Solace in the ghetto

Written by: Jay Anderson-Taylor

As I stared out my project window into the streets were the predators never seemed to sleep and the dope heads that kept the neighbors in the private homes on pins and needles as they prowled the street, looking for the next cash cow to supply their drug needs. In the alley where we would play baseball during the daytime against the old trash bin, at night it served as the hiding place for the drug boys dope and guns…It’s sometimes hardto believe that decent people do live here in this place where I live, but they do. I don’t know how? But really they do, I swear. The alleyway was littered with so much broken glass on the ground, sometimes I would pretend that it was diamonds and would dream of running out one morning and picking it all up and then I would be rich like the people who lived in the private homes up on the hill. At night from my window in the summertime I could smell their grills cooking some expensive meat, that seem to overload my sense and make my belly growl in a hopeless thought that I might somehow get to taste it. In the distance sirens blare in the middle of the night as the ambulances race to the causalities of the night life. I can still recall those house parties that never seem to end, that’s until the men in blue decided to finally answer the calls and put an end to their night fun, but by that time they were all drunk and doped out or found a mate for the night…as they all spread out onto the side streets like cockroaches when you turn on the light and then shots rang out in the calm distance of the night. People scatter into the night. My eyelids are now so heavy I can barely hear my own thoughts inside my head. When all of sudden my door flings open, standing there in the doorway I can make out a shadow, I take a deep breath and continue to play like I’m asleep. Wow, it was only my mother, just checking in on her only investment for her future dream of a doctor or lawyer that would not have to deal with this mess, she shuts my door after seeing that I was okay…as she takes a deep sigh of relief, knowing she could take solace that her child was fast asleep.