5/25
So I was running an errand for work before going in today when I returned home and saw the sign. Just like so many of the generic “new homes” signs all around town (and many of the “homes” themselves), it was cheap, ugly and of questionable - yet near instant - construction. Then I saw the ambulance.
As I was parking, the mailman dropped off my mail and drove away. Stopping only at my house on the entire street. Then I saw “The Kid.” He had a broken down bike. It looked just like one I had seen behind my neighbor’s (Frank’s) house. I tried to chat him up for info to see if he might have stolen it. He was friendly and open and not concerned in the least. His name is Kenny.
I went out with my dog to the back yard. Randy saw Duke and we chatted “business.” He came over to my house to use my cell phone. There was Kenny, on Frank’s porch. Upon noticing the Icehouse 22 oz. in his hand I struck up another conversation. “Looks like the end of the Bluff,” I said.
He asked what I meant. And I explained. Turns out he’s Frank’s son. I had met him and his pit bull a few weeks ago, but I’d forgotten about him. I remembered the dog. On my front lawn was a hypodermic needle and cars full of cops have been driving through the neighborhood all day. “There must be a diabetic around here,” I said jokingly. He missed the joke.
“Shit, that’s heroin,” he said nonchalantly and not amused.
5/27
Last night at work I saw some new flyers. They were for Atlanta Motorcycle, a new business that I’ve watched spring up recently at the very edge of what is referred to as “The Bluff.” I work in a community known as Little 5 Points which sometimes is seen as Atlanta’s counter-cultural center, and at other times is seen as little more than an open-air hipster mall. Oftentimes it feels that the only links between The Bluff and Little 5 Points are me and North Avenue.
This is not (currently) a low income bohemian paradise. This is a ghetto. There is hopelessness, nihilism and apathy in spades here. The only things that seem to be here in abundance are blacks, boarded-up windows, convenience stores and shady characters. When I first moved in over a year ago I knew it was just the same old story. Can’t get much more than malt liquor and menthols within a five block radius. Your just an uppity outsider (or tourist) if you acknowledge anything outside of the commonly agreed upon standards of “hood life.” Pimpin’ is not just something said in songs. Crack-ho is the lady walking down the street and not an ironic adjective.
At 3 a.m. the people and shadows blend together, and a defiance masking fear is the tone of most human interactions here. Your allowed to know your neighbor’s face and maybe one or two of the name’s he or she goes by, but you really need to mind your own business. Cable is free (stolen). Drugs are easier to get than a job, and the only thing rarer than a smile is a complete nuclear family unit.
This is the realm of the human leftovers where kids casually talk about (and take place in) violent horror stories that rarely make the news. Yet suddenly this is hot property, and economics on a scale that few here will grasp are about to change every aspect of these inhabitants lives.
From two sources in less than two hours I’ve heard about the bust yesterday. A local known as “Dread” or “Jamaica” was arrested for multiple murders committed in at least two states. These killings are said to be nearly 15 years old. Dread is said to have been a likeable and quiet person in the neighborhood for the last 10 years. At least one killer has walked among the residents here for over a decade. Justice seems to follow the money like everything else.
Suddenly I feel my three unpaid tickets are not much of a priority for police.
5/30
Wow! I just got offered the house that I’ve been renting here for the last year and a half. The deal would be legitimate, and would make me a Bluff property owner. I assume one of the few that reside here.
Frank is not happy with his son. I think that he told him to move on. Sort of the old “shape up or ship out ultimatum.” Looks like the young buck has decided to ship out. Not out of the area, just out of his father’s residence. I did see him today. He was screaming at the resident crazy lady that has taken to hangin’ out on Frank’s porch. He was causing a scene with her, as the two screamed death threats at each other from half a block away. All that I could gather, is that the crazy lady had said something to the effect that she, “wished he was dead or in jail.” I’m under the impression that he is no stranger to jail, and he does seem to be on a path back there.
What a strange place to own a house. There were quite a few gunshots 30 minutes ago, and quite a few police and an ambulance up the street earlier. Sadly this is nothing out of the ordinary, it just seems to be happening with more frequency lately. “School gets out and crime goes up”, I was once told by a cop friend. But this does feel like a culling. Of whom and to what ends seems obvious. All my concerned citizen, and racial identity (solidarity) issues are overlapping. I don’t care for dope boys or storm troopers. This could be a neighborhood instead of a “hood” but at what cost and to whom? What should be my role in all this? This Jane Goodall observer shit is starting to feel a little chicken-shit.
6/03
It’s 3:07 a.m. As usual my insomnia is keeping me from sleeping. If it wasn’t however, I’m sure that the house across the street - with their use of power tools would be. Actually that’s not true. I can sleep through almost anything. However I find the mindset that would lead someone to use power tools at 3 a.m. more upsetting than their actual use.
The house across the street has been somewhat of an enigma since I first moved in here. I cannot tell if it is a shooting gallery, a local weeds spot, a bootleg operation or a crack house. In all honesty, I have never tried to ascertain exactly what goes on in that house in all the time that I have lived here. Given my irregular schedule and sleeping habits, it has never been of any real concern to me personally. However, I do wonder if new population influxes into the neighborhood will mean to the parties involved. Will they have to make alterations in their lifestyle and what will these alterations be? Will there be violence? Resentment? A police raid? Or other nastiness that will force the inevitable as the neighborhood changes around those who seem set in their ways of inconsideration, self degradation and lifestyle deflation. In some ways, I deeply resent the thought of increased police activity in the area known as the Bluff, but I would be lying if I said that a part of me does not long to see a reigning in of those who seem to know no better. I have always resented the notion of black people being seen as childlike savages who need to be controlled. However, I cannot deny the need for some order and stability to be implemented for the good of the greater community at large.
6/06
Not much has changed. I doubt that I’ll buy the house, but I’m not definite. There’s a for sale sign out front. My friends came over for our weekly creative circle. On Saturday, the local “trap house” had a party that had kids, alcohol and cars filling the streets for blocks in every direction. Lately I keep hearing references being made to “the hip hop generation.” It feels like a post Copeland (Gen X) marketing word. Thanks to that stupid “White Tee” song, that’s all I see around anymore. Fourteen to 26-year-olds doing their best not to think for themselves or find their own voice. It could be worse. At least this trend doesn’t have people wearing this week’s name brand and swap meet knock-offs.
On Friday I had an interesting exchange with a rather stereotypical convenience store worker.
Me: Oh my God. Your just trying to get people busted aren’t you?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: That digital scale you’ve got for sale on the counter. Someone gets pulled over with that and a little weed in their car and they go from a “possession” charge to an “intent to distribute.”
Him: Not for weed. Heroin. They use for heroin. This is the Bluff.
I had nothing else to say. We finished our first batch of stickers today. The guerilla art terrorism starts soon!
6/07
Today I went for a walk around the neighborhood. It’s a typical day here in the area and I casually met and spoke with a few of the locals and had mostly pleasant interactions. At the corner of Griffin Street and North Ave. I met a lady, who introduced herself as Miss McDaniel.
Miss McDaniel was sweet, and in her mid fifties I’d guess. She was quite impressed by my dog Duke. She said that Duke reminded her of her own dog who was mainly a “chow and police dog mix.” She went on, as people her age sometimes do, unprompted to tell me that she was born in this neighborhood in 1951. Pointing to better illustrate her intense pride, she said, “Doctors and teachers used to live here. Doctors and teachers,” she repeatedly emphatically.
I told her my name, and that I lived just down the street and that this could be a good neighborhood once again. I said, “All we need are fathers and ass-kickers.” A creepy junkie-looking individual was also hanging around. I went on to say, “I’m no father.” I continued to walk my dog, with her pride in the phrase “ doctors and teachers” echoing in my head.
On the way home, I encountered a man and that adds local color to the neighborhood. He rides a tricycle like contraption, that he stands upright on, and I’ve seen him before in a head-to-toe Davy Crockett-style buckskin suit. Today he wore no buckskin, only jeans with his wide-brimmed Quaker hat and a long-sleeve shirt and weird renaissance fair-style boots. “No buckskin today?” I called out.
He looked at me through his cola bottle glasses from under his wide-brimmed hat and simply stated “It’s hot today. It’s summer.” He seemed defensive and nervous. We’ve never actually met, and I didn’t want to make him feel threatened. So I said nothing further and continued to walk my dog. He rode away.
From halfway down the hill, Joe called out to Duke. They call the old man Joe around here because he bears a striking resemblance to the boxer Joe Louis in his prime. Joe owned the dog that was my puppy’s mother. The mother died and so have most of the litter. Still, there are two puppies that are my dog’s brothers. They love to play together whenever Duke and I are out. And Duke loves Joe. Sometimes I only feel like my dog’s step dad.
Joe has a thick accent which could almost be classified as a speech impediment. I’ve heard people refer to it as Swa-hinglish in a joking manner. I listen hard around Joe and still have to use context clues to decipher even a third of what he’s saying. Today, he spoke of issues with his car, his bout with diabetes and how he has lived in the area for somewhere between 10 to 15 years. He said that he’s seen this neighborhood at its worst. He also made reference to a time when a gang he referred to as “the Miami Boys” were trying to take over the neighborhood. He didn’t offer much more information, and I did not press the point. We talked more of diabetes, and I left to prepare for work which I am now running late for.
6/11
I just had two gentlemen stop in and view the house. They’re obviously land speculators and/or real estate developers. The one that introduced himself was named Terry, I never got his partner (the contractors) name. I showed them the house and told them the price to discourage them. I’m somewhat comfortable here and in no hurry to move, and therefore only slightly reluctant to see this property sold. These guys seem like they could get a good deal on the house and would know what to do with it. They want it at the right price.
Terry seemed excited about the fact that I can write. He seems to have a story to tell and I would love to tell more stories involving black people and success. He speaks of buying property in a very casual way. He mentioned Muhammed Ali, and Malcolm X like they are his friends and acquaintances. He claims that he used to buy property in New York in the ’70s, and seems to have ideas somewhere between realism and idealism on property, community and real estate. Terry wants what everyone wants when they see this house. Terry wants this house and the house next door. Both houses have different owners, it’s not undoable, but nothing fucks a deal like greed.
I talked too much and he let me. Maybe he realized I wasn’t really saying anything, and maybe he didn’t. I’m really starting to like that phrase “country dumb.” Everyone wants to play each other so bad they are always looking for an inexperienced victim. You can learn a lot about a person’s nature by presenting yourself as the perfect potential victim. If the wolf licks in his chops while talking to you, then you know he sees you as nothing more than prey. Every good shepherd should know how to treat a wolf.
Once again it’s time to go to work. I really need to think about real estate as a career path.
6/24
It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve been able to make an entry. Writer’s block. Things still happen here. The construction continues. The raids have slowed down. The prostitution seems to be up. My girlfriend stopped me from taking on a porch full of guys who had been drinking too much. As she was driving here one night, a bunch of guys ran up and started beating on her car. Understandably, she was quite a bit shaken up. I just wanted to go up there and have a chat with these gentlemen alone with my baseball bat. She insisted that I not do it. Personally, a lot of my time has been taken up with projects outside of this one. I’m feeling very creative and somewhat productive, I’m just finding it hard to stay interested in the pathetic lives in this pathetic neighborhood. I guess what I really need is to leave the Bluff. Part of me feels guilty for giving up on the community that so many others have already given up on. Realistically though, one could argue that this community and its inhabitants have given up on themselves, on life, and on imagining anything better for themselves. Maybe a little sleep will help me to see things clearer.
In another neighborhood the exciting news is art and music and laughter and children and joy. A friend of mine was doing outside murals and almost all of the faces were black and almost all of the faces were smiling. Many of the people he painted I know personally. Poor and struggling, but with hope and dignity. Now more than ever I believe that class and not race is what hurts my people the most. Many choose not to try and many give into despair before starting. Myself, I have seen the alternatives. I have seen those who have chosen to win, and those who seem determined to lose. I am no black militant. I am a militant humanist. I am appalled by what certain parties are trying to pass off as black culture. I will fight it. I will fight them. I do not care the color of their faces or to hear their excuses. We can no longer afford to continue down the path of self destruction. I (and others) must challenge black people to challenge themselves, and possibly in doing so challenge myself. I will do it with art. I will do it with literature. I will do it with speaking and by any means I have available to me. This is a war for my people. If we allow ourselves to lose, our very souls may die.
7/14
It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. Police presence has dramatically increased. There were cops in SWAT gear and multiple cars down at the gas station on Lowery. I took a wrong turn and had to take an extended route home. Passing English Avenue, I saw what appeared to be a drug raid in progress. Last night going to the convenience store and back I saw a total of three cop cars. Two of which seemed to be responding to an incident, the other was just prowling the neighborhood. The usual heavy junkie traffic of the neighborhood was almost nowhere to be seen within a block radius of each cop car.
In other news, a tree that fell on the new house last week is still being cleared. My neighbor who does tree work is busy, happy and productive. It seems he has one of Atlanta’s shortest commutes to work.
At this time in my life, I’m starting to develop a new attitude towards low income areas. People trapped by poverty and lack of transportation seem to live analogous to a village. Small communities of xenophobic self-imposed isolationists seem to be a way of looking at ghettos across America. These neighborhoods have their own values and heroes and cultures, little micro-societies, arising and falling as part of the larger American cultural landscape.
7/18
There and back again.
I decided that I wanted to get the world under my feet again. On top of that, my car is acting up, and my tags are almost expired. So I piled my wallet full of money and hunted down one of the bus tokens that has been floating around in my change jar for God knows how long.
Not yet even at the end of my street, someone asked me my business.
“What’s wrong with your car,” he asked. I told him that there was nothing wrong and that I just felt like riding the bus today. He nodded and smiled as one would to a tourist and I continued on my way.
Waiting on the bus, I first noticed the ants and later the stench. I couldn’t tell if it was coming off of the woman to my right or the garbage from my left. It’s July in the South and tomorrow is garbage day. Ants crawled up the wall from the sidewalk and down the wall to the sidewalk in a never ending chain of black industry. At the Five Points transit center I dropped off one of my little Modest Proposal - like flyers - that encourage Black people to join the Klan.
A guy asked me if he could use my cell phone to make a real quick emergency call. I gave it to him and tried to hide the tenseness of my body as I tried to gauge whether I could catch him or not if he tried to run off with my phone. He had a short conversation with a woman. Telling her that he was out (of jail) now and on his way back. He tried to comfort her, assured her that everything would be all right and told her that he was getting on the train at that moment. The signal seemed to fade as I knew it would. He thanked me and we both got on the train. We rode south for two stops and I got off at West End. I hung another flyer with a found thumb tack and preceded to go to the mall.
At the mall I planned to go to the little copy center where the little Korean lady treats people so rudely. I had to suppress a smile when I saw that the business was no longer open. Of course, then I noticed that the business right across the hall had also closed its doors, and I began to wonder one more time about the future of West End. New lofts and expansion of the food court had dared to make me feel something like optimism, but as I looked back and forth between the two closed stores, I had to wonder what this meant for the business climate of the area. I also wondered If this could mean that one of these businesses (or both) had moved to a new location nearby that was part of the growth and development of the area. See, I really am a “glass is half full” kind of guy. Still wondering, I walked on stopping at the record store to stealthily lay down some of my guerilla art brochures. The flyer area that I’d used the last time was gone, as were all others. Seeing the manager, I asked what happened to the flyer area they used to have. He told me a lie. He said the store was corporate now and that they no longer have a flyer area. Of course they’ve been owned by the same company for the past three or so years, and the flyer counter was there just three weeks ago. I made a few wisecracks and left without incident.
I crossed the hall and to the new franchise gourmet ice cream shop. The lone employee working was incredibly competent and exceedingly friendly. He seemed so out of place in that mall. I wished for a tip jar or a comment box to tell someone how positive my experience was. I ate my ice cream and walked to the farthest corner of the mall. By the bookstore and the Radio Shack, I ate in peace. I watched people. I was trying hard not to be judgmental, but I wondered why there was a Kevin Accouin book prominently displayed at the Black book store. Pushing that question out of my head, I went inside and asked if they had the new Birth Of A Nation graphic novel in stock. Of course they didn’t, but for the first time in my memory of going to that store, someone was helpful and willing to try to fix the problem. She took my name and number and said that the book would be reordered soon and I would be called. I thanked her for her professionalism and lavished praise on her in front of total strangers. Two positive experiences in the Black mall is unprecedented. Two back to back examples of professionalism in the Black mall is damn near unimaginable.
Quickly I had to get to the MaxWay: “The ghetto Wal-Mart where a nigga is treated like a nigger,” and all they sell is plastic garbage and bad attitude. I was not disappointed. I bought a cheap staple gun, and in the 10 minutes before they closed, I was treated like shit by two different employees. There are some things that you can always just count on.
Back on the train, with my shiny new staple gun, I discreetly dropped off literature like I was leaving Bible tracts. It’s a shame how much many of the young men around me looked liked the caricature on the pamphlet. I switched trains at Five Points and watched a grown man dance and carry on like a moronic child; making a spectacle of himself as a few compatriots tried to calm him down before he boarded a train heading in the opposite direction from me. I got on the westbound to go home.
Getting off at the Ashby Station I walked home in the quickly deepening night. After my first two prostitute solicitations and watching a drug buy - without having walked a full block - my younger brother called. I ranted about the state of the Black community and raged in his ear for about 10 minutes straight. He asked me what I wanted for my birthday and at first I said “world peace.” He asked me what I really wanted, and I told him “hope for the black community.” He let out a cynical laugh and asked me what I wanted that he could give me for five or six bucks. I told him “whatever would be fine,” and we talked some more. I told him that it looked like I was walking through the Middle East, only with more potato chip bags and beer bottles.
Two more ugly hookers, and a few more and brochures stapled to telephone poles, and I was almost back home. It was hot, and I got really thirsty. I decided to walk to the convenience store and get myself a drink. As I neared the corner and of Joseph Lowery and Neil St. I noticed all the police cars.
Inside the store, I noticed that certain things were looking better. It was still a shit hole, but now it looked like someone was at least trying to turn it into a decent store. Outside on Oliver St., I counted more than 10 police cars and a crime scene unit van. I was trying to listen to conversations as I walked on, but I was able to hear almost nothing authoritative on what had happened. What sounded like someone saying “McDaniel got shot” was the only clue I had to work on. “Someone’s dead” another person said matter-of-factly. I walked down Oliver St. drinking a soft drink, and wondering at the ratio of abandoned to renovated buildings in the area. The strange man in the Davy Crockett buckskin road his tri-wheel contraption past me and little kids raced a dune buggy up North Avenue.
7/20
Let’s call this one “Life and Death in the Hood.” Today at around 1:30 p.m., I received news that my grandfather had passed away. Everything sort of just changed priority, as my family and I started shifting all of our plans to be home for the funeral and to be there for each other. I worry most about my mother - she seems OK for now - but I envision her falling to pieces sometime between now and the funeral.
I did not get a chance, nor did I have the inclination to ask around the neighborhood, about the crime scene from yesterday. Suddenly it all seemed so irrelevant. Neighborhoods, like people, are born and eventually die. Unlike people though, neighborhoods can be reborn. I see a violent rebirth on the horizon for this neighborhood, but I don’t really think I care.
Right now, I don’t care about gentrification, racial demographics, White flight or urban pioneers. IKEA can kiss my ass, and so can all the victims and perpetrators of environmental racism. I was sick of people before I took my dog outside for his final walk tonight. I didn’t need to hear that woman bragging about the guy who gave her $50 worth of crack on her birthday. Right now, I’m mostly just sick of people, except for my grandfather, “Daddy Snook.” I’d really love to see him right now.
07/21
Just walked the dog. While I was out I had a nice long conversation with Joe. As usual, Joe’s deep Black Southern dialect kept me from understanding much of what he said, but I listened as hard and as best I could. We talked of our dogs, and the heat. A local face whom I’ll call “Stephen” came up and told us about a double homicide scene he walked through last night a few blocks away “on Echo St. Right over there across Bankhead.” One body he saw on the street, the other laid in the grass. Head and chest shots on each.
I asked if he was talking about the massive crime scene on Joseph Lowery the other night. As it turned out, that crime scene was unrelated. The crime scene that I witnessed was the investigation of the murder of a 77-year-old woman. She was beaten to death, presumably in her home. No one would talk motives or suspects with me. No one voiced any real opinions. I guess that I’m still too much the outsider here, even after living here almost two years.
Outside someone just hollered out, “You know me I stay around here.” I wonder what that means? Murderers, junkies, whores and thieves “stay around here.” Is that something to be proud of? Maybe it is in some sick way, and maybe I’m just as sick. Yesterday at work, a guy I know told me he was documenting his life staying on Boulevard. “You know the drugs, the murders. I mean, I’ve had folks break in my place, and I’ve had to defend myself.”
Not wanting to be outdone I laid down my trump. “Oh I understand, I stay in the Bluff.” I said with something like false modesty.
His eyes widened a little and then he said, “Oh you stay in the Bluff? I didn’t know that. Then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I always respected you, but I didn’t know you stayed there.”
He went on to tell me his Bluff stories. Bluff stories are synonymous with heroin and prostitution. I glowed a little with newfound pride. This guy from a bad part of town, respects that I live in a really bad part of town. I swear, we as human beings sometimes have some genuinely twisted criteria on what we receive and crave praise for. I felt a little like a faker though. I may hang my hat here, but everyone knows that I don’t really belong. I’m worse than a tourist or a white person smug enough to use the phrase “urban pioneer.” I’m not a snitch but I’ve got no sense of hood ethics. I look down my liberal not-quite-middle-class nose and judge from on high. Some hate me because I undermine all their race card excuses for not trying harder to achieve more. Some hate me because they see the tourist, or worse, “the urban pioneer” knowing what my arrival means.
If this neighborhood doesn’t keep its violent boogeyman reputation, then people with money (mostly white) are going to move in. This neighborhood, which was for the longest time run by the lowest of the low, shall have a new stronger caste. If the changes continue, then this neighborhood will become too affluent for many of the current long time residents who have stayed all through the bad times. Rooming houses and shooting galleries, as a rule, are kept far away from expensive condos and lofts.
“That’s one of the place they be selling drugs out of right there,” Joe said to me pointing across the street from my house. He told me this as if it was a secret. The first three houses on the corner of English St. and North Ave. have been dope houses longer than I’ve lived here. The house on the very corner seems to have been long abandoned by anyone not drunk or shooting up. The other day as I saw a work crew gutting the blue house on the corner in preparation for renovations. I joked at them, “Now where the hell are the junkies going to go to shoot up?”
I leave my porch light on 24-7. Junkies like light less than cockroaches do. I loudly and openly proclaim my dislike for three things: cops, junkies and dope boys. I wonder how long I can remain an observer and not a target, since I’ve recently decided to start publishing these entries. I wonder why this entry is so long? I wonder if it really will take embarrassing city hall, the Red Dogs, the FBI and many other parties to see some positive change in this area. Worse, I wonder if white inflight will be the true deciding factor, legitimizing the feelings of disenfranchisement felt by most of the residents here.
Black poor people killing Black poor people in a little area called “the Bluff” is insignificant to anyone that matters.” But when the money and white people come in this shit is over… There it is, I’ve said it.
It’s the great unspeakable of this new generation. Kirkwood, East Atlanta and probably a dozen neighborhoods across this city and thousands across the country: The only thing to compare with the insult of the initial white flight is white inflight.
“Sorry we left you minorities and poor people to die and decay for the last few decades, but gas prices are high now, so we’re coming back. Oh, and by the way, all the things that you’ve been doing to survive since we took our collective resources and left, will have to stop now. We’ll finally invest in the infrastructure if you’ll be nice and just move on or away.”
My girlfriend asked me what it’s like to be Black in America the other day. I answered her as best I could, knowing that I could never really encapsulate it in any one conversation. I’ve rambled here too long, I need to do laundry.
7/25
Ula May Tucker is the name of the lady who was beaten to death last week. My neighbor Miss Sally told me how Ula May was a kind and generous soul. She was known for her charity and compassion, as well as giving out random baked goods. Surely she had to die. Thank goodness some brave soul beat this 77-year-old woman to death. If only the hero would come forward so that we may sing their praise. Thank you, Oh Brave One! Thank you for facing an unarmed old lady in her den! Thank you for doing away with this monster! Now if only our brave savior would come forward to receive their deserved reward. I would love to bestow that gift myself. I would do it with joy and glee in my heart, and with blood on my hands. Please come forward dear friend let me give you the thanks you are owed.
8/06
Again it has been too long since I’ve last worked on this project. Two weeks feels like two years when thinking of all the time I have not spent writing. I’m nervous frustrated and worried tonight. I got in an argument with a stereotypical dope boy at the nearest convenience store and all but challenged him to start some shit. Not a problem if I were in my own car, with only my own possessions, but I’m using my girlfriend’s car while she’s away vacationing in Europe.
My girlfriend mentioned she wants me to move. My friend Jones has said that he wants me to move. Everyone seems to be worried for my safety living in this neighborhood, and I can no longer pretend that their worries are exaggerated and without reason. I hate this neighborhood. And I hate the fact that these people who look so much like me and my family seem to be wholly without hope of redemption.
I feel typical liberal guilt for being a colonialist. It seems that all I want is to impose my morals and standards on a community that doesn’t want them. Who am I to judge another person’s life, flaws, and faults? I obviously have my own issues.
“The block is hot” is a phrase that keeps going through my head. The junky presence seems to be increasing. The trafficking seems to be more aggressive, and the shadows feel like they’re deepening. The houses across the street that are thinly veiled “trap spots” are doing bang up business. I want to see police raids and task forces. I don’t want to see Black faces being carted off to jail.
I saw my friend and former neighbor, the ghetto techie, the other day. He says that no matter how much building goes on in this area, it will still mostly be Section 8 housing and thereby only bring in more of the same negative elements. It’s cold and hard to think of people as “negative elements.” I’ve been so busy working so much to get my finances up from destitute to merely bleak. I really shouldn’t be pissing off dope boys. I really shouldn’t sit on my porch with an aluminum bat waiting for them to see me as they round the corner. Many sources agree that dope money is just a necessary income supplement for the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. To me, something about that attitude just seems to be a cop out. I’m often fond of relating how my father and my family came from a background and environment poorer than this one, but how much they have achieved. My father is fond of saying he had to “work harder than any white man to get half as much.” Today he lives quite comfortably. He did it. It can be done. When I hear Blacks play the race card in relating to what they haven’t achieved or acquired it makes me sick. If race is the only factor that keeps a person down, then no one of that race could achieve anything. If race were the only factor in a person’s life, then strength, intelligence, will and assets would amount to nothing.
I’m starting to hit the point where I feel there are things that shouldn’t be said. I hope that when the time comes I have the courage to say everything that is necessary and damn the consequences. I don’t like the idea of anything critics will say of my work. I don’t like that I live a segregated existence in a politely segregated society. I don’t like the feeling that the lowest aspects of Black society try to lay exclusive claim to a “truer Blackness.” I don’t like thinking about Blacks like American Maori. I doubt that in a three block radius you could find the number of books and periodicals that you would find in my house. I wish I could read faster and that I didn’t need a long-distance phone call to have a conversation about something I’m currently reading.
Maybe one day things will change. Maybe on day there won’t be areas like this all across this nation. For now I see no real solutions to the problems that are a plague upon a people. For now I realize that I have to start looking for a new place to live, with my dog, my books, my hope and my love.
8/06
The previous entry was written sometime before I went to bed, around 3 a.m. I was sitting on my porch with a baseball bat waiting for a dope boy I pissed off to show up with his friends. Nothing happened. However, as I said, the drug traffic was noticeably more visible. While I waited, an odd occurrence did take place. A sedan with a single Black male pulled up just south of my street. He watched me and the junkie stream for about 10 minutes and took notes with the car’s interior lights on. He had a shaved head and a muscular build. I wondered if he was a cop or a realtor as we stared at each other both trying to ascertain the purpose of the other. I figured he was a cop and paid his useless ass no mind. After awhile he put away his notes and drove off.
There was nothing much to the scenario so I mostly forgot about it until I woke up and left my house today for a coffee run. A cop car drove by with two plain-clothed officers inside. The driver was white, and beside him appeared to be the mystery man from last night. Dun Dun Dun Dunnn!
They slowed to give me the “what are you up to, nigger” stare down, and I laughed and got in my (girlfriend’s) car. Sometimes I like fucking with cops, so I decided to follow these guys and see what was up. They took a circuitous route around the block and it looked like they were going to park in the Family Dollar parking lot. I wondered to myself if this lame ass cloak and dagger shit was part of some upcoming task force coming to clean up the block. I was going to actually get out of my car and ask them, but the strangest thing happened… I realized that the cops were avoiding me! I wonder how many Black males in the history of American law enforcement can say that? Fuck it, I needed coffee anyway.
In the meantime, and let me put this out there, if some super elite drug task force needs to stake out an area to figure out the patterns of the local market let me make a few suggestions: Drive down a street a few times between 2:30 and 3 a.m. I would suggest a looking more “labor pool,” and in a beat up car. Look for people walking towards a destination with a sense of purpose and a quick-time pace. I call this “the junkie walk.” Wherever are they going in such a hurry? Well it ain’t rocket science, and you shouldn’t need Dick Tracy to figure it out. Then again, I’m not a local cop, sucking money out the tit of a federal anti-drug initiative. I do sometimes wonder though, if all the drug traffic stopped, wouldn’t the federal money stop, too? Maybe it doesn’t pay that well to be too efficient. After all, if saving communities from the drug trade was so important, this area never would have been allowed to become the way it is.
8/07
Not much to say today/tonight. I talked to Frank briefly. Seems he just got back in to town. He’s been away visiting his sick mother. He’s kind of messed up about it, and to top it off, while he was gone it seems that his son has been bringing stupid hood bullshit around his house. I can’t say that I haven’t noticed an increase of undesirables in the area since Kenny has come back into the area, but there was nothing concrete linking the two factors that I could see. Luckily Frank is a strong guy, and Kenny is a physically strong but mentally-limited guy. The kid’s not much more than a series of self-determining tragedies playing themselves out. Nothing new, nothing to see. His life will most likely be a bad hip-hopsploitation movie written by a studio gangsta. So sad and so willfully limited in his understandings. I really can’t bring myself to empathize with him. I don’t think I even care except for the frustration it causes Frank.
A little background… Frank lives next door to my left, Miss Sally lives at the corner of my street on the right. Miss Sally owns her house as well as the house that Frank is staying in and renovating. Frank and I share a fenced in yard. Kenny has been staying with Frank, who is Miss Sally’s nephew. Miss Sally has told Frank that she doesn’t want Kenny staying in the house anymore, presumably because he’s trouble and no good. Kenny doesn’t seem to do much of anything except hang out. He’s most likely on the lam, and is therefore almost definitely unemployable. So now he’s trapped. Can’t make money to survive legitimately, and he can’t get caught again making money illegally.
Well, now there’s a little bit more to write about. I just called the cops because I just heard multiple gunshots. I thought they came from Frank’s house. I got up my nerve (and got off of the floor) to go check on Frank. He told me that it was five guys in an old Ford out in front of Miss Sally’s house (the intersection of North Ave. and Oliver St.). A few other folks were outside rubber-necking with me. They verified what Frank said. The cop I called pulled up, and asked a few questions then drove off to investigate. Luckily it seems my girlfriend’s car (parked out front) was not hit anywhere. Sadly the passenger front tire is flat, and I can only hope that tomorrow I don’t find a bullet hole in it. So much for free time and financial stability. No injuries or fatalities to speak of, but it’s still hours until dawn. Oh well, I think I’ve had enough for tonight. Seems I’m stuck here for now, though. This is as good as anyplace else to bring this entry to an end.
8/12
Girlfriend is back in town. Guess I better get moving on the whole apartment hunting thing. My car is out of commission for a little while. The little “niglings” that seem to do nothing but hang out in front of the green house near the Superette are becoming increasingly belligerent for no apparent reason. I wonder if they’re over 18? There’s so many ways to deal with situations like this, and so many possible consequences. Again, calling the police is the lowest of the low. Conversely, assaulting a minor (or two) could get my ass in SERIOUS trouble, even if I’m doing what the cops can’t do, or can’t be bothered to do. Ah, community beautification and quality of life issues. Next thing you know, I’ll be voting for school vouchers and debtor’s prison. Tonight is wine and paychecks! Of course for now I have to shower and get on the bus. I also need a camera, legal tags, and would love to save some money and get some contact lenses. Suddenly I’m less excited about my little check. Lastly, I’m spending less time at home, and it seems things are getting worse despite school being back in.
8/21
Two jobs ain’t fun. It may not kill you, but you may forget that you’re alive from time to time, and that there’s more to life than work. At my record store job (a source of constant inner-conflict) I see wasteful consumerism distilled to an art. Sadly I also participate in the gluttonous lifestyle as well as perpetuate it.
8/29
The previous entry is unfinished. A lot of things in my life are unfinished. Growing up (and even now in adult life), not finishing has been one of my greatest faults. My dad always used to complain that I only “did things half-assed.” And it is a constant battle for me not to give up on one thing and start two more projects. For this reason I find it important to leave the 8/21 entry as it is – unfinished. Maybe I can thereby look upon my lack of follow through, as a fault with merits. I won’t try to hide the fact that I have a problem, and by acknowledging the flaw, I can face it and improve myself.
I feel a lot of people are too proud to acknowledge and face their flaws. Time and again they set themselves up for failure because of foolish arrogance. Cycles and patterns can emerge from denial. I hope to learn from my own mistakes in order that they may become virtues. An individual that places themselves above the ability to admit their flaws and mistakes is a willful fool, and that is something that I never hope to be. I believe it is this attitude that may lead me (and others willing to do the same) out of the mindset, as well as the physical (not to mention economic) boundaries of perpetual poverty. I sincerely believe that the individual in poverty has to be willing to take some steps out of poverty (and have access to means) to better their life. I believe in the “teach a man to fish” approach to community (and individual) betterment. Sadly, I also believe that there are less fish to go around these days and that the catches to be had are smaller – but still there to be had. I see very few people in the Bluff casting they’re own nets, and many more looking with a thief’s eyes in the metaphorical fish market.
9/01
Hooray for me, I’m psychic! I’ve made predictions and they have come true. Eat shit Kreskin! I am the Oracle of the Bluff. I can’t drive home without seeing a fleet of cop cars or emergency vehicles. I’ve caught on tape an eviction that some sources are claiming to be dubious and quasi-legal. I’ve witnessed a crackdown at the local Kwick E Mart and have even recently seen a Quality of Life unit in the hood. Of course, I’m feeling more and more like a poser. I spend pathetically few nights in the Bluff these days. My girlfriend is ever eager to have me stay in her better residence, in her better neighborhood. I let any excuse stop me from going home. “Oh no, my car is dead. Oh no, the busses and trains have stopped. Oh, there were too many gunshots last night…” I sit here in safe Little 5 Points living a safe little life as a real live class war is being subtly waged.
The teenage communist in me always wanted to die on the front lines of a class war. To lay down my life so that others could live a happier, more prosperous, egalitarian, enlightened life. My inner teenage communist died a long time ago. Victor Hugo sang a song and a back-stabbing junkie stole the shoes off his naive idealistic feet. People live how they choose to live, and recently I’ve come to wonder how effective it is to try to show folks other options.
Every night in the Bluff there has been and will be three to six people begging for change outside the local convenience store. From now on however they will not be able to buy single cigarettes for 35 cents a piece. Is this a real step to improving the living conditions for the current residents, or just another letter in the unofficial racial eviction notice? The churches in the area have been there from before things ever started to turn bad. Am I only imagining that they only now seem to be upping there efforts at neighborhood revitalization? Are all the strings of change being pulled merely by financial factors? Will I be hearing more thinly veiled emotional pleas “on behalf of the children?” At least two generations of children have gone through hell and puberty on these streets without anyone crying in outrage or giving a damn. Will they be used as pawns for self-serving campaigns in the near future? It all leads to cementing my belief that baby-kissing and not patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Hooray for me, I’m psychic! I saw all the evidence leading to its logical conclusion and was able to extrapolate both the outcome and the methods and motivations that would follow. The poor (who just happen to be black) are about to be displaced for the more affluent (who will in all probability be white). The new Kirkwood is being born in front of my eyes. My eyes are witness and like my skin they are brown. The future of brown and Black in the Bluff is limited. New money, new houses and new names. Bankhead is Hollowell, Ashby is Lowery, and an End is near! So speaks the Oracle!
9/07
I think I forgot to mention that Atlanta Motorcycle seems to have moved, or at least the building is for sale. So much for new businesses in the area. There are still quite a few buildings that would have a lot of value in other areas. As things are, it would be like trying to sell a 10 speed bike in an unpaved jungle. Still, the “we buy houses” signs are steadily creeping in.
I think I’m pretty excited about moving. Well not moving… moving sucks, but I’m excited about getting the fuck out of this nihilistic hellhole. This area has the same effect as a giant psychic vampire. I can’t come home without seeing police and emergency vehicles. I can’t shop locally without beggars and prostitutes and dope boys ruining my mood. I can’t invite many people over because of the DMZ feel of this area. I can’t acquire much without smuggling it into my house for fear of returning to find it stolen.
How can people live like this? Why do they seemed determined not to try? Worse, why does it seem that they want to victimize each other and themselves? Maybe this is the real story of this ghetto and ghettoes across this nation (and the world). Being born poor doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone else. Yet choosing to try no harder and accepting that you can not succeed without ever trying is what makes a black man into a nigger. Niggers need to be seen as the exception to the Black experience and not the rule. Niggers need to be kept from ruining Black neighborhoods into “hoods” full of hoods.
On another topic or two, I just learned a few things over the past couple of days. Firstly, I learned that I may not live in the actual neighborhood known as The Bluff. According to Joe, the Bluff extends from Kennedy Street on up to Northside Drive. And over to just across Bankhead Road. The Bluff seems to be where guys stand out on the corner selling dope. The graffiti over here seems to say otherwise, but there’s no reason to make mountains out of mole hills.
Secondly I’ve heard that school seems to be out in order to save on fuel costs. Driving home, it looked like scene after scene from a hip hop video. Crew after crew of young black males, standing around doing nothing or supplementing their weekend sales. Same saggy jeans shorts, same white t-shirts all up and down this side of North Avenue. Lastly I heard a little piece of gossip as a large burgundy SUV rolled by: “She don’t need to be here day in and day out selling dope. She works for the sheriff’s office. She’s got a front desk job.”
I stared in wonder as Mike shook his head in disgust. We talked about affluent black parts of town that we know about and he lit a cigarette. I know Mike has worked hard all of his life, and even now seems to have more get up and go than folks one-third his age. It seems all about personal choice again and again, and I am choosing to no longer live here and watch these people exist like this. This may very well be one of my last few entries before I move out. I guess I can do more photos and interviews to supplement this work but I now consider it mostly done. I’m no closer to any understanding of the black community than when I moved in here almost two years ago. I’ve had no grand epiphany watching others of my race do to themselves what folks have done for time out of mind. All I’ve learned is that this place and places like it are where all the losers end up eventually will be displaced from. It’s not a unique story or situation by any means. I believe time will roll on and money and influence will continue to move in. The quality of life may improve, but so also will the cost of living here. Whether the faces will remain predominantly Black was at first a real issue to me. Now I’m more concerned with the quality of the individuals that move in, and the lifestyles that they will choose to lead. This is a major metropolitan city, and the property here is too valuable to be rendered uninhabitable by a criminal minority. The boards need to come down off all the windows and the thieves, dealers and junkies need to be removed one way or another. For too long the weeds have been allowed to choke anything good that could grow here. It doesn’t really matter if the gardeners come in like jack-booted fascists at first. The good people here live in compromising fear day in and day out. I may hate the new corporate use of imminent domain to steal homes from hard working individuals, but here it would seem like a godsend.
Lastly though I would like to make a proposal for a different kind of change. Black investors could take the initiative to buy up the bulk of this area. Whether through churches or the private sector money could be pooled to acquire what not many want at this time: controlling interest in near damned real-estate. Not just the residential properties, but also the commercial ones. If black faces own the property and occupy it, then we could decide who uses it and reap the profits from it. Displacement could be limited to those groups and individuals who devalue this community with their presence and activities. Our families could move in improve, and pass down the land. In areas like this we could take charge and enforce a higher standard. It’s a challenge too big for me, I’m just a broke-ass visionary in this kingdom of the blind…
End.
Epilogue:
Time Marches On…
933 Neal Street is where police kicked down the door of an 88 year-old woman using a procedure known as a “no knock warrant.” Kathryn Johnston upon having her door kicked down, (in a neighborhood that your ass wouldn’t walk through) opened fire hitting three officers. The officers who were wearing vests and whatever other paramilitary boogeyman gear Red Dogs wear, returned fire and killed Kathryn. The officers claim they identified themselves - which probably just means they screamed “Police!” and a few commands after kicking the door down. The Red Dogs also claim they received the warrant because an informant (who later recanted) claimed he bought drugs at the address earlier on the day of the “incident.” Uh, excuse me, I meant “murder.”
The whole cops versus grandma case just goes to illustrate the sad state of people in poor neighborhoods. By living in a designated “high crime” or “known drug” area you become a likely casualty in America’s other unsinkable war: The War on Drugs (sold by black people in black communities). If you live in such a community, then you can feel like you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Whether you use drugs, deal drugs or hate drugs, it doesn’t matter. The poor black insurgency, and the foot soldiers of the moneyed interests have declared your home a war zone, and worse, all civilians are “expendable.”
I drove the two miles to a chi-chi coffeehouse in gentrified “West Midtown.” Mom called and asked me to stop being cynical. I wish I could, but in my view naiveté has killed far more people than cynicism. I was cynical when I first started writing about life on the other side of Northside. I made predictions about displacement and a vision of an impending fascist tactics. Hooray for me! My cynical ass was right. Hopefully, a reinforcement of my cynicism and a shiny new gas station is not my bolt from the blue. There’s just got to be something better than this.
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