Bumz Outside my Window

I live in a gentrified neighborhood. You know, yuppies to the left of me--crackheads to the right...and folks like me in the middle.

There used to be a garden next door where all the bums and winos would hang out and hoot and holler and carry on. The special days were when I would bring home company. Those were the days when they would really act out. One day I pulled up with some friends and they were dragging one of the drunker drunks out by his arms. Apparently they had drunk boundaries and he had over-stepped them. You gotta respect that.


"Beau" was the crackhead who would do my gardening for me. He was pretty cool and I liked him, plus he would hardly charge me anything for the work. Honestly, if you can find a crackhead you can trust, they're the best people to do your yard and fix-up stuff. You think I'm joking. Don't sleep on a crackhead.

The problem is crackheads don't last too long. Beau OD'd in the alley around the corner. They found him dead on an old couch. Folks really shouldn't keep furniture in alleys. That's ghetto.

"Bay-boy" was a hoot. He was a wino. He was tore down all the time. And I do mean ALL the time. My next door neighbor, a cool middle aged white hippy chick, used to have him walk her dog every morning.

One day we were talking and she says, "You should get "Bay-boy" to do work for you. He's pretty good if you can catch him before he gets drunk." Well I had to ask her when the hell that was...between 5am and 5:15am? At the time he died I had been living there for five years and I had never once since him sober. Not ONCE.

I finally assumed he slurred all the time because he had had a stroke. Imagine my surprise when I found out he was really drunk all that time. How in the heck can someone be drunk everyday for five years straight? I guess that's why he's dead. He was nice though.

"Bo-Bo" is another interesting character though he isn't a drunk. He's mentally challenged. You would always see him running around with drum sticks. I don't mean chicken drum sticks, I mean "drum" drum sticks.

Finally, people started putting him to work. He really likes to help out. Everytime there's some road crew on our street doing some work, there's "Bo-Bo" helping out...or getting in the way. Whichever. They pay him so he must do OK.

What irony. "Bay-boy," who had all of his capacities...when he wasn't incapacitated, chose to live a life of "forced retardation" while "Bo-Bo," who is mentally challenged, works hard to overcome his limitations. It's a poignant point...which I guess kind of gets lost in the ridiculous sound of the nicknames...

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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.

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Random Acts of Arrogance

I saw my “new” neighbor as I got out of my car this evening. I noticed her coming out of her garage that is located in the alley adjacent to my house. She just kind of came out of no where and as I glanced at her she seemed to suddenly look off in the other direction and scurried off toward her home. The “new” neighbors are like that. They mostly seem to only talk to their own kind. Maybe they all share some kind of “new” neighbor language that only they can understand. There seems to be this undercurrent of understanding between the new and old neighbors. Unless you’re a dog walker or you show up at our neighborhood volunteer events and political rallies, we’ll assume you’re the enemy.

My block has become so mixed with old and new neighbors. But instead of ending up with one neighborhood, we’ve ended up with two. The old neighbors still acknowledge each other, often giving each other the “special” look. The one that went from, “Can you believe this shit?” to “Well, I see you’re still here.” The new neighbors seem also to only acknowledge each other. The new neighbors are basically anyone who hasn’t been here for more than 10 years. As you can guess, the new neighbors are mostly white. The older neighbors are black but also mixed with white. It’s important to note that the new and old aren’t completely divided by color. It’s more about time served.

When I think about it; there are really several categories of neighbors living here. There are the African American families who grew up here and whose children have grown up here and may have their adult children and grand children also living in the home. Then there is the younger set of African Americans who took advantage of the extended tendrils of Capitol Hill after a surge of crime and a few high profile murders left a smattering of For Sale signs on what seemed like half the tiny front yards of the row houses in Northeast. That’s my category.

Then there are the older whites who moved in during the 1970s, usually keeping a low profile. And then, finally, the new neighbors. These are the largely white neighbors who flocked to DC after the Starbucks onslaught declared it yuppy-ready. It wouldn’t surprise me if each new neighbor profile was initially met with some level of resistance and resentment when their U-Hauls arrived. I know I was. But no group has been received with as much resentment as the “new” neighbors. If there’s one thing the new neighbors have been able to do is to unite many of all the old neighbor profiles into a similar category. The “I’m Sick of the New Neighbors” category.

I don’t think the old neighbors really set out to be against the new neighbors. I think there was a wait and see period and the new neighbors failed. They came in with their guarded facial expressions and their eyes that seemed to skit over you when they passed you by on the street, and their fixation on their dogs—made most bizarre because although they wouldn’t talk to you if you passed them on the street, they’d stop to spend quality time with your dog if you were walking with one. But most of all, they came in with their demands. The demands for every service that neighbors had been demanding over the years, but with a seemingly naïve concept of expectations. There was a theft from auto on our block last night. Why aren’t the police patrolling our block day and night? There was a fight in front of my house last Saturday night and it took the police more than 30 minutes to respond.

But then the demands started encroaching on the neighbors. I saw a black man standing on the corner when I walked into my house yesterday afternoon. Does anyone know who he is? There’s a drunk guy who’s always walking up and down our street. Can we call city services about him? And that was pretty much when the shit started to slowly hit the fan. The old neighbors had had enough of these “new” suburban-turned-urbanites who obviously didn’t have a clue as to what was reasonable expectation from the police force who had more than 500,000 residents to safeguard, the expectation of police response to a non emergency calls on a Saturday night and the seeming unawareness that there would actually be crime in a city. The old black neighbors weren’t the only ones grumbling, the old white neighbors were grumbling too. After all, they had braved the front during a time when most white folks in the metro area sailed into DC only to work or for an occasional social outing and then rushed back to the sanctuary of their VA homes only too eager to wipe the smut of DC from the bottom of their suburban heels. These were the people who talked about DC like it was a four-lettered word and scoffed at its citizens who voted in a notorious mayor. Then those Starbucks kept popping up and the next thing you know---“Oh my God, there are white people hanging out on U Street! Yes girl, U Street; I’m looking at them right now!”

The Birth of Cool, took place in Ben’s Chili Bowl for white folks vying for the bragging rights to call it their new hang out joint. And then just like that, DC was PC. But the old white DC residents who had been here all along didn’t need a Starbucks to feel comfortable in “Chocolate City.” They enjoyed “U” Street, when they were sometimes the only white face on it and it pissed them off to see a new generation of white folks flocking to black-owned and black-loved joints. Suddenly the “U” wasn’t so cool anymore.

And someone said they walked into Ben’s Chili Bowl’s where the jukebox had famously played old school jams like “Flash Light” and “Before I Let Go” for decades and heard “Chicago” blaring though the speakers. The old white neighbors had been trying to blend in. The new white neighbors were bringing down the neighborhood with their incessant calls to the police, weekly neighborhood planting sessions and enthusiastic group visits to local soul food joints. Watering down what little flavor there was of DC every where they went.

My next door neighbor, a middle aged white woman who probably embodied the term “hippy” during the sixties, was fed up with the new wave of arrogance the new neighbors seemed to bring with them. She had gotten into at least two verbal confrontations with the new white neighbor who moved in the house around the corner. You could see the sadness in her eyes as she voiced her concern about how the neighborhood had changed. She had lived in the neighborhood during the days when the sound of gunfire was as common as the sound of sirens but stayed because she loved the neighborhood.

So the last thing she needed was to take some shit off the new white neighbor around the corner who she claimed yelled at her because she put her trash on the grassy area outside of his fence. The same grassy area where the neighborhood trash cans sat for years. The property where his house now stands was where the community garden existed for 20 years. Now, the space where the garbage cans rested was now his property, even though it rested outside of his fence. Who knew? Apparently he rang her doorbell and literally screamed at her for setting her trash on the boundaries of his land. She said he caught her by surprise and she stood speechless as he stomped back to his house. He must’ve because this is not a woman to be messed with.

School me once, shame on you. School me twice and it’s on.

The following week, she again placed her trash bag outside of his fence and he must’ve been on his back deck and said something because suddenly she got all “Janice Soprano” on him yelling, “You got somethin’-da-say-da-me? You got somethin’-da-say-da-me?!!” Then she just went off and all of the “old neighbor” “new neighbor” stuff just came flying out like how long she’d been living in the neighborhood and who did he think he was anyway coming in thinking he could go off on people. Then she called him arrogant and stomped back to her house, which looks pretty much like mine and is about half the size of the new, spacious home built on his property.

I remembered my brief encounter with the “arrogant” neighbor, when I tried to suggest the best way to get neighbors to stop placing their trash on the strip of land that bordered his property. He was basically like, “uh-huh” and then proceeded to tell me where people were supposed to put their trash cans. Now, I had been living there for almost a decade and he hadn’t been there for a year, but somehow he had acquired more accurate knowledge of the exact locations trash was to be disposed.

I was done with him. I had actually tried to do the good neighbor thing by inviting him to dinner with some of the older neighbors about a month or two after he first moved in. He politely declined and never even bothered to speak to me again. She was right. He was arrogant. But after the spat with my neighbor he seemed to chill out a bit. I think he got that it was a “you guys” versus “us guys” kind of deal and those kinds of conversations always seem to unsettle the new neighbors. Probably because they know it’s a fight they can’t win…until they outnumber the old neighbors. Or, perhaps he realized he had been a little arrogant after all.

The other day I was talking with a neighbor while standing at the mouth of the alley that rests between my fence and that of the arrogant neighbor-- who has to use the alley in order to access his car port. We didn’t realize that he had actually pulled up in his car behind us so he could drive into the alley. Where as a few years ago he probably would’ve just honked for us to move out of his way, he actually got out of his car and apologized for disturbing us. I was literally stunned by his humility.

Things in the neighborhood have changed somewhat. No one has placed trash on the grass outside the arrogant neighbor’s his fence in years, but he still doesn’t bother to speak to me. But Robert Frost wrote in his poem Mending Wall that “good fences make good neighbors”. So, I guess we’re good.

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Where Have All the Crackheads Gone?

Thanks to the city's over zealous gentrification efforts, I have no more bumz outside my window. Some might think that would be a good thing, but honestly, I had come to look forward to them and they've all just disappeared. The sad thing is that I think most of them have died. The only one left is Bobo and he's not even a bum, he's just developmentally disabled but he's the most active person on the block. He probably never misses a neighborhood advisory meeting.

Let me tell you something, gentrification is over-rated. Sure it's great to see your property value increasing and to see new buildings in place of boarded up ones. But when the property value is so high that you can't move into a bigger house even though you're making twice the salary that you made when you first bought your house or when all the new buildings that go up is a condo or some chain, then one day you look up and realize that your neighborhood is not really a neighborhood anymore.

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Outside My 'Hood

I was parking my car to attend an event at the Convention Center a while back. When I parked my car beside a swelling group of wino/crackheads they turned around to gawk at me and I swear, for a sec, I felt like I was in a "Night of the Living Dead" movie. I almost expected to see one of them with a human foot hanging out of his mouth. They looked just that ghoulish.

I felt really bad for them because the renovation of that part of downtown has really left them displaced. There they were, standing across the street from our gloriously expensive, new convention center without a home to go to, a pot to piss in or a liquor store to hang out at.

They were just grouped together like they were having a meeting. I can almost imagine the dialogue: "Can you believe how far I have to go just to get my 40 now! This shit has gone too far! First they band the sale of singles and now this?! Aw hellll naw! I'ma speak to my councilmember about this!"

Seriously though, I did feel bad for them. When I got out of my car, I made sure to walk right in the midst of them and speak to them before crossing the street to my destination. I may sometimes poke a little fun at the winos and crackheads in my community because...well, they're just funny. But I still respect them as people.

I try and do a lot of volunteer work in my community because I know we all need to be a part of the solution. Still, there will always be those who will make bad choices in their lives because of whatever demons they have living in their heads. I've adopted the credo that we are all the master of our fate and the captains of our soul and so, with much empathy, I've decided to respect the way the wounded choose to steer their ship.

I had a really inspiring talk with a crackhead woman a few weeks back. Honestly. You could tell she was once a beautiful woman, she just forgot who she was. When I passed her she complimented me. I turned around and told her how beautiful I thought she was. I could tell she didn't hear that too often and I wish I had the money to put her in whatever workshop she needed to reclaim herself. What a beautiful thing that would be. Oh well, maybe in the next life.

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