Thursday, May 21, 2009
Little Dread
The sullen little gangbanger with the dreads was lurking around the corner last evening, standing in the street - as they always do - & talking into his cell. His "family" - if that's what they were, an woman who might've been his mom, a geezer, & couple of kids, moved out of the shabby, rented house months ago & the owner had to bring in a dumpster to remove the crap. There hasn't been a crew working the corner for two years, & the neighborhood feels very different in their absence, like we have a decent civilization here. Because that crew was the farthest reach of open street dealing in this part of Elizabeth. From here westward it's reasonably safe walking & quiet streets. Only some spray paint gang symbols to remind you it's still territorial. But you see those in places you might consider unlikely; white, suburban places where cocaine meets meth.
While one always hopes for eventual redemption & rehabilitation, the world would not in the short term be deprived of much if some rival gansta put a bullet in Little Dread. He is, in his present form, an evil person. He oozes evil. At one time he must have practiced the demeanor, worked on the negative vibe, when he was 12 or 13 years old. A small man, he was probably such an adolescent runt, almost certainly fatherless, that he needed it to protect himself. Now it is who he is. What he began by imitating & absorbing from the outside has become his substance. He demands respect because without it he would be nothing & invisible, an onlooker in the crowd gathered around yellow crime scene tape, an event in which the only two participants worthy of audience attention are the victim & the absent perpetrator.
I have one amusing memory of the guy, the New Year's Eve I saw him wearing his baggy best, walking down the street toward some party, his rail-thin "shorty" a few steps behind - she really was short - wearing an expensive-looking tight gold skirt, jabbering at him in a high, abrasive voice. She kept it up until I couldn't hear her anymore, but I knew he still could. Hah, I thought, you wanted a bitch as a personal accessory & now you got one.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
While one always hopes for eventual redemption & rehabilitation, the world would not in the short term be deprived of much if some rival gansta put a bullet in Little Dread. He is, in his present form, an evil person. He oozes evil. At one time he must have practiced the demeanor, worked on the negative vibe, when he was 12 or 13 years old. A small man, he was probably such an adolescent runt, almost certainly fatherless, that he needed it to protect himself. Now it is who he is. What he began by imitating & absorbing from the outside has become his substance. He demands respect because without it he would be nothing & invisible, an onlooker in the crowd gathered around yellow crime scene tape, an event in which the only two participants worthy of audience attention are the victim & the absent perpetrator.
I have one amusing memory of the guy, the New Year's Eve I saw him wearing his baggy best, walking down the street toward some party, his rail-thin "shorty" a few steps behind - she really was short - wearing an expensive-looking tight gold skirt, jabbering at him in a high, abrasive voice. She kept it up until I couldn't hear her anymore, but I knew he still could. Hah, I thought, you wanted a bitch as a personal accessory & now you got one.
Labels: culture, Elizabeth NJ
