What Kind of Ass**** Shoots a Gun Into a Car Full of Teenagers?

There is an ongoing battle in my neighborhood between residents and teenagers in parked cars blaring loud music. Not once, in the years that I’ve been living here, has any of us pulled a gun on one. single. teenager.

Not once!

To be sure, blaring your music at top volume, with the bass up so high it shakes my house, is inconsiderate at best. It shows a lack of respect for your neighborhood. It shows the world that you’re the worst kind of ass who’s probably trying to overcompensate for some major insecurities. But it’s not reason enough for me, or anyone for that matter, to take a life.

Most of the time, as with Mr Davis and his pals, it’s just teenagers being teenagers. They haven’t had enough life experience to understand that the people who live in these houses have to get up in the morning to go to jobs they hate, jobs that don’t pay very much, so that they can pay an outrageous amount of rent. They don’t need to listen to some punk kid showing off his bad taste in music. Oh… Don’t think you have bad taste in music? Just wait until you’re an old head like me and some snot nosed kid blasts your house with whatever passes for music at that point.

But I’m in a residential neighborhood where there’s a certain expectation of a reasonable noise level. Something just above a whisper would be nice, but probably unrealistic. Mr Dunn was at a gas station where there is no such expectation.

He was at a friggin gas station convenience store, for crying out loud! It is reasonable to expect that there will be lots of noise! Hell, it’s almost guaranteed!

I wasn’t on that jury so there’s no way of knowing what the hell was going on during deliberations. But there’s one fact that I just can’t get past. After shooting ten rounds into an SUV full of teenagers, Dunn left the gas station and drove 40 miles away to a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine, where he “walked his dog, ordered a pizza, and drank rum and cola.”

A normal human being would have called for an ambulance.

But then, a normal human being wouldn’t have fired a gun into an SUV full of teenagers over loud music.

What an ass****!

Ode to South Philly

My nice, quiet, elderly, next door neighbor moved out. Her son removed the last of her belongings on the last weekend of March. Her health was such that a warmer climate was necessary. I don’t blame her. If I could afford it, I’d be right behind her.

My landlord had tenants lined up to take her place. Within hours of my neighbor’s son’s departure, a family of fourteen had formed a fire brigade, and was shuffling boxes into the house. Among them was a ten year old boy with enough energy to power a small city for at least a year.

South Philly houses are built virtually on top of one another. They were originally built as housing for factory and ship yard workers. Through the years, scores of immigrants have raised families in these tiny abodes. Families whose existence is witnessed by the many Churches, Synagogues, and Buddhist Temples that seem to be established, like Starbucks, on nearly every corner.

Such close approximation forces interaction and sometimes collision. Forget about privacy. Forget about a quiet, romantic evening watching the stars. (There’s too much ambient light to observe the heavens). You can, of course, journey over to Fairmount Park, Penn’s Landing, or the myriad public squares and local parks.

There’s no such thing as a “Back Yard” in South Philly. Instead you’ll find small, paved-over plots which overlook your neighbors’ small paved-over plots, and a parade of feral cats searching for food and the occasional romantic liaison.

For a change of pace, there’s the front stoop.

Sitting on your front steps, or “Stoop“, is a tradition in most urban areas. South Philly is no different. Where else can you find out the who, what, where, and postulate on the why? Friends are made, marriages arranged, and business conducted on many a front stoop. It’s also the place where you’re most likely to overhear your neighbor’s latest quarrel.

And now, to add to the entertainment, I have the noise of a ten year old ball of energy screaming with excitement as he runs through the empty house next door.

Such is life in a South Philly row home. 🙂