Six degrees of Inner City Living

1. I bought a house in the "inner city," and some strange things have already happened on my street. Last Sunday morning, as a police helicopter hovered over my house, eight cop cars pulled up in front of the house across the street and arrested, with much resistance, the young hippy who I thought was house sitting for the young couple who live there. I called my neighbor to find out what was going on, and she said the cops told her that someone was being held against their will in a shed out back. Before she hung up, she said, "Welcome to the neighborhood!"

2. In the last neighborhood I lived in, the one that's exactly five blocks east of where I live now, a Cambodian family with two pre-teen children and elderly parents lived across the street from my duplex. My landlady, who lived next door to my duplex, told me that a few months prior, she’d been sitting in her chair with her front door open, and she heard a gunshot. She went to the door and saw the following scene: the entire family standing quietly on the lawn, as if interrupted during their outdoor playing and chores, a cop car, and a cop with a lowered gun in his hand. Later my landlady found out that the cop had stopped to "ask for directions," and said the dog "tried to attack" him, so he had to shoot the dog…dead. As a personal testament, I'm afraid of most dogs, but this dog never intimidated me, was sweet and friendly and loved to run around the front lawn and play with the kids. What cop has to stop and ask a family...who speaks English as a second language, no doubt...for directions?

3. A few months ago, when I was still in my duplex, I noticed something wrapped in a blanket appear on the edge of a well-coiffed lawn down the street from me. At first glance it looked like a body, but I wrote the idea off as ridiculous. Who would wrap a body in a blanket, tie off the corners, and throw it on the side of a residential street? For three days it laid there, and on the third day when my mom and I were driving past, I asked her to pull over so I could investigate a little closer…from the smell-free confines of the car of course...just in case. She pulled in close, and I was shocked to see the very obvious outline of an animal: head, shoulders, hips. The blanket underneath it seemed to be soaked in something black. After a lot of telling myself I wasn't being ridiculous, I called the police non-emergency. The next day the bundle was gone, but in its place the ground was saturated with a black oily substance that'd run down the driveway, apparently when they picked it up to move it. I still wasn't certain as to what it was, but after it rained that afternoon, the evidence became clear: the grass was "burned out" in the exact silhouette of a large dog. The silhouette’s still there. I can’t decide if it was an act of strange consideration, or if the action was drug-induced.

4. One evening about a week ago, my friends and I were sitting in my driveway, and one friend was telling us about how her sister was diagnosed with leukemia. It was heartbreaking news, as we love our friend and her family very dearly. She was telling us about the progress of the tests, and the knowns and the unknowns when I saw a tall figure moving swiftly across the lawn toward us. It was a man, obviously high on something, who interrupted to ask us for gas money. One of my friends diffused the situation, but I wanted to tell him, "Sorry, I gave all my cash to the last crackhead who 'ran out of gas.'" How rude, to interrupt our intimate, emotional and intense moment together as friends. I have an extent of compassion for addicts whose quality of life has been minimal due to their addictions. However, when I feel that my security is compromised…when I'm sitting in my driveway, in my safe space, my space, my home, I get angry. I hate feeling vulnerable.

5. When I lived in my duplex, the doorbell rang around 7:30 one morning. I assumed it was my landlady who occasionally came by to relay information, so I didn't check before I answered the door. It was a short, muscular, greasy guy. With his brow knit, he told a fabricated a story about how he ran out of gas at the McDonald's (an entire neighborhood away from my house) and needed money to get to his dying mother in Kansas. I said, "I just graduated from school. I can't find a job, but for now I’m working part-time. I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent next month. I'm $60,000 in student debt, and my grace period is up in two months. I don’t have parents to help me…if I can’t make ends meet, I have to go wait in line for food stamps." I went on and on with my unfortunately true story until he put his hands up, and said, "Okay...okay, okay. I’m sorry." He knew he’d knocked on the wrong door.

6. Another early morning, earlier this month, I was walking to my front door to hand my dad his brief case that he'd left in my car the previous day. Again, this was when I was still at the duplex. I chatted with my dad for a bit, and he left for work. I wandered around the house for a little bit, packing, cleaning, picking around at stuff, when I heard the sound of rattling metal. I thought it might be my landlady putting something in my mailbox. I ran to the door and looked out, but no one was there...and I still heard the rattling. I realized that it was coming from inside the house. In that minute of realization, something fell out of my chimney. After hearing stories from friends about rabid cats and raccoons falling down their chimneys, I immediately panicked. I didn't have my glasses on, so as I ran to the back of the house to find them, I closed all the doors behind me. I found my glasses, and careful approached the living room where the creature was. Sitting on top of my moving boxes, its head cocked to one side in calm curiosity, was the cutest, smallest black kitten I've ever seen. I caught him before he dove between the boxes and called the number on his tag. It turns out that he belonged to my duplex neighbor...it had crawled between the chimneys to the other side, like a little Alice in Wonderland.