Tuesday

This Week's Crackhead Specials

Finally got a new substance abuser in my life. You know how I get all my yard work done by the neighborhood crackhead/winos? As I said before, most of them have gone on to...greener pastures...but there's been one who's been bugging me for the past couple of years.

I used to ignore him because he always got on my nerves. I could never really figure out what his issue was...if he was on drugs, mentally challenged or just an a$$hole. He was always pestering me. If I pulled up to my house and I saw him walking I'd try to look busy and stay in the car until he passed. Of course he would always come up to the window and start screaming through the window:

"You want meeda wash ya car? Hey!...Hey! Wan meeda wash ya car? I can wash yuh car fuh yuh! Hey! Hey! Wonchu lemme wash yuh car! Whatta 'bout your yard? I can do yuh yard for yuh! Come on! I can do it!"

He's the type of guy who you have to say no to at least 10 times before he finally leaves you alone. Needless to say, by the time I get to the 10th time I'm not saying it very nicely. That whole thing got on my nerves too quick. If ever he saw me, he could never just let me go into the house or get into my car without pestering me to let him do something.

And his charge was always so low! Now I'm real familiar with crackhead prices so I'm used to getting work done for a bargain. But his prices were so low you just couldn't take it seriously. Like he'd offer to wash my car for $1. Can you really trust a $1 car wash? From a crackhead?

Since I've been consulting, I really haven't had the additional income to pay people to...work for me. Even if I did have it, I just feel if you're on a budget you shouldn't pay people to do chores you could easily do yourself if you weren't so damn lazy. That's way too bourgeois...even for me. Meanwhile, the weeds in my yard looked like they were about ready to gang up and jack my Dwarf Japanese Maple tree. I realized something needed to be done.

So Shorty rings my bell the other day. My immediate reaction when I saw him was to shake my head no and close the door. He had just asked me if he could do my yard the day before and I told him I had no money. I figured that would be the end of that. I guess when I said I had no money, he was thinking I was just talking about that day. He didn't realize I meant that month and probably for the rest of the year.

But something kept me from closing the door completely on his incoherent requests. Maybe it was the fact that he rang my bell only once...not five times...one right after the other--like he usually does. Maybe it was the fact that my out-of-control weeds appeared to be sneaking up behind him as he stood there. Or, maybe it was the fact that he said he would do my yard for 50 cents.

Do my yard for 50 cents! Hot damn! Now that's a thinking man. No, you can't buy any liquor--not even a single--or any drugs for 50 cents. But if you do enough chores for enough neighbors, you can pool together enough cheddar to get yourself some stash. All this time I thought he was low-balling himself and he was really just a man with a plan! I really admired that. I looked at him with new-found respect.

I gave him my hedge clippers and he went to work. I watched him as he began cutting the weeds down with the clippers. "Oh helllll no," I thought. "I could do that myself."

"You can't just cut the weeds, you have to pull them from the roots or else they'll just be back tomorrow," I griped.

Of course, this was probably the plan. I had to catch myself though. The brother was only asking for 50 cents and here I was acting like he was Lawn Doctor. Still, I had to direct him a bit. I don't know what kind of substance Shorty has been taking over the years, but he's about a beer short of a 6-pack. He was hacking away at my hedges like he was Edward Scissorhands. Of course...Edward knew what the hell he was doing. He had a technique. Shorty was just cutting to be cutting.
I had to be very clear that it had to be even when he finished. He actually listened, which surprised me even more. In addition to not being too swift, Shorty was always a little hard headed.

In the end I gave him a dollar and I told him I'd give him another dollar the next day when I had a chance to get out the house...Surprisingly, he never came back for the rest of his money. I guess the dollar sufficed. At those prices, even a poor consultant like me can still afford to have help. Hot damn! Living in a gentrified neighborhood does have its benefits! All the crackhead/wino cheap labor has almost offset the cost of the four stereos, portable CD player and umpteen CDs that have been stolen from my car over the years! Almost.

Anyway, for the first time since I've lived here, I actually am hoping to see Shorty again soon. Now that I have an extra dollar...maybe I can get my car washed.

Posted by Girl in the City at 10:01 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

My Journey Through Gentrification

I sometimes wonder what it is about gentrification that is often so incendiary. I think part of the problem is that it begins with the facade that gentrification is really about diversity. We all want diversity because there seems to be this notion that a neighborhood can be too black or too Latino. People don't typically talk about a neighborhood being too white but believe me, there is such a thing.

People of color appreciate true diversity. In fact, most in predominantly minority neighborhoods will proudly point to the new white couple down the street as a sign of progress.

But gentrification is a whole 'nother issue. It is really diversity in reverse and while one white couple moving to an ethnic community may be cute, six or seven will usually begin to make the longtime neighbors groan, “There goes the neighborhood.”

The gentrification of DC is no different from what is happening in urban neighborhoods across the country. It’s happening to New Orleans in the post Hurricane Katrina era and it’s even happening to Harlem one of the country’s most well known African American communities. That it’s happening to the nation’s capitol and what has been long referred to in black circles as “chocolate city” is not surprising and probably long overdue. After all, it is the nation’s capitol—only those of us who've lived here long enough know that just a few years ago it was nothing but a sleepy little government town that shut down at five o’clock.

Let’s face it, most people don’t mind the upside of gentrification. The quality supermarkets that spring up in your neighborhood, the cute little sidewalk cafes, the Home Depots, the streets that are suddenly paved and, the most coveted prize of all, the increased emergency response.

But there’s obviously a downside to gentrification as well. The unique little mom and pop shops that sell the things you need get replaced by businesses that are nice but sell things you don’t really need. Old Ms. Johnson who was always sweeping sidewalks, knew all the neighborhood gossip, and letting you know when someone she didn’t recognize came knocking on your door while you were away is suddenly and mysteriously replaced by some middle age white guy who only talks to you to ask you not to throw anything in his trash can. The parks, which used to belong to romping children, now belong to romping dogs.

But some of the things that get lost in gentrification aren’t really quantifiable or visible. Like a neighborhood’s personality and its soul.

Before my neighborhood became gentri-fried, dyed and so many of its working class black folks became laid to the side (tucked away neatly in Maryland's Prince George’s county), I lived in what I would often call the “’hood”. Not on the level of HBO’s show “The Wire” or anything like that, but it definitely had its ghetto-like elements.

Have you ever seen something so crazy that all you can think is, “Man, if only someone else were with me to witness this”? I’ve had lots of those moments. I’ve found that living in the ‘hood is often underrated. OK, so maybe my suburban friends have never had the experience of spending a day planting beautiful new flowers in their garden only to have someone dig them up and steal them the very next day. But I’ve seen some of the best entertainment from my window. And the best performance for a middle of the street, raunchy cuss out by rival crack head prostitutes while pushing their baby strollers down the street at 3am in the morning goes to…

These postings started out as stories about my crazy crack head encounters, but then one day I looked up and all of the crack heads and winos were gone. While it should have been a time of celebration, believe it or not I was a little bummed. While my neighborhood wasn’t perfect, I felt pretty safe and it was rather colorful.

While the yuppies that have replaced my old neighbors aren’t nearly as colorful as the bums and winos, I have found them equally bizarre. Gentrification has brought a whole new culture of traits to my neighborhood—neighborhood meet ups, community clean ups, list serv mania, dog obsession, garbage can coveting, etc. So I decided to use it as an opportunity to catalogue my neighborhood’s full journey through gentrification as I have seen it. Bear in mind these essays have been written over a span of several years, beginning shortly after I left my job at a PR firm to travel Spain and consult for a short time, and are not in any particular order.

I would like to think these blog entries will serve some higher purpose. Decades from now, when the plans for this city has run its course, some little fair-haired, blue-eyed child may very well stumble across this blog and with a strange expression on his face look up at his nanny and ask, “What is diversity?”