Dog Walking in the Hood
I live in a transitional neighborhood although that it’s been “as is” for at least my 12 years of residency begs for a more accurate adjective. In common with other such hoods in alleged flux, this Green Hill Park neighborhood in Worcester, MA, to the consternation of its multicultural and diverse folks on the constructive side of “transition,” suffers from the variegated crops of poverty and cultural degradation, including the drug trade.
For instance, we harbor a familial “gang” of children ranging from 6-7 years to older teenagers, boys and girls, who behave destructively and with galling disrespect. We first noticed them in the spring: one of the teenage girls was wantonly pulling up tulips by the bulbs from each house she passed.
My partner questioned them, eliciting a chorus of insolent mockery and curses stunningly incongruent with their childhood appearance. Then maliciously coy, they tried to play with her: “She’s picking flowers for mother’s day.”
The detail that underscored the familial dysfunction at the root of the kids’ anarchic disrespect was the behavior of the mother / older adult pushing a baby stroller. Even in the face of a community’s reproach, she said nothing to indicate disapproval much less to stop them.
The next day on my dog walk I found many of the dying tulips discarded on the street, – desolate images of mindless destruction, and a compelling prompt for an essay on the effects of poverty on human character.
This was only the first of several episodes. One involved a resident who told us where the gang lived. It turned out to be an unpaved roadway that abuts the park and on which I often Travel on my dog walks. Hence, my surveillance began.
They lived in a multiplex house, once belonging to older, longtime residents who passed away. Post the 2008 housing bust, the home was bought by an absentee landlord who vinyl sided the needed maintenance and rents to hard-up tenants who welcome his lack of concern for their rental history, or their ability to afford the exorbitant cost of electric heat in a New England winter. The result is the degradation of the neighborhood by this eyesore, and transience squared as tenants turn over rapidly leaving behind abandoned cars, furniture, and trash. Rootlessness, joblessness, desolation.
Today, I note the abandoned yellow Chevy sedan that has been rotting in place for 6 months, the skeleton of a bicycle along with bins overflowing with trash. On top of the roof satellite dishes proliferate like fungi, and on the front porch the baby carriage I recognized.
Then two new happenings caught my eye. I saw a postman put a small black plastic wrapped package in the rusting, crooked mailbox .Then, from about 30 feet up from the house, I heard the engine of a parked black SUV with tinted windows. The neurons in my frontal lobes glow and pulsate with connection: I was witness to the heroin trade plaguing Worcester!
To test my hypothesis, I walked by the driver’s side of the SUV and glanced in at the young brown skinned man with close cropped hair. He didn’t look at me, feeding my suspicion. His averted gaze and his stereotypical appearance, proof!
The case heated up when the pick-up car shifted gears and moved up the road, across the street from the drop-off. Citizen sleuth, went into action:
I took out my cell phone and provocatively pointed it arm’s length out and towards the SUV. I was drawing the dealer out, making him reveal himself, hampering the deal. Sure enough, he yelled back, “Hey, don’t you take my picture.” I ignored him and kept the phone pointing at him. Again,” Hey, it’s against the law. Stop.” Statuesque I didn’t move or say a word. “Hey,” he screams with frustration, and the car goes into reverse and tears its way back in clouds of dirt.
The dealer pulls up next to me. “I told you to stop taking my picture.” He’s angry. I’m cool. I’ve got him hooked and squirming. With a low voice, I say, “I’m not taking your picture.” And I point the empty phone face towards him, but that doesn’t convince him. I said, “Stop,” he drills the air with emphasis.
Now I become Socratic: “How can I stop something I’m not doing?” I ask. Baffled, I think, he can only repeat, “Stop. It’s against the law.” What a joke, I think sardonically. and continue my philosophical query , “ Is it not like asking me to stop from flying my hot air balloon on a residential street when I obviously don’t have one? That’s illogical,” I pronounce.
“It’s not illogical,” he persists, “It’s illegal!” “Illegal?” my sophist self-pursues,” Is the law logical …..? That did it. Exasperated, he pleads, “Look, lady, you‘re interfering with our operation.”
This unexpected turn prompts me to peer more deeply into the window and sure enough beneath the door frame I catch the glimmer of gold, – a shiny badge on his black bullet proof vest. “We can’t have pictures of our undercover van circulating to blow our stings!”
O”A hah,” And, I join the raid…. Yeah, I know the people in this place are up to no good. That’s why I was trying to rattle you.” “Yeah, we know, but we’re after someone else today and him jutting his chin up the street to one of the more decorous homes not on my radar. “But, you can’t be doing this. These people are dangerous,” he warns.
At that, the radio crackled into life, and he tore off down the road. I watched as he pulled the SUV over and jumped out to join three other police exiting from a black unmarked sedan. All had bullet proof vests and guns drawn as they rushed down a driveway.
I glanced back at the suspect house with a scrutinizing stare that vowed, “next time, dirt bags!” and, shifting mental gears, continued my dog walk in the hood.
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