The West Atlanta Registry and Report

A Book Mark to Greater Exhaustion

2011-07-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

“Hey Shaun, I gotta ask you a question that I haven’t in a while.” I knew what it was before it was posed. This city, this world repeats itself, intimately and infinitely. And, there’s something to be said for that should one be open to interpret pattern. What we know as a person is subject, oftenly, to the scrutinized opinion of those that have learned otherwise; though, it has been my experience that my detractors live in worlds of kind theory. So Kenny, as you may or may not wish to imagine, began to ask me for small amounts of money while he petted a chihuahua on his lap; the same animal kept by the children the captains of industry have bestowed upon their children.

Me, I took it as an opportunity to out-woe my given community with regaled tales of heartache. “I’ve a pocket full of quarters for which I wish to fill my gas tank up enough to visit my grandmother’s grave.” A convenient truth. The quarters were, indeed for the vacuum cleaner and I was indeed in need of fuel. A poem, a lark. I should’ve stanza’d this better.

Pride and/or Prejudice (may you never suffer both)

2010-08-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I last reported on the doorstep-panorama of this strange dimension, crammed between the realities we sensible people often take for granted. I would suppose that the more one exposes them-self to a given stimulus, the more an objective becomes biased and, therefore, a subjective reality occurs to guide a being of intellect to identify patterns. Human nature is strange this way; especially when befitted to historical contexts as it relates to basic human drives. And, insofar that one avails them-self to more information then is necessary to get by (I estimate a good 85% of the population can be considered functionally retarded by their own volition), I firmly believe that history does, indeed, repeat itself. While the elite of that 85% might see this statement written on a bathroom wall or bumper sticker, having what can only be described as an epiphany by what other brush off as deja vu, as some semblance to a personal experience. With the fervor matched only by pamphleteering preachers of doom, they might share the experience on the internet via a status update, sharing a simple wake of joy with pseudo-strangers and their collective LOL. Keep this in mind as it pertains to an extended metaphor to come that, sadly, you may feel a sudden euphoria coupled with hysterics that may usher you to your computer; only to feel the loneliness that the genuinely perceptive can understand. So, internalize it into some grand reservoir where clairvoyants dream of crystal-winged angels and pastoral ruins. Or not.

My immediate neighbors have taken quite a shine to me since I’ve shylocked the occasional rake or garden hose and have made friends with local adolescents. The cold-war mentality of growing up in the eighties doesn’t apply here; should some synapse in the back of your head fire awkwardly at the ease an adult male can befriend small children left unattended. You may assume that the parent/guardian doesn’t care much about their kids’ safety or perhaps there is a latent trust in sensible order and destiny that may or may not operate on mystical sensibilities: whatever your life’s experience has delegated reasonable. The summer has not been kind to us in West Atlanta. It’s been a sluggish Hell that only infant metabolism can function to relegate heat across vessels of limited surface area. I often engage the frequent passerby with cheer to combat the tales of humidity-born woe and the unforeseen negotiation of existing between. Our known world is bordered with rocks and places hard.

The wheels of progress are a turning and gain speed through streets where shuffled feet were once as prominent as the buffalo. Hawaiian punch and mucously glazed gas station pastries fuel the resistance which takes several cues from peaceful protests of old, though I would venture to say this aggression would be better characterized as “passive.” I received an email linking to a hired company that not only alerts all within telecommunications’ grasp (a surprisingly small portion of the population) but provides statistical analysis of crime in the given area. Reported crime is down 88% per month from last year and while that might sound like a positive turn in direction, it spells doom for those that have grown accustomed to a certain way of life.

I sat on my porch on evening with a mini-cooler full of imported beer, a luxury that I felt goaded the poorer, malt-liquor folk into some social status display to disparage the meek that have yet to inherit anything but wind. “No matter,” I thought. I’ve spent a good many hours working in the yard and if my professional life can afford to treat personal toil with a European born lager, than so be it. This, is my bling. Two or three bottle caps joined the dog at my feet when I began to access the homogenized ethics that seemed to be the oriented goal of Karen and Michael and a battalion of well-spoken folk who’ve crossed party lines with good faith that they can change (yes, I said “change”) the inscribed culture of the ghetto. Monthly meetings have been rallied to improve upon the existing infrastructure which is slowly mandating out of the local government’s guilt and inability to function outside of lobbied requests: a raised hand works better than unintelligible shouts, it seems.

The aristocracy of Sims Estates has outlined a standard body of requests that enlist the American fervor and ideal that tyranny has no degree but is a general task to overcome and, yes, we shall overcome it. Some demands are small, affable things such as street signs and sidewalk re-paving, but one item is a master stroke of political genius that had me guffawing in my cravat. Without so much as an explanation as to the reason, it has been assertively suggested that MARTA buses should be routed elsewhere than our neighborhood streets. Sure, one can a

rgue that the buses tear up the streets and cause traffic but I see the real motive with my evil gringo sensibility.

Populations without privately funded transport rely on MARTA to ferry the wading masses like the ocean uses waves to move its less-mobile citizens which is why it is perfect for the under-class that has no real destination nor time restraint for getting wherever the end. Though it would be naive to assume all Atlanta beggars are homeless, street persons of redundant credential ask for currency to accommodate the fare MARTA’s turnstiles require more often than any other need. “Pay MARTA what is due MARTA,” I believe Jesus once spoke. While you and I are most likely at work or loafing to some desire to sing of ourselves, MARTA is a beating heart that pumps vascular the movement of crumb-crusted bums to irrelevant destinations. And we are looking to channel those sorts away from these shores.

It is a political master-stroke and I applaud its deceptively motived actions. While the effort to improve quality of life with small, easily sanctioned public works revitalizes the neighborhood it also becomes more appealing to prospective developers down the road (literally and figuratively). For the financial benefit of every homeowner/shack inhabitant, property values will increase potential values which will make taxes proportionately climb, but that is no bother for the savvy investor. No, it will the shacks that will have to either sell below the value of the land or suffer foreclos

ure as government aid isn’t enough to cover property taxes, basic needs, and flat screen televisions; and let us not forget the demographic that relies on public transport as a factor in searching for places to reside. And then, as if this sneaky coup to better our world might be tarnished by its perceived intent, secondary efforts have been made to provide information on work out of state to clean up the gulf; for those that have yet to find local employment to save themselves and, thus, contradict their own cause. Help America, help yourself!

I spoke with Kenny Sr. the other day. The back right tire of his electric wheelchair has been mangled into a strange oval which slows him down, shakes him around his chair and no doubt will have adverse affects on the device’s motor. I don’t believe these things are designed for the rigorous use of extended outdoor use but who am I to lecture. While cars swerved to miss him Kenny applauded the fence I built in the backyard, the roses I’ve planted out front and how it looked like a “house from a real neighborhood.” Not to be out-rivaled, Kenny pridefully mentioned how his sister was planning some government appeal to renovate their own house. Now, I have dealt with nearly every city office in the past few years and I cannot begin to guess which one pimps up pads. I would almost, if not for my bleeding heart, suggest that Kenny ask his sister to refrain from such measures as a government inquiry would most likely deem the structure unsuitable to live in and schedule a bulldozing. I merely nodded and changed the subject to the trash pile that had been gaining mass in his front yard that three weeks of trash days had not touched.

It looks like an offering to some lesser known poly-deity named Heap, perhaps. Though it is gone now, it measured at least 30 feet long and up to seven feet high in some places. Often, white, plastic smelling smoke would emanate from behind it which only added to the religious imagery of the thing. Kenny said that they had been cleaning out the basement of his father’s things which solidified my initial suspect that there was indeed some concept of tribute to a being non living. Kenny’s dad has been dead half a year, in an assisted living facility a more than a year before that, and three people with no jobs, hobbies, or need to get fully dressed have finally decided to take action and throw that which has no sentimental value, out, in the yard.

So, when MARTA disappears from my street like the buffalo, I won’t shed a tear. When the sidewalks have been rebuilt for joggers where lazy feet once dragged, I shan’t want for the past. And the day the machines come to phoenix new structures I will welcome them. But until then I will sentry my porch with a kind wave to the passerby, may their gaping mouth function better than nasal respiratory. I will hold steady as lord of my castle and kingdom and watch the slow drowning populace look past me to the heavens and wonder what entity they have to blame for misfortune. By what hand can one continually bite and hope to be fed? These are the Steinbeck days, revisited; and this is a wood, intent on burning itself.

Oil and Water [no picture/proof]

2010-04-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

The neighborhood clean up day was set for 8:30 in the morning by the rebel contingency in the ghetto, here, which will, if their plans are fulfilled, ruin my blog and make me a fortune. I had gotten home around two in the morning the night before and wanted nothing more than an afternoon to sleep in before returning to work late the following day, capitulated to a Hemingway afternoon with my lady friend, between the strange demands of her schedule and dietary fugue. However, a behemoth dumpster had made a monolithic debut the day before on the empty lot to the west with the promise of feudal youth from churches strange to assist with the conditional matters I appropriate to muse and amuse.

After a moderate breakfast and proper armoring, I took to the task alongside a volunteer brigade that worked with chain-gang esteem. I payed no mind to the lacking fervor for this was obviously, for the most part, forced charity and early hours on unsuspecting youth. Bless them and their remaining days of irrelevance. As luck would have it, I was assigned to police the lots on either side of me. I have been doing this quietly, unsure of the legal implications but I was given carte blanche to do what I wanted to with the property and even assigned an older gentleman of my own biological distinctions to assist in my endeavors.

Peter, slightly younger than my parents, was friendly and helpful and obviously assigned to my jurisdiction in an effort to to utilize his graciousness and stimulate a sense of being. Come to find out, Peter is an OB/GYN at Piedmont Hospital and we were able to communicate and work together in copacetic harmony. We discussed the Atlanta progressive undertakings and speculated like wing-chaired sophisticants all while I handed him buckets full of trash from a clogged sewer drain.

[deleted: three long paragraphs about gynecologists who are men]

I made several new acquaintances of good, well-spoken people who, like me, had kept to themselves assuming that the neighborhood was still too formidable to be friendly in the Cleaver sense. Yet in this little corner of the world, organization and motive overcomes the lazy will to improve and I have no problem marshaling that cause. Even, when standing among traveled volunteers who can visibly observe the old guard watching from their porches as strangers improve their condition.

I was angered. No one I had met that day knew any of the characters of this blog by name or description, nor did I observe said characters making an effort to improve their world. In fact, many sat, as they are oft to do, on their porches; watching others clean their failures. I revel in the meanest of senses in knowing that this area will get better, the taxes higher and their government subsidized income won’t be enough to continue here.

A month later, people pushed by exocentric decency politely asked the people across the street if they may remove the mattress from their yard and I watched as they said it was okay without even an offer to help move it. In other news, I play my guitar as loud as I want to, as late as I dare.

The Weeks Between Lesser Disasters

2010-04-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite some time since I’ve had anything to report on the goings-on of Sims Estates. Sure, there’s always the frequent rush of serenading vehicles, people yelling and chasing each other through the streets without any seemingly malicious intent, trash glides on pollen soaked winds; it’s been business as usual. The slow wave of progress, or change for those in power would consider as such, has hastened this year, made promising new construction up the hill and towards the city’s horizons.

My neighborhood is suffering from a new pollution of freshly paved recreation trails, quality built apartments and volunteer armies of christian folk descending upon these hopeless masses to wipe the runny nose a sleeve wouldn’t care to touch. I have become aware that the theme of this blog is by and large an example-based effort to expose urban poverty as a nurtured mind-set that subsists on a vague sense of entitlement. Here, in the ghetto, we are selective communists. I have always thought, in my own naiveté, that capitalism would always prevail because there would always be people willing to work harder for the greedy want of improvement; never once considering the alternative: many people want all the benefits of communal aide without so much as an attempt to contribute to the greater good. Sadly, I doubt my neighbors could/would make use of Mill, Kant, Marx or any academic understanding of classical ethics or social responsibility.

The other day a man roughly my own age knocked on the door, introduced himself, gave his address and asked to borrow a hammer. I excused myself to see if I still had the cheap ikea one because I wasn’t about to lend the one I had inherited from my grandfather. While rummaging around my toolbox I remembered that the hammer had broken in the move and I would have to lie to my neighbor. He was reluctant to leave, asking if I still had the broken hammer or anything he could use that was hammer-like, along with an additional request for any nails I could spare. I did not.

After he left I began thinking to myself how odd the situation was that had just transpired. First of all, what man doesn’t own a hammer and should a one find himself in such a situation, why wouldn’t you immediately go and buy one? It’s a hammer! I have a special socket to replace the elements on electric water heaters; a tool I will probably never have to use again in my life, but I have one because I needed it and now I will always have it at my disposal. Had the young man asked for it, I would’ve handed it over. But, a hammer!!!? The Native Americans, whom never invented the wheel, had hammer technology. Even my Nana had a small wooden-handled hammer despite all her household repairs were done by my dad, uncle, or professionally.

My second major thought brings to mind an anthropological conundrum. My brief liberal collegiate education (which has served my contemporaries so well with lessons of debt and misanthrope idealism) stressed, rather alluded, an importance on the “multi-cultural” necessity of every science, as if to decondition the nazi youth. That being said, I’ve always tried to judge a culture by how it provides for its people as well as a general harmony to the condition of neighboring entities. However, this man from four houses down has never introduced himself nor made his presence known until he needed something. Granted, I have made no effort to endear myself to my community as I have subscribed to isolationist principles to combat the favor-ready provocative that permeates the ghetto. Perhaps it is this aloof self-sufficiency that heralds affluence? I don’t need, therefore, I am in a position to give. That is a thought I don’t wish to explore.

The roadkill my buzzards were circling is this: what brings a man to ask for help when he is a stranger of convenience, for a thing that he is readily capable of acquiring without the embarrassment of pride’s distinction? For the sake of argument, let’s say that the hammer is the very symbol of American masculinity (if not everyone with facial hair; in fact, what was on the Soviet flag all those years ago?). I don’t think this is much of a stretch; even if you want to get all Freud about it. How does one ask a stranger to borrow a birthright or even haggle for the broken secondary one? Personally, I would go buy one, or find a rock. Pride is a strange thing. I watched the first half of a documentary on Medgar Evers the other day before I got bored with it, I already knew the ending. I see it across the street and, grandly, everywhere I go. There was a dream, and it was realized, and now the bastards subsist on residuals; having a good time on the interest earnings of Kentucky bets made when we fashioned things from metal (with hammers), leaving statues to shadow picnics in the park of people who needn’t a plaque to identify. Harumph!

In other news, the Kennies have been cooped up in their respective institutions; prison and Grady leaving the talents of the lady of the house to bemuse my lesser artistry. Tuesday is the day the city has set aside for we plebeians to collect our solid refuse (that which we cannot flush, drag, bury, or burn) and place them curbside in large green containers befit with wheels. My household typically uses this service once a month but that is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is the dark blue mattress, box spring and frame that has sat throughout the weather of more than three trash days in the elements.

How long will it sit there until the city workers relent or my neighbor figures out that they won’t and drags it to the backyard? This is indeed a battle of who could care less: city policy vs the citizenry of absolute apathy, apathy to the point that one wonders whether it is a test to see how far the line between purgatory and hell may be pushed south. It has been a 24 day war thus far and I bet my money that it will be a third party that removes it which will will esteem both the city and the ghetto. Old mother Hubbard has even begun to dump trash on and around the mattress as if to reiterate that it is indeed refuse and not on the market for barter. Local children have begun to play with what they find in the pile the sort of games I once did during field day.

Luckily, or unfortunately (as the unfortunate are prone to experience) the vocal and active minority in this neighborhood are pushing hard against the sedentary majority. I may be able to have guests over before the end of the decade.

He Jests at Scars that Never Felt a Wound

2010-03-21T21:36:00.001-07:00

I have lived in many places in and around Atlanta; some further from the dull glow of the city’s night lights and some close enough to watch Buckhead’s fourth of July fireworks from the back porch looking over Druid’s Hills towards what once seemed like the forests of Brookhaven. Living in the city, any city, one becomes attune to the sound of sirens in the distance and it’s been my experience that they’re more often the cries of a stranger’s plight. On any given day ambulances, fire trucks, or police cars can be observed snaking through traffic and around a corner of over the hills into horizons in peril, though how often does anyone ever come across the tragedy at the end of the road?

I remember once, a few weeks before Christmas 2003 or 2004, I was on my way to work when I came upon an old truck with smoke all around it that was slowly slipping backwards towards one of the steep declines of my neighborhood. I pulled my car over and ran up to the driver who was slumped over and unconscious while an elderly woman was in hysterics. Careful not to move the man too much, I opened the door, holding him in place while trying to administer the parking brake. Ambulances arrived rather quickly and the paramedics did what they could before they sympathetically packed him up to die somewhere other than the street. Until recently, this is the only tangible memory I have of seeing emergency vehicles within close proximity.

These last sixteen months I have become alarmingly apathetic to sirens, flashing lights and the diesel rumble of a parked ambulance. Kenny Sr. uses the Grady hospital EMT’s as his own taxi service and by the paramedic’s lacking sense of urgency, it would seem that Kenny isn’t the only person abusing the system. If this is to be any indicator as to how the state run health care will perform, I fear that America may have jumped off the dock, into the lake, with cinder blocks tied to her ankles. Time will tell.

One has to question (me, if no one else) what exactly makes up a ghetto? It’s easy to point out the poor, the uneducated, and all the teeming masses welcomed upon Ellis Island’s shores, but I think there’s something else. Maybe it’s the general esteem within a collection of people who would rather sell each other out for a quick buck than to work together to improve this corner of the world. Kenny says he puts aside five dollars ever week from his social security check to play the lottery. He admits this freely without shame, and though it’s not fair to assume that everyone on welfare abuses it, it’s far more difficult to believe that government subsidy does anything but enable those evolution left behind. In fact, I think it’s something deeper and more vile than mere laziness.

That’ll be the end of this edition’s social commentary; here comes the funny. As

my more loyal patrons already know, the house up the street has been removing wood from the abandoned shack next door (which someone has re-attached plywood to all entry points) and burning it in a metal barrel on their patio where someone stands sentry all day and night should there be a need to shout obscenities at a passerby. And like so many other things I have come to ignore despite my inclination to panic, there is often grey smoke pouring out into the street from their yard.

One particular morning this week I got up early (noonish) to eat lunch and mail off some bills when I noticed a strong smell of burning plastic and a thicker than usual cloud of smoke, obscuring much of the west side of the street. At any other time in my life I would have made active inquiry into helping my fellow man but the strong urge to eat tacos at the Bone Garden far outweighed wasting time on making sure my shiftless neighbors weren’t burning to a crisp. They’re in God’s hands now; peace be with them. An hour later I came home to the following picture. I will l

et you assume what you will:

Rain, Beading Off a Pot-Roast's Coffin

2010-03-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

I came home later than usual to take the wolf out to piss and smell the new trash that’s found its way into my yard with the knowledge that our down time was going to be brief as I would have to return to work in an hour or so. Last night I began an extended essay on the societal perception of racism as I am now, more than ever, accused of being one, and though I don’t really care what the feeble, closeted people of upper-crust society think of me and my observations, I do, however, wish to provide a basis for my perspective in a philosophical, if not scientific, manner. It has been a slow week for concrete material lately and the moment I am no longer able to deliver, I will lose my audience; all six of them.

Dakota came inside, refusing to do the usual business due to rain (she is a very prancy creature of standard) and we retreated to the studio so that I could look at pictures of Eric Mason’s girlfriend while the wolf gnawed on what’s left of the raccoon I gave her this morning to keep from chewing on the baseboards while I’m away. I wasn’t even through the first album when I heard a horrible crash outside which I instinctively assumed were gunshots or the discarding of furniture. This was further distressed by the fact that it was a mere 3:30 in the afternoon, twelve hours too soon for such a noise. A tree must’ve fallen on something as a result of the heavy rains coupled with the lacking upkeep and responsibility of personal property in the area.

Looking into the hallway I saw Dakota’s eyes glow with concern over what she must’ve sensed as an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence and with predatory concurrence we both dashed downstairs to see what all the hubbub was about. Much to my un-amazement, Kenny Sr. was parked in the street wearing a yellow parka and holding a pack of cigarettes. He smiled and waved as a Dodge Charger swerved to miss him by what looked to be two feet and traveling at a velocity of forty miles and hour; almost twice the posted speed limit. I asked him if he had heard the noise and he pointed at an oven with four electric ranges at the foot of his home’s patio steps.

He explained that his mother had pushed it down the steps and asked if I could help her move it around to the backyard. Between a paraplegic and an old woman it seemed impossible that they were gonna make much headway in the endeavor, so I crossed the street, met Kenny Sr.’s mother at the top of the step where she handed me a rusty old hand truck without so much of a speck of modesty over her dirty green house dress that she had yet to change out of by late afternoon. Now, I am oft to do the same on my lazy days though I’m not venturing outside nor eliciting help from strangers to dispose of large appliances. Yes, I judge. I judge and, BAC willing, I usually keep it to myself. Usually.

The oven door was hanging off the cumbersome object and was covered in what I would assume to be at least five years of accumulated grease. She pointed down her driveway to a discarded front loading washing machine and motioned for me to put the oven next to it. Several questions entered my mind:

Why am I moving this thing down a busted up driveway wearing my leather loafers?
Why did she choose now, a rainy afternoon, to dispose of her oven?
How did she plan on getting it down here without help? Did she intend on hooking it up to Kenny’s wheelchair and have him tugboat it?
Why do their visitors park in the street in front of the house when there’s a perfectly good driveway that could easily accommodate six vehicles?

Upon reaching the my destination, a land of misfit appliances stretched out before me; a Whirlpool graveyard, I quickly utilized my newly honed homeowner detection skills and discovered that all of these rusting appliances were of better quality than anything I had still functioning in my own home. Hands covered in grease, I made my way up the driveway to the street and returned the hand truck to Kenny’s mother. She thanked me with a tenderness that not quite reached kindness but that was good enough for me. I ran across the street before they could ask anymore favors, washed my hands, and took a picture from Alex’s room. I have a strange suspicion that my adventures will outlast the Amazon’s supply of wood and American dependence on oil. This, ladies and gentleman, is a fountain springing forth and inexhaustible supply of mana. This is the sandy hole I regret I may forever dig; the rock I will push up the mountains of Hell. Behold the epic myths of the ghetto: he who eats of the Doritos is doomed to live here for eternity.

This World is a Landfill

2010-03-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

Life in the ghetto, as exciting and glamorous as I may portray it, takes a few days off every now and again; leaving little blog worthy anecdotes to tie into some grand social commentary from the outsider within. Sure, I typically fall asleep to the not so distant sounds of gunshots (which are sometimes merely the sound of people dragging cheap furniture to the curb or an abandoned lot, very, very late at night) and I awake less regularly to sunshine than violent sounding shouts. I have come to find out, however, that the casual use of obscenity and discourse towards people from distances more than fifty yards away, in public and before noon, is not always a cause for concern. Shouting crude epithets at your “O.G.s” roughly translates into a “howdy neighbor” and accusing someone of petty theft is much the same as discussing the weather with a casual acquaintance.

The other night I came home from work after midnight only to discover that I had less than a glass of cabernet in the house and there’d be no way I was to face the night on that quantity. It usually takes me anywhere from three to five glasses of wine for me to sleep comfortably otherwise I get a bit nervy and awake at every eery noise the settling house makes. For this reason I have decided not to purchase a handgun but I do keep a Wade Boggs edition Louisville Slugger by the front door, (a baseball bat) and on the un-anesthetized evenings I find myself ninja-ing around the house checking closets, staying low and hoping not to improve on Boggs, .328 career batting average. The Kroger on Howell Mill is open all night and inside city limits, Atlanta lawmakers have decided that Jesus says it’s okay to sell at any hour so I put my slippers on and headed out.

I set the alarm, locked the doors and detoured to the mailbox for obvious reasons and was hailed in customary fashion from a gentleman making his way to my person. “Hey Reggie,” I said when I finally recognized his face and quickly greying hair. I could immediately tell that Reggie was drunk or high or both by his serpentine gait and his overt friendliness. He was beside himself with joy that I had remembered his name. Reggie chatted me up for several minutes recalling the time he did in the army and, his favorite subject, asking if I need help with any work around he house because he had help build the newer houses on the street and had actually stayed in mine after it was built four years ago to thwart theft. The fundamental flaw in Reggie’s logic is this: there is nothing wrong with walking up to a person you barely know at one AM, in

an inner-city neighborhood plagued with crime and violence, while at the massaged hands of some intoxicant to solicit work with the calming justification that you know their home’s every hammer stroke.

Pointing at the abandoned lot next to me, I mentioned that I was clearing it out to make the community look better to prospective investors and that he was more than welcome to help but that concept was met with oblivious decision. I, laughingly elaborated on all the wood I had cut up only to be dragged away by the same chaps who are dismantling the shack next door for firewood to which Reggie sprung to life and warned me of his next door neighbors.

The darkness, Reggie’s condition and my ability to clench my back teeth to keep from chuckling saved me from an awkward moment. You see, if I may break the fourth wall, Kenny Sr. told me to watch out for Reggie because he’s an addict, not dangerous or violent, but not a trustworthy individual. This stems from an altercation they had when Kenny Sr. and his mother cut my lawn with a Reggie’s weed-wacker and, unbeknownst to myself, when I gave Reggie the twenty dollars to give to Kenny Sr., he kept ten for himself as an equipment fee and thusly depriving Kenny Sr.’s mother of purchasing cigarettes. Never-mind the image in your head of a large elderly woman and her paraplegic son butchering my lawn with thoughts of Kools dancing in their heads, Kenny Sr. sold out his best friend and neighbor of twenty or so years to a relatively new acquaintance over at matter of ten dollars (understandable if this was $10 in 1885); and now Reggie is doing the same to the neighbors between Kenny Sr. and himself.

I then invoked a social technique I learned from Daniel Ohmann: encourage the deranged to continue their rant and watch as hilarity ensues. So, I asked about Kenny Jr. and his recent run in with the law. Reggie’s bloodshot eyes enlarged and he went on a tangent about how the kid was indeed in jail and how he, Reggie, had personally tried to guide the poor kid, act as a mentor, but “some people can’t be saved even by a good influence.” He spoke at lengths in this

vein but none of it was intelligible nor relevant to this story. For all I know or care, he could’ve been mumbling the theme song to Full House.

Eventually I had to break the news that I was on my way to the store for some cheap wine and I offered to buy Reggie a bottle. He said he liked white wine and when I asked him what kind of white wine, he repeated his previous answer. If my years in the restaurant industry has taught me anything, it’s that white wine is code for chardonnay and red wine means merlot. I could create an entire dissertation on the subject of wine and demographics but for the time being I’ll stick to the subject matter (riesling is for old women and gay black men... you’d be surprised how much they h

ave in common; I’ve made a list. Seriously.)

Kroger had a sale on Rex Goliath wines so a got a couple of

cabernets and a pinot noir (because it tas

tes like freedom) and a three dollar bottle of chard for Reggie. Returning home I gave the bottle to Reggie, who was still shuffling around in the street, and politely asked if he had a wine key to open it. “You mean like a corkscrew?” I nodded and he assured me that I shouldn’t worry; he would get it open without one. Before I could turn around, I hear

Kenny Sr.’s cherub-like voice emanate from his porched position in the darkness ask why I had gone on a booze run without consulting him. It’s like my little twin sisters: you can’t get one of them something without getting the other - one of the same. I instructed Reggie to share with Kenny. “There’s four and a half glasses in that bottle, depending on your stemware, you two should have fun with that.” Reggie walked up Kenny’s wheelchair ramp, that doubles as a clothesline, as I went up the stairs to my own dwelling, locked the door, and steadied the baseball bat in its position.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Often times I am reminded of certain character traits I exhibit from my affectionate inner-circle of friends, at times of introspection and drink, that I should curb and/or suppress. For all their colorful, however vague, ridiculous, and poorly thought out and dictated allegations, I believe that they are hinting to some portrayed arrogance which I find to be the very thing on which I pride myself. Yes, I am proud of my arrogance. You are laughing at the irony of that statement or you are confused and youtubing Dane Cook (enjoy your remaining years). The point that I’m carouseling is that I’ve not mentioned why I live here in the first place. I love Atlanta for all its quirks and inconsistencies. Within twenty years I honestly believe that this will be THE place to live. I am less than five miles from were I work in Midtown, restaurants and art galleries are moving into the King Plow complex less than half that distance; Atlanta is spreading west.

There’s a married couple, Mike and Karen, who live closer to the scarier side of my neighborhood who are incredibly motivated into turning this area into a better place. They work tirelessly trying to get the right people in local office, organize meetings and clean up days, and have created a real neighborhood watch program. I cannot in good faith pretend as though I live in some hell hole without referencing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I received a false alarm from Karen the other day on the way home that someone was vandalizing my house. Mike showed up within minutes. We talked for a long time about the wheels in motion. He pointed to the shack next door and said they’ve already had a commitment from the city to bulldoze the structure and hold lot holders accountable for maintaining their property. I pointed to the other one that I’ve cleared and he Mike grinned like a kid on Christmas.

Sadly, I fear that a significant amount of American money is going to repair the ghettos of Haiti while mine might be vanishing into drug-addled memories of the people decency forgot.

Strange memories on this nervous night in Sims Estates. One year later? One and a half? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era - the kind of peak that never comes again. Atlanta in the early twenty first century was a very special time and place to be apart of Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or bass frequencies from a hoopty’s trunk or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and in the ghetto. Whatever it meant.

Transition is hard to do because of all the elected bullshit, but without being sure of “transition” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole neighborhood comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of this time will hang on one or five or maybe forty nights - or very early mornings when I left the Vortex half-crazed and, instead of going home, aimed the mustang down West Peachtree at a hundred miles an hour wearing brown leather pants and a jean jacket... booming down the access road towards the street lights of Brookhaven and Druid Hills and Decatur, not quite sure which turn-off to take when i got to the end (always stalling at the the 400 toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place were everyone was just as high and wild as I was: No doubt about that at all about that...

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not in Midtown, then up to Buckhead or down 75 to Northside or 5 Seasons... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning ...

And that, I think was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we needed that. Our energy would have to prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the discarded spare tires; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful gentrification...

So now, less than a few months later, you can go up by the Inman rail yards and look East, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the city’s high-watermark - that place where poverty finally broke and rolled back.

Sand Castles and the Human Urge to Destroy

2010-02-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

Today I returned from a wine tasting followed by a coffee demonstration on my off day to which I found myself ambulating in a good mood that was possibly influenced by the chemical effects of alcohol, caffeine, or both. It wasn’t enough wine to constitute inebriation nor was the espresso enough to jolt the nerves one way or the other. Point being, I was in such a way that, despite the cold, I pulled over on eleventh street and took the top off the car and drove modestly above the speed limit; west, to get some laundry done.

Upon entering my driveway I noticed the familiar blue and red markings of an Atlanta police cruiser parked on the sidewalk of the abandoned lot to the west where a young man was being arrested near a white plastic grocery bag that was anchored to the trunk of the police car with an unidentifiable object, substantial enough to keep the bag from joining its brethren among the tumble weed refuse that whistles down my street.

I looked across the street at the Kenny Compound only to see the matron of the house in a Mu Mu-esque house dress wiping tears off her face. It dawned on me that without the usual fanfare and emotion that coincides with the natives’ response to any and everything, it was Kenny Jr. who was relenting to capture; no doubt having something to do with the contents of the bag.

Respectfully, I didn’t inquire as to the situation nor did I stand passerby to watch the events unfold: I ran upstairs to find my video camera. It was dead and I tried manically to find the charger and plug it into a socket in Alex’s room with no luck. I did, however, manage to get a picture of the squad car with Kenny Jr. in the back, but the quality is no so good.

Kenny Jr. seemed as though he was on the right track, obtaining gainful employment and keeping his begging to a minimum and I can only wonder what favor will reach my doorstep in the coming days from this episode. Though I must say it is odd that this whole thing transpired with a certain familiarity as if by custom. It is as if being arrested and imprisoned is a part of life as is death and taxes. This is routine in my neighborhood, this is protocol.

I live among the petty Mandelas who look for some rite of passage, a canonization in victimization, anything to prove that they are the object of a downward force. Kenny Jr. once admitted that he’s on poor terms with the laws and requirements of the City of Atlanta due to involvement with the wrong crowd and an unsympathetic probation schedule. The prevailing concept that I just can’t functionally understand is how consequence for one’s action is skewed from the natural order of casualty. Where are the goals, the purposes? It’s like the captive pandas at the zoo who refuse to breed in spite of their low population numbers reaching extinction.

Within walking distance of my house are two of the same billboards that display a large picture of a black baby and reads, “black children are an endangered specie.” The bottom has a web address to some anti-abortion site, but the message is pertinent and clear as to the purpose that employs advertising tactics to save a people t

hat are self-destructing from within. The large question remains: “Who’s responsibility is it to save a people from themselves, and how?” I used to say, live and let live...”

My Property Tax Appeal/State of the Union Address

2010-02-22T22:09:00.000-08:00

In addition to my application for the homestead exemption/property tax form, I also submit this report to justify my belief that the fair market value of this property (currently listed at $151,600 by Fulton County Tax Commision) is no more than $57,000.

The most compelling basis for this argument is presented by the Uniform Residential Appraisal Report (included) which was conducted by a third party (agent Mark Watkins Durden of D.S. Murphy & Associates Inc.) in October 2008 which listed the sale price as $56, 900 and found this figure to be consistent with other properties in the area. The report also indicates: ”The general marketing conditions in the subject market are unstable and values are declining due to the effects of mortgage fraud and heavy investor activity in the subject market area.”

In regards to the definition of fair market value being “the price at which property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy and both having reasonable knowledge of the relevant fact,” two very profound conditions must be mentioned. The first of which contends with the immediate geography that neighbors the property.

To the west of the property line, an empty lot riddled with garbage, old tires, and the occasional dead animal sits vacant and unmanaged. Slightly west of this lot an abandoned house has begun to rot and has recently become victim to a local need for firewood. I can’t imagine what accredited real estate agent would show a house listed at $151,600 while next door people are pulling wood from an old house, carrying it across the street, and burning it in an old metal barrel.

To the east, another heavily wooded lot remains subject to neglect that has recently caused concern to mine. The initial issue with this lot was how it blocked the driveway’s view of the street making it very dangerous to navigate, it also provided cover for a criminal element (more on that later). After residing here over a year, I took it upon myself to clean it up a bit as no one seemed to care one way or the other. I’ve spent roughly a week of my free time cutting brush and picking up a decade’s worth of trash only to discover that the opening to the run-off drain is horribly clogged with tires and refuse.

I assume that the impedance of proper flow is what has caused my own backyard to flood heavily when it rains as pictured below. The trench is roughly four feet deep and twice as wide which would be more than adequate to transport rain water to the sewer system; however, because of the blockage upstream, much of the property sustains swamp-like conditions.

The second contributing factor to this appeal is by and large the renown this area has for crime. Since the appraisal report was made in October of 2008, the house has been burglarized three times, twice while I have been in residence. The first of which counted the major appliances as casualty: the refrigerator, dishwasher, oven/stove, and the hot water heater. The bank’s insurance paid for minimal repairs and replacement kitchen appliances though none where of the quality of the original. The water from the water heater spilled into the air conditioner floor vents which required removal of the first floor carpets and several days in the crawl space replacing the duct work.

Please keep in mind that my purpose here is not one of complaint, I knew the risks when I moved here. I am merely trying to paint a picture of the situation as a prospective homebuyer would see it. As I have stated before, the house has been broken into on two separate occasions while in residence prompting a few modifications to the entrance ways. The side door in the laundry room has been secured by two two by fours secured by metal bolted into the door frame. The front door has been reinforced with hard maple and six inch bolts. It’s not very pretty, but it seems to work so far. I’ve also bolted all the first floor windows shut which improves safety and security yet does little for resale aesthetic. Additionally, my nearest neighbor (who owns a few houses nearby), has rented his house out due to similar conditions as mine, with the promise that he’ll return once the area “transitions” a little more.

Conclusion

In a slumping economy ear-marked by rampant foreclosures and crime, it would seem ridiculous to assume that one could sell a house for nearly three times what it was sold for a year ago, especially in an area that is still overwhelmed with a general apathy to improve. Much of the surrounding lots and houses have been abandoned, trash litters front yards and over-grown sidewalks are marked with pot-holes. It is my sincere hope that my property will someday be worth the amount for which it is currently valued though I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Boxing, Ballet, and Begging

2010-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

The doorbell rings and I stir from my seat upstairs. I look across the hallway to Alex where he is playing video games and I can tell that he’s purposely not making eye contact. “Maybe they’ll just go away,” I think to myself just before the bell tolls again. They want me: blood, soul, and loose change. I open the door and the Kennies have assumed a defensive position; Sr. is back in his electric wheelchair, Jr. on a very small and rusted bicycle with a nylon bag. The Kennies are smiling which means one of two things: they have something to sell me, or some service they are willing to perform in exchange for money rather than just flat out asking for it. “Eh Shan [sic] we got sumthin you may like.” Bingo!

Kenny Jr. reaches into his bag and pulls out a knock off brand ratchet set still in the box and displays it on the handle bars of his bicycle the way Vanna White would turn over a purchased vowel. I inform them that I am flattered that they thought of me but I already have a ratchet set that I inherited from my grandfather. Instinctively, I am quick to mention that it’s from the 1950’s and of little resale value yet it still works when I need it; bases covered. The lights began to go out in the Kennies’ faces so I asked them how they came about such a nice product. The father and son shared a quick, loving glance, of what seemed to be a confused fear until Kenny Jr. stated with confidence that a friend of his works at Auto Zone and gave it to him. The pride in Kenny Sr.’s eyes could not be described by any hand that mortality could touch. However, it was short lived as they prepared to leave my front yard.

“Alex says you found a job,” I called after Kenny Jr. to lessen the blow of defeat. Indeed he had, allegedly, as he described his new-found joy of landscaping. He claimed to have done the lady at the end of the street’s yard all by himself. The house in question is an ornately cared for property owned by a middle-aged white woman who keeps mostly to herself with a few large dogs. I should, jealously, also mention that it is the only house on the street that looks like it could belong in a real neighborhood. “Well, someday when I don’t have to park in my own yard, I might just hire ya to do some work over here.” Promise the sky; that is why I am their king and will someday use this influence for political gain.

The Kennies turn around to leave a second time when I call out to Kenny Sr. about the woman with the crutch that was yelling at him in the street the other day. Sensing that there isn’t any money to change hands by this conversational effort, Kenny fulfills his neighborly obligation with less enthusiasm than before. The woman in the purple pants was his sister who was, at the time of the incident, blaming Kenny and a host of fellow neighbors over some missing money which she had later found. He then went on to inform me that he pays all the family’s bills and that times are hard and a multitude of other fiscally personal matters intertwined with his deep faith in God’s benevolence and such. I interject with a few “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” which may be bit blasphemous in using religion to fein humility, but, then again, maybe not. We enter into a sort of communal prayer where Kenny Sr. and I declare our misfortunes to the heavens as though we were playing chess. Kenny wins, though the victory is none so sweet as there are no spoils of war to plunder; I’ve already waved good bye and gone inside and locked the door behind me.

There is no joy in Sim’s Estates this day for mighty Kenny has struck out. Don’t weep, dear reader, tomorrow is another day, you see:

As I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Kenny’s wonder, when he first picked out the blue mustang at the end of my driveway. He had come a long way to my front yard, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the ghetto, where the dark fields of the confederacy rolled on under the night.

Kenny believed in the blue mustang, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter. Tomorrow we will shuffle down the middle of the street, stretch out our hands farther... and one fine morning (late afternoon)--

So we beat on, rusted Oldsmobile against the current, borne back carelessly into the past.

Further Misuses of Tax Dollars and Breathable Air

2010-02-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

It’s been a quiet week on Johnson Road since I’ve lashed out at the Kennies. The community has come together to keep me on my toes, though. While one of many heating and air conditioning repairmen where tinkering with the outside unit, a vaguely familiar looking woman made her way through the yard to be overtly friendly. Google the word “crackhead” and see what images the internet pulls up. That should do ya. I did my best to be kindly dismissive but that does little to dissuade the inevitable need for some favor. The spindled lady with cyclone eyes, cold from her manner of dress and dietary habits finally cut to the chase: it was her 47th birthday and she needed a few dollars to get “sum, sumthin, sumthin.” I decided to out-victim her, wished her a happy birthday, ignoring the request for the purchase of “sum, sumthin, sumthin,” and gave an elaborate tale of my last birthday which was highlighted with burglary.

I then went on to relate how all my white friends told me not to move into this area because I would be at the mercy of theft and constant charity. My crackhead neighbor was quick to assure me that she was only asking for money by virtue of the day’s importance to her and not by any standard to be considered less than celebratory. Unfortunately, I most humbly explained, that it would be another week before I could afford heat and therefore had to go inside to bust up another kitchen chair for firewood. While the repairman had excused himself to his van, the crackhead lady said the following: Oh, you my niggah, my bruthahs an cusins take apart that ol’ haunted has fo burnen.” Citizens of the world, I am someone’s niggah!

The next day, the doorbell rings at about four in the afternoon and to my delight a young man of about fourteen years stares at me with an idiot’s sleep. His bicycle is laying in my front yard next to a smaller child of roughly ten years who has taken to lay with his own transport. He precedes to speak in tongues while swaying slightly back and forth to I sheepishly reply, “young man I haven’t the faintest idea as to the meaning of a single word you’ve said.” He then produces a plastic Mrs. Winners bag from his pocket (I couldn’t tell you where the closest Mrs. Winners is) and, at my request, speaks slowly (conveys, rather), that he needs food for his dog.

I examine the lad for a moment and his eccentric take on how people interact to which I felt the need for clarity. “When you say dog, do you mean an animal, or your little buddy over there, cause if he’s hungry I’d feel bad about filling you bag with alpo.” Any laughter that might have made the situation awkward was quickly herded by the seriousness to which the kid took the question as genuine. “Nah, it’s fo muh woof woof.“ I asked for a moment and went inside to check supplies when I spotted the cans of ol’ Roy I sometimes mix in with Dakota’s dry food. Once, I erroneously gave her an entire can mixed with the dry purina and she quickly digested it into an unwashable stain on the stairs. Menacingly, I handed a full can to the day’s vagrant and wished him well even after he asked for a second can. With any luck, that poor kid will be beaten for the intestinal holocaust his dog will unleash upon his family’s dwelling. Or maybe he ate it himself. Whatever.

It would be Monday afternoon that the house across the street came back to life. I was sitting at the piano, writing a new song to bring the children of the world together, when Alex yelled from his room that Kenny was arguing with a woman brandishing a crutch. “Ha, Ha, that’d be funny,” I replied down the echos of the hallway only to have him assure me that it was in fact happening. I rushed into his room and we peered between the venetian blinds to watch the events unfold. And rather than go into detail about this event, I might as well show you. I get the feeling that people think I’m making this stuff up, so this time we have a special treat for you. Ever the opportunist, I grabbed my cheap digital camera and recorded the events unfold. Much of it was them merely standing in the street so I edited it a bit and even scored a fat beat to the end of it.

Once the coast was clear enough for me to venture outside, I made a b-line to my car, got in and pulled out of the driveway. In the rearview mirror I saw what appeared to be a town meeting that I wasn’t invited to attend on the other side of the shack next door. Confound their plotting! However, the way this winter is going, they’ll need more wood from the shack and, thus, will have no where to secretly convene. Til then, we will lock our doors and deposit our money in banks. A big congratulations to Alex is in order for finally getting a checking account.

It should also be noted that there is a perfectly good sidewalk on my end of the street, but she would rather push her stroller towards on coming traffic. I'm beginning to side with the creationist's take on evolution.

"The Food Situation"

2010-01-31T12:40:00.000-08:00

Just as soon as I began this venture to document the goings-on of my little cross-section of West Atlanta, I fear that I may have killed the main feed. You see, dear reader, last week I came home on my break between shifts to eat some cereal, check my email, pay some bills, the normal sort of things people do in many parts of the country between the hours of two and five in the afternoon. Granted, in this part of town this is about the time when people wake up and go to their jobs. Not “jobs” in a conventional sense like I’m sure you close-minded people would consider it: traveling to an established locale and working for compensation. No, here people pretty much just walk up and down the streets to yell, or holler (hollah), at other people, passing cars, stray dogs, mailboxes, and/or themselves. That is just what they do. And though there is a perfectly good sidewalk that runs the length of my street, our darling citizenry insists on shuffling their house slippered feet in the middle of the road.

Kenny Sr., confined to a wheelchair as he is and will always be, can often be seen parked outside his house; taking up much of the east bound lane. It would appear to me that natural selection has been umbrella’d into the many City of Atlanta entities in which nothing gets done save for the few things that are actually addressed which takes long periods of time to complete and even then, half-assedly. In other words, the laws of nature and survival have found some Lewis Carrol exception in this world, but I digress.

Alex was playing video games upstairs in his room when I payed a visit to see how his day was going and to offer a mutual exchange of pleasantries that polite society often engages when, hark, the doorbell doth ring. “Why don’t you go down and see who it is,” I asked him, shirking my duties of the treasury to which he replied that he was too busy shooting zombies. I made some remark as to how I was sure he’d encounter the same currently at our door; slow moving, dirty creatures looking for, well, not brains, but bus fare. The doorbell kept ringing.

And guess who I should find on my doorstep, Kenny Jr.’s goofy little face. “A, my dad wants to axe you a question.” Momentary pause. “Is that so...” and before I could say something epic, Kenny Sr. rolls out from behind my car and inquires about the “food situation.” My puzzled look of both wonder and annoyance begged further explanation to which he continued, “you know, have you brought us any food from your new job?”

If I may pause here a moment, freeze the world and offer a slight example of the scenario and a minor detail of how my mind operates. The assessed situation here operates on a strange socio-biological system that isn’t just the annoyance of being the constant source of small change in the neighborhood, but the learned behavior that is emanating from these situations.

I am a person of pride and I find it difficult to ask people for help. There have been many times that I’ve been the victim of some petty suffering so as not to disturb or rely on the kindness of others that are not family or close friends. I just don’t understand how a man in his forties, handicapped or not, could bring his son to beg strangers for charity as many men would take their sons on a hunt, or, of a modern sense, to work. I call to mind the scene from Legends of the Fall where gangsters have come for Brad Pitt and he pleas with them to take him out to the woods and not to shoot him in front of his boy.

I grow tired hearing people say that it’s an issue of poverty and poor education that causes people to act like scavengers, and the government should provide better resources to aid in the instruction and betterment of its constituency. So much for the rugged individualism that created this country. The point is, Kenny Jr. is being crafted, in a way, to depend on the charity of others the way generations of his family have done. Case and point: Kenny Jr. once knocked on my door asking for bus fare and when I told him I didn’t have any money to give him he replied, “BUT, tomorrow is Martin Luther King’s birthday” as though he was saying, “trick or treat.” I told him it was not the man’s birthday, just the day that his life is commemorated. Gather what you will the meaning of that exchange.

Back on the porch, I calmly, yet assertively informed Kenny Sr. of the following points:

There is no food situation that can or will be solved by myself or my brother.
I am growing frustrated with knowing that I can’t walk out into my yard without having some stranger run up and ask for handouts.
If I had the funds that the people around here seem to think I do, I wouldn’t have moved into this neighborhood.
If necessary, I will shoot someone and put their head on a stake in my front yard to warn all those that walk by, the cops won’t care, in fact I bet they’d let me borrow a gun.
I’m gonna sell this house as soon as possible and live somewhere adults can take care of themselves.

Both Kennies were a little shocked by the outburst; Kenny Sr. pulled the hood of his jacket over his head the way children hide under sheets from monsters in the closet. “It’s the car,” he sheepishly replied as to why everyone thinks I’m the King of Town. “Well, I’m sure they’ll repossess it any day now, and when that day comes, I’ll be sure to walk up and down the streets asking for money to get it back so that everyone can still have this grand beacon of hope.”

Kenny Sr. then called over his son to roll him back home (where the electric wheelchair went, I didn’t ask. I’m sure he’ll tell me soon enough.) through my yard which looked rather difficult as the ground was wet. Kenny Sr. then offered to pray for me and when he wins the lottery, he’s going to pay off my house for me. I told him I appreciated that gesture though in the back of my head I had wondered how many lottery tickets he could have forgone for the sake of the “food situation.”

Oh, and should I come across any extra food, I’ve been instructed to honk my horn and he’ll send Kenny Jr. to come pick it up. It’s been almost a week since I’ve seen either of them.

Just another night

2010-01-27T15:25:00.001-08:00

I got home around 11:00pm and hadn’t even shut the car door when I heard Kenny Jr. call out, “hey neighbor.” I waved and made my way up to the door. “You ever get them flowers for my grand daddy’s funeral?” he asked.

+flashback to a week before+

The Kennies had approached my porch an hour before their patriarch’s funeral to request help in acquiring more flowers for the casket. I was out the door on my way to work. The conversation went something like this between Kenny Sr. and myself while Kenny Jr. followed along with a silly grin:

Kenny: Hey Shaun, you know, we burying my dad today an--- let me ask you a question, can you help us get more flowers for the service.

Me: I don’t even know where there is a flower shop around here mch less what to pick out for a funeral.

Kenny: Oh there’s one down a ways on Bankhead Hwy...

Me: Well, I’ve got to be to work soon and I don’t have the time to go looking for a flower shop on Bankhead...

Kenny: Well the flowers cost $15 and all I got is seven so could you help me out with the rest?

Me: I don’t have any cash on me, man, but isn’t this a little last minute?

(Kenny Jr. had been asking my brother and I if we had any extra dress pants he could wear to the funeral. Unbeknownst to both of us, we had each given him a pair of black slacks and lo he was standing on my front porch in a baggy suit of light beige, a dress shirt and tie. “You little asshole!” I thought to myself. He’s kept both pairs of pants.)

Kenny: We been busy and my moms is been pretty messed up this week.

Me: Well, I’ll try to stop by Kroger on my way back.

+++

I never got them any flowers. The night after granddad died, the Kennies came to the house asking for money to help bury the old man. I felt bad and gave them thirty dollars. I brought some beer and we sat in the porch and had your run of the mill recent death in the family conversation. Neither the Kennies had much to say about the guy; no stories, just quipped assurances that he was worth asking people for money on his behalf.

I’ve come to find myself making elaborate lies now to avoid their charity requests. As the story goes, I bought the flowers, left them at work, was fired and escorted of premises by security and therefore I won’t be able to acquire more until I make enough money to catch my finances up to afford such pleasantries. The entire explanation was dictated from my porch to Kenny Jr.’s mailbox where he sat, befuddled as to how to proceed with his grift. I opened the door and went inside. Luckily, Alex had already let Dakota out, so wouldn’t have to turn off the lights sand sneak her out to crap.

Welcome one and all to your virtual ghetto.

2010-01-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

Herein it shall be recorded the exploits that I face daily (and sometimes more frequently than that!) so that all may laugh at the downside of purchasing a house in an area of town that survives on what I can only assume to be luck. I will be your sentry to a place you may never go unless you get lost. You'll know you here when you find yourself at a red light and you double check your door locks.

Back Story:

I moved into this house a year ago well aware that it is in a spot defined, politely, as "up and coming," "gentrifying," "transitional," and several other blanket statements that suggest hope yet promise nothing. Though I've often waved to pedestrians walking aimlessly down the street, I've not really attempted to leave my property for the sake of introduction. What little efforts I've made at being friendly is either met with blank stares or an invitation to ask for money for MARTA or compensated menial labor around the house.

It's worse in the summer when teenage kids knock on the door at all hours of the day and night wanting to mow the lawn and the few times I've agreed to it, they do a half-ass job and return every day afterwards to mow it again. On several occasions I've spent large portions of the day picking up decades worth of trash in the abandon lots on either side of my property and every time I've been kindly approached and offered help which is quickly withdrawn when I hint that there's no money involved. Basically, the point here is that my neighbors are shiftless grifters willing to work a few hours if it means they can buy potato chips and other gas station delicacies that will be consumed and tossed into the nearest yard. They never bother me or Alex unless there is a sob story attached and a request for money.

As an interesting side note, every time I’m outside and talking on the phone, someone comes up an starts talking to me or asking for money. Never mind pointing to the phone or gesturing that you’re engaged in a prior conversation, my neighbors see a phone and disregard any and all social parameters.

Cast of Characters (yes, these are their real names):

Kenny Sr.

Kenny is a paraplegic in his early forties that lives across the street. Every month or so he re-tells the story of how he was robbed and shot several times about ten years ago which segues into some watered-down religious moral to the story to which he will ask if I can help him out with a few dollars to buy whatever it is that my taxes don’t cover. I’ve allowed him and other colorful characters to mow my lawn which is a sight that makes me a little uncomfortable: watching middle-aged black men hack at my lawn with a weed eater. There’s something very antebellum about this situation that doesn’t feel right.

Kenny lives with his mother and his son, Kenny Jr., all whom seem to spend all day, every day, behind the glare of their messed front porch. To his credit, Kenny gave me a dirty ceramic bulldog as a house warming gift; a kind gesture indeed that predicated a request for money and stories of his father’s failing health. Two or three times a month, Grady Hospital EMTs wheel him out on a stretcher with no particular hurry which means I can expect to see Kenny Jr. every day to ask for two dollars so that he can take MARTA to the hospital.

Kenny’s Mom

She greatly resembles Martin Lawrence’s “Big Momma” character and has never been out-going or friendly. Kenny says that she’s in her mid-fifties and gave birth to him when she was barely thirteen. The only time she has ever spoken directly to me was to call animal control to remove a dead dog from the street. Usually, she’ll tell Kenny Jr. to wait outside until Alex or I get home from work to ask for money or favors. Most recently, she had Kenny Jr. wake me up around midnight on a Sunday to ask if I’d take time off work the following day to help her buy some shoes. This seemed odd for obvious reasons but, also, because there are always people coming and going whom I assume are her children and grandchildren.

Kenny Jr.

I estimated that Kenny was about seventeen until he recently told me that he was twenty. Kenny has no problem asking for MARTA money every single day so that he can get to probation meetings, job interviews (he’s never had a job in the year I’ve lived here), or the hospital to visit his dad; however, he often over-sleeps and thusly has not acquired employment. He is the ghetto’s version of Hermes; always couriering information across the street. More often than not he’ll knock on the door to tell me that his dad or grandmother have a question. Stupidly, I ask what it is they want and he responds with wonder, “want me to go ask?” He’s halfway across the street before I can say no.

Kenny Sr.’s Dad

I’ve only met Willie James once while I was having the house inspected. He looked as though he was ninety years old, smelled of pee, and ate a honey bun with his three remaining teeth. When he spoke it was indiscernible jibber about something that happened in the sixties. Kenny later told me that his dad was left a bit retarded after he was hit by a MARTA handicap bus while crossing the street to get to an ice cream truck. The old man had been put into a state run old folks’ home until he died recently. Yet, his spirit lives on as the Kennies require funds for all sorts of reasons needed to lay the patriarch to rest.

Reggie

Apparently, Reggie helped build my house four years ago and has told me on several occasions that he lived in the house until it was originally sold. He lives a couple house up the street and I’ve usually seen him wheeling Kenny up his ramp after a night of cards. Reggie mostly keeps to himself but has been known to hit me up for beer money.

Ramin

Until he recently moved to his Sandy Springs condo, Ramin was the only true neighbor I had. He owns five houses in this area and has been openly abrasive to our fellow inhabitants. I miss having him around. He’s an older Persian gentleman with a Brazilian girlfriend who’d have small parties very late at night with her friends and sisters. It was always fun to get home around two thirty in the morning only to find that they’d be up for another five hours. He promised to move back when the neighborhood got a little better.

The Family that rents Ramin’s House

They’ve lived there for a couple of months but neither of us have made an effort to exchange pleasantries. The woman’s four or five children will sometimes knock on the door and ask to use my phone. On my street, parents tell their children to ask favors of strangers when they, themselves, are not present.