Hood Memories
My Three Favorite Memories of Living in the Hood:
1. Listening to crack dealers fight. Seriously, you'd think it would get old but it never does. The best argument I ever heard happened on a Thursday morning while I was watching TV. Two people were screaming at each other, which always warrents hitting the mute button, and when I did, I was treated to this exchange:
Crack Dealer: Mind yourself, Bitch!
Concerned Girlfriend: Why you out here selling crack?! You gonna get killed!
Crack Dealer: Bitch, shut the fuck up. I gotta sell my rock and you fuckin' up my business!
Concerned Girlfriend: Cops gonna shoot you, Tiny (swear to God, she called him Tiny)!!!
Crack Dealer: (at the top of his lungs) I don't give a fuck! That's me, Bitch! I'm gonna sell crack 'til I die! Who wants some crack! I gots the crack! Sell crack 'til the day I muthafuckin' die!
Mind, this was at about 10 o'clock in the morning. It was like being in an episode of The Wire. You certiantly have to admire the conviction present there, though. That's a man who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life and is doing it, consistantly and thoroughly.
2. Guns, guns, guns!!! Can't live in the hood without seeing a few guns. The runner-up for this particular memory was being on the G train about about 1am when a seriously drunk "gangsta" pulled out a gun and started screaming that he was, "Gonna rob all the white people on this train." He didn't, of course, because he was seriously drunk and his friends managed to get him off the train without incident, but still. My favorite memory, though, was walking home from my friend Lisa's house one night and walking past a guy blatantly loading a gun while casually standing in front of the deli that was around the corner from my apartment. The matter-of-factness of the situation really made it a special moment for me.
3. Being offered a "hoe." Coming home in a cab after a pleasent Christmas in Texas, we stopped at a light about three blocks from my apartment. Standing on the street corner was the hands-down skankiest junkie I've ever seen in my life (and, having worked retail in the East Village, I've seen a lot of junkies). She was wearing nothing but a just-below-the-fun-zone mini-skirt and a ratty, stained wife-beater, not seeming fazed at all by the 20 degree weather or the falling snow. I remember her as also wearing a large sign that said "I have every STD known to modern medicine and you will too, should you decide to spend the money for my company," but that might actually not be right. Anyway, standing next to her was a short hoodrat with a gold grill that was shouting, "Twenty dollars... Twenty dollars!" at every car. When he noticed me, gawking out the window like a total farmer, he reached over and flopped one of the junkie's breasts out the arm-hole of the wife beater. He then stared directly at me and said, "Yeah white boy, twenty dollars, twenty dollars. You want this shit!" Fortunantly the light changed just then and I didn't have to be so impolite as to decline his offer.
1. Listening to crack dealers fight. Seriously, you'd think it would get old but it never does. The best argument I ever heard happened on a Thursday morning while I was watching TV. Two people were screaming at each other, which always warrents hitting the mute button, and when I did, I was treated to this exchange:
Crack Dealer: Mind yourself, Bitch!
Concerned Girlfriend: Why you out here selling crack?! You gonna get killed!
Crack Dealer: Bitch, shut the fuck up. I gotta sell my rock and you fuckin' up my business!
Concerned Girlfriend: Cops gonna shoot you, Tiny (swear to God, she called him Tiny)!!!
Crack Dealer: (at the top of his lungs) I don't give a fuck! That's me, Bitch! I'm gonna sell crack 'til I die! Who wants some crack! I gots the crack! Sell crack 'til the day I muthafuckin' die!
Mind, this was at about 10 o'clock in the morning. It was like being in an episode of The Wire. You certiantly have to admire the conviction present there, though. That's a man who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life and is doing it, consistantly and thoroughly.
2. Guns, guns, guns!!! Can't live in the hood without seeing a few guns. The runner-up for this particular memory was being on the G train about about 1am when a seriously drunk "gangsta" pulled out a gun and started screaming that he was, "Gonna rob all the white people on this train." He didn't, of course, because he was seriously drunk and his friends managed to get him off the train without incident, but still. My favorite memory, though, was walking home from my friend Lisa's house one night and walking past a guy blatantly loading a gun while casually standing in front of the deli that was around the corner from my apartment. The matter-of-factness of the situation really made it a special moment for me.
3. Being offered a "hoe." Coming home in a cab after a pleasent Christmas in Texas, we stopped at a light about three blocks from my apartment. Standing on the street corner was the hands-down skankiest junkie I've ever seen in my life (and, having worked retail in the East Village, I've seen a lot of junkies). She was wearing nothing but a just-below-the-fun-zone mini-skirt and a ratty, stained wife-beater, not seeming fazed at all by the 20 degree weather or the falling snow. I remember her as also wearing a large sign that said "I have every STD known to modern medicine and you will too, should you decide to spend the money for my company," but that might actually not be right. Anyway, standing next to her was a short hoodrat with a gold grill that was shouting, "Twenty dollars... Twenty dollars!" at every car. When he noticed me, gawking out the window like a total farmer, he reached over and flopped one of the junkie's breasts out the arm-hole of the wife beater. He then stared directly at me and said, "Yeah white boy, twenty dollars, twenty dollars. You want this shit!" Fortunantly the light changed just then and I didn't have to be so impolite as to decline his offer.
posted by Clinton at 9:36 AM
4 Comments:
It's too bad that crack dealer couldn't apply his great salesmanship tactics to some other endeavor.
"I'm gonna sell encyclopedias 'til I die! Who wants some encyclopedias! I gots the encyclopedias! Sell encyclopedias 'til the day I muthafuckin' die!"
Of course encyclopedias are only slightly less addictive than crack.
Have you ever smoked an Encyclopedia? It's far out, man. Far. Out.
Crack is more fun than encyclopedias. You guys can get your "knowledge" while I go out and enjoy my jitters and shakes.
Holla.
The only kind of shakes I like are MILKshakes. Filled with booze.
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