welcome to my world
I was almost assaulted on the bus the other day, because the man next to me put his foot up against my foot and then I moved mine and he then accused me of kicking him or stepping on his foot or some other bullshit. He told me that I had better not get off the bus at his stop, or else.
Up until now I have only been assaulted once on the bus in my neighborhood (punched in the face because the man next to me said my backpack was too close to him), and almost mugged on another occasion. I managed to avoid the latter only because I had my “city sense” about me.
Now, after three years in this apartment living next to the projects on the edge of the ghetto, things have taken a turn for the worse. Just in the last four months, in chronological order:
1. A shoot-out between a parolee and the police, two blocks away.
2. A murder in broad daylight (3pm on a Friday afternoon) directly in front of my building.
3. A gang shoot-out a half a block away in which a bullet entered an apartment and almost killed an 11-year old girl.
4. A gang shoot-out three blocks away in which three or four youths were injured.
5. A gang infiltration of my building, where they were attempting to take up positions on roof so that they could keep a better eye on their territory.
6. My houseguest being mugged as he entered the building.
7. Drug dealers calling across the street to me, to see if I wanted to buy anything, after over two years of walking right through the bunch of them and not having them say one word to me.
8. Finally, almost getting assaulted on the bus by a low-class loser who spent almost the entire bus ride talking loudly about a blow-job he got, and the ugly comments he made to the girl throughout the experience.
I have no money for a security deposit on a new place, nor money to pay moving expenses. Besides that, rents have gone up twenty percent over those two years just in my building alone, despite this location and the economic woes the country is suffering right now; and my rental subsidy is the same as it was when I first rented, so who knows what worse neighborhood I might end up if I tried to move now anyway.
Welcome to my world.
