up. They followed along, trailing about 20 ft. behind. We saw the reason for the gap soon enough. The biker refused to get into the ambulance. It was a macabre procession of humanity, parading slowly down the alley. Inside the ambulance sat a paramedic, repeatedly asking, "You want to get in and go to the hospital? Come on, dude, you really need that stitched up. Why don't you let us help you?"
Behind the ambulance walked an angry, drunken, blood-dripping biker and his wife. She was crying and pleading with him to go to the hospital. "You can get revenge after you get fixed up." She'd plead, "It ain't important what he said or done, you can get him later."
By this time, they had crossed Lynch and started down my alley. I saw that the biker had both blood-covered hands crammed against his lower stomache. One of the kids with us said, "He got his thumb cut off," in a matter-of-fact sort of way. Another chimed in with, "and he got axed in the stomache!"
The biker had his own mantra to keep him going. "I'm gonna get that bastard. Don't cut me goddamit. Don't dump beer on my woman then cut me. Get that fucker." He would pause and look longingly at the ambulance, which would get both the paramedic and his wife to start up their pleas again, then he would return to his mantra of vengance, staggering forward a few steps with each statement he made.
My sister and I joined the stately parade down the alley, waiting for the biker to either get in the ambulance or die. I have always been an optomist, I was silently rooting for him to collapse and be dragged into the transport. I hoped they'd fix him up good so he could get his revenge. Not one person in the crowd made a peep as we shuffled our way toward one man's death or salvation. None of us spoke of it later, other than to ask, "Did you see the biker?" or respond, "Yes. I saw the biker."
It took about 20 minutes to make it down the alley to our house. The biker fell down a couple of times, and I could see that he was, indeed, missing part of his thumb. Once the paramedic almost got him into the ambulance, but the biker started fighting it and he fell out.
This is one of my few stories without a real ending. My sister and I had long since grown weary of the death walk, so as the procession passed our back yard, we dropped out and went inside. We turned the radio up really loud, and sat for the rest of the night.
I don't know if the biker ever got into the ambulance, and if he did, I don't know if he lived. I flashed back to that day when I was in high school, and learned that E.Coli lives happily in your intestines, but kills if it enters your bloodstream. I've re-lived seeing children prizing bloodstained rocks from between the bricks in my alley. I guess they wanted souveniers.
Most South Side neighborhoods had a gang of bikers. Ours had the Saddle Tramps. I have a huge respect for bikers. They have a very specific code of conduct. Part of that code was to protect "women and children". This did not mean "don't beat your wife", but it did cover "don't let anybody insult your wife".
One evening, a friend comes banging on our front door, and says,"You gotta see it! There's a biker gonna bleed to death in the alley!" So, of course, we rushed out to see the bleeding man. We ran all the way up the street and across Lynch to see...
an ambulance.
Damn! We never get to see the really cool stuff, we thought. There was a huge crowd behind the ambulance, so we waited figuring we might get to see something as the ambulance went by. We waited and waited, a small group of young teens, hanging out at the corner of an alley, restlessly hoping for a little bit of gore.
The ambulance started moving slowly toward us, but the crowd didn't break up. They followed along, trailing about 20 ft. behind. We saw the reason for the gap soon enough. The biker refused to get into the ambulance. It was a macabre procession of humanity, parading slowly down the alley. Inside the ambulance sat a paramedic, repeatedly asking, "You want to get in and go to the hospital? Come on, dude, you really need that stitched up. Why don't you let us help you?"
Behind the ambulance walked an angry, drunken, blood-dripping biker and his wife. She was crying and pleading with him to go to the hospital. "You can get revenge after you get fixed up." She'd plead, "It ain't important what he said or done, you can get him later."
By this time, they had crossed Lynch and started down my alley. I saw that the biker had both blood-covered hands crammed against his lower stomache. One of the kids with us said, "He got his thumb cut off," in a matter-of-fact sort of way. Another chimed in with, "and he got axed in the stomache!"
The biker had his own mantra to keep him going. "I'm gonna get that bastard. Don't cut me goddamit. Don't dump beer on my woman then cut me. Get that fucker." He would pause and look longingly at the ambulance, which would get both the paramedic and his wife to start up their pleas again, then he would return to his mantra of vengance, staggering forward a few steps with each statement he made.
My sister and I joined the stately parade down the alley, waiting for the biker to either get in the ambulance or die. I have always been an optomist, I was silently rooting for him to collapse and be dragged into the transport. I hoped they'd fix him up good so he could get his revenge. Not one person in the crowd made a peep as we shuffled our way toward one man's death or salvation. None of us spoke of it later, other than to ask, "Did you see the biker?" or respond, "Yes. I saw the biker."
It took about 20 minutes to make it down the alley to our house. The biker fell down a couple of times, and I could see that he was, indeed, missing part of his thumb. Once the paramedic almost got him into the ambulance, but the biker started fighting it and he fell out.
This is one of my few stories without a real ending. My sister and I had long since grown weary of the death walk, so as the procession passed our back yard, we dropped out and went inside. We turned the radio up really loud, and sat for the rest of the night.
I don't know if the biker ever got into the ambulance, and if he did, I don't know if he lived. I flashed back to that day when I was in high school, and learned that E.Coli lives happily in your intestines, but kills if it enters your bloodstream. I've re-lived seeing children prizing bloodstained rocks from between the bricks in my alley. I guess they wanted souveniers.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
Drunk Watching
Another fun game we played was "Drunk Watching". Guess what that involved?
Sticky-hot summer nights were best for drunk watching. We'd watch them go into the bar at around 7 o' clock, and if, by 8:30 there had been a fistfight, we knew it would be a good night for drunk watching. The sun would be low on the horizon, the sky would be a nice purple-blue. The white streetlights would cast our porch in shadows, and the bar across the street would erupt in sound.
The door to the bar bursts open, and out come a pair of men, grunting and struggling with each other. They were usually followed by one or more moaning women. The men would punch and shove, bang heads on concrete, and kick until one lies retching in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street.
To the victor go the spoils, and the man still mostly on his feet would grab his woman and re-enter the bar. The loser would be helped up by his woman, their drink-fest over for the night. They would stagger off together, supporting one another in their despair over life's harsh gifts, and the street would be quiet again. For a while.
Eventually, the cops would arrive, and people would come out of the bar claiming that there had been no fight there that night. Everyone would pretend like the guy with the burst blood vessels in his eye had not a mark on him, and the cops would go away. Later on, the noise from the bar would escalate once again. Most weekends saw 2 or 3 fights a night, but sometimes the whole tavern would empty itself out into the street in a violent expression of pent-up rage. Those were good nights, because the police would arrive with paddy wagons and our street would be quiet for a week.
Another fun game we played was "Drunk Watching". Guess what that involved?
Sticky-hot summer nights were best for drunk watching. We'd watch them go into the bar at around 7 o' clock, and if, by 8:30 there had been a fistfight, we knew it would be a good night for drunk watching. The sun would be low on the horizon, the sky would be a nice purple-blue. The white streetlights would cast our porch in shadows, and the bar across the street would erupt in sound.
The door to the bar bursts open, and out come a pair of men, grunting and struggling with each other. They were usually followed by one or more moaning women. The men would punch and shove, bang heads on concrete, and kick until one lies retching in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street.
To the victor go the spoils, and the man still mostly on his feet would grab his woman and re-enter the bar. The loser would be helped up by his woman, their drink-fest over for the night. They would stagger off together, supporting one another in their despair over life's harsh gifts, and the street would be quiet again. For a while.
Eventually, the cops would arrive, and people would come out of the bar claiming that there had been no fight there that night. Everyone would pretend like the guy with the burst blood vessels in his eye had not a mark on him, and the cops would go away. Later on, the noise from the bar would escalate once again. Most weekends saw 2 or 3 fights a night, but sometimes the whole tavern would empty itself out into the street in a violent expression of pent-up rage. Those were good nights, because the police would arrive with paddy wagons and our street would be quiet for a week.
The Silver-Leaf Maple
We lived in 2 different houses on California Ave. First, we lived at 2607 California. We later crossed the street to 2610a California.
2607 had a silver-leaf maple in the back yard. We would climb the tree and spy on the whole neighborhood. This came in very handy when we learned to make pull-tab guns. Beer cans used to have pull-tabs, a circle of aluminium connected to a tab that had been scored on the top of the can. We would find these things everywhere. If you break off the tongue, you have a circle with one sharp edge. All you needed now was a wooden stake, a springy clothespin, a rubber band, and 2 nails. These goodies could be found just by searching the alley. Nail the clothespin to one end of the stake, nail the rubberband to the other, and poof! You have a weapon capable of flinging a spinning ring of doom some twenty feet or more. If you had built your gun properly, it would send the pull-tab spinning in a nice, flat arc. The goal was to score a hit on your opponents, and preferably, to draw blood. Scratching your victim with a light weight pull-tab was no easy task, so it was worth bonus points to achieve this rare phenomenon. If you had a pull-tab gun that could do this, everyone wanted you to make one for them.
My sister and I added accessories to our guns. First came a grip for the underside, so it looked more like a machine gun. Next, we found a bonanza of small hooks to screw into the side of the gun. No more pockets full of pull-tabs! Now we could hang them on the gun for a fast reload. (we got the hooks by going into an abandoned house and twisting them out of the wall)
We would sit on the porch with our guns, waiting for other kids to come by to play. Pretty soon, we had a miniature swarm of armed children. It was time to break off into teams. Me and my sister were always on the same team. I'd climb the tree and wait. J (my sis) would chase kids down the alley toward me. She was fast, and I was accurate. Together we were nearly unbeatable. I'd sit quietly up in that tree, sniping at my friends and gleefully racking up casualties. You would think people would learn to look up once in a while, wouldn't you?
The game ended for good when I was in the 6th grade. I went to Catholic school, and that was the year I got confirmed. Full of the Holy Spirit, and wanting to be good catholics, we threw our glorious pull-tab guns onto the roof of the bar so we wouldn't be tempted to shoot our friends ever again.
We lived in 2 different houses on California Ave. First, we lived at 2607 California. We later crossed the street to 2610a California.
2607 had a silver-leaf maple in the back yard. We would climb the tree and spy on the whole neighborhood. This came in very handy when we learned to make pull-tab guns. Beer cans used to have pull-tabs, a circle of aluminium connected to a tab that had been scored on the top of the can. We would find these things everywhere. If you break off the tongue, you have a circle with one sharp edge. All you needed now was a wooden stake, a springy clothespin, a rubber band, and 2 nails. These goodies could be found just by searching the alley. Nail the clothespin to one end of the stake, nail the rubberband to the other, and poof! You have a weapon capable of flinging a spinning ring of doom some twenty feet or more. If you had built your gun properly, it would send the pull-tab spinning in a nice, flat arc. The goal was to score a hit on your opponents, and preferably, to draw blood. Scratching your victim with a light weight pull-tab was no easy task, so it was worth bonus points to achieve this rare phenomenon. If you had a pull-tab gun that could do this, everyone wanted you to make one for them.
My sister and I added accessories to our guns. First came a grip for the underside, so it looked more like a machine gun. Next, we found a bonanza of small hooks to screw into the side of the gun. No more pockets full of pull-tabs! Now we could hang them on the gun for a fast reload. (we got the hooks by going into an abandoned house and twisting them out of the wall)
We would sit on the porch with our guns, waiting for other kids to come by to play. Pretty soon, we had a miniature swarm of armed children. It was time to break off into teams. Me and my sister were always on the same team. I'd climb the tree and wait. J (my sis) would chase kids down the alley toward me. She was fast, and I was accurate. Together we were nearly unbeatable. I'd sit quietly up in that tree, sniping at my friends and gleefully racking up casualties. You would think people would learn to look up once in a while, wouldn't you?
The game ended for good when I was in the 6th grade. I went to Catholic school, and that was the year I got confirmed. Full of the Holy Spirit, and wanting to be good catholics, we threw our glorious pull-tab guns onto the roof of the bar so we wouldn't be tempted to shoot our friends ever again.
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Payphone Perverts
On the Southwest corner of California and Sidney sat a gas station/repair shop. This corner was also host to a payphone. We would sit in groups of 2-5 girls waiting for the perverts to call. The phone would ring, and we'd all bust out in giggles. Eventually someone would answer the phone.
"Hello?"
*heavy breathing*
"Hello??"
*what's your name*
"Ethel." -any name would do, as long as it wasn't a real one.-
*what are you wearing*
"I'm wearing a dark blue nighty. It's really see-through."
*does it have ruffles?*
"Why, yes, it does! Are you watching me?"
*heavy breathing*
"Can you see how short it is?"
*heavy breathing...yes..pant..pant*
-Now it's time to give the phone to the next girl in line.-
"Hi...I'm Ethel's sexy friend. I'm really sexy..."
This would go on until we got bored. Then we'd say something like, "Hey, Fuckwad! Go jack off somewhere else!" Then slam down the phone, and giggle ourselves silly.
It was great in a lot of ways. We got to release a boatload of stress, we got to cuss, and we got to feel like we had some power over a grown-up.
Sometimes the cute guy who worked at the gas station would call out to us. "Hey! Get offa that phone! Quit messin' with those perverts!" And we'd all run around the corner to "base" and giggle some more.
Childhood innocence is really amazing.
On the Southwest corner of California and Sidney sat a gas station/repair shop. This corner was also host to a payphone. We would sit in groups of 2-5 girls waiting for the perverts to call. The phone would ring, and we'd all bust out in giggles. Eventually someone would answer the phone.
"Hello?"
*heavy breathing*
"Hello??"
*what's your name*
"Ethel." -any name would do, as long as it wasn't a real one.-
*what are you wearing*
"I'm wearing a dark blue nighty. It's really see-through."
*does it have ruffles?*
"Why, yes, it does! Are you watching me?"
*heavy breathing*
"Can you see how short it is?"
*heavy breathing...yes..pant..pant*
-Now it's time to give the phone to the next girl in line.-
"Hi...I'm Ethel's sexy friend. I'm really sexy..."
This would go on until we got bored. Then we'd say something like, "Hey, Fuckwad! Go jack off somewhere else!" Then slam down the phone, and giggle ourselves silly.
It was great in a lot of ways. We got to release a boatload of stress, we got to cuss, and we got to feel like we had some power over a grown-up.
Sometimes the cute guy who worked at the gas station would call out to us. "Hey! Get offa that phone! Quit messin' with those perverts!" And we'd all run around the corner to "base" and giggle some more.
Childhood innocence is really amazing.
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