Keeping Contentment: April 2008

Dirty old men on motorcycles
revving, then whistling. Hollering, waving.
The finger is flashed from a passing by sedan.
A 'fuck you', and a few slurs in some other language are yelled from the passenger seats of other unkept vehicles.
'Fuck this place' is scrawled in white chalk on a crackling sidewalk a few blocks down.
A true blue gang, reluctantly move out of my way, letting the white girl ride by.
Cars are blasting deafening reggaeton, not stopping in their booming path to let the white girl cross the street.
And the streets;
Ugly. Pure disgust leaves a film of filth in every crack, nook and cranny.
I've never seen so much litter: broken glass and empty beer bottles, plastic bags and paper bags and wrappers and cans of all kinds and sorts.
And the smell---nauseating. Sewerage and garbage distinctly stand out in the realm of scents that make up the foul stench of the place I journeyed tonight.
Keep going, keep pedaling,
but the distraction of wayward children, yelling, "WE GONNA STEAL YO BIKE! YEAH, WE GONNA, YOU WATCH CHO BACKS! WE LIIIIKE MONGOOSES!"
gets a chuckle out of me. I can't help myself.
I've reached my grandfather's street, how long has it been since I've seen him?
I pass another game of basketball, one of the many, these are familiar sights.
Three boys, becoming men, are speaking vulgar to one another, and saying, "If it's in ma nigga, we got tha money, th't's right."
The one of the darkest skin tone yells out to me as I ride by,
"HEEEEY GURRRRL!"
His buddies laugh in reply.
I keep going.
I speak to my grandfather in the little spanish I know, while keeping an eye on my bike from the nearest cloudy window.
He's so old. So old.
Take the quickest route to the ice cream parlor and we're home free.
Untamed dogs bark at me, creepy men growl at me. Oh, this place.
I pass by the intense bball game again, get another "HEEEEY GURRRRL!"
again.
And again. I ignore it.
I wait in line for a two scoop Reese's Pieces. So good. I see a familiar face behind the counter,
a close friend of my brother's, I say hi. I eat my ice cream outside, don't want anyone robbing my bike, this is my only way home.
I watched a puerto rican couple suck face, the man kept grabbing his girl's ass firmly like whoa. I had to look away.
A borrowed cell phone vibrates in my pant pocket,
Mom called,
said they just issued a warning: heavy raining hail, and storms. Better get home fast, she says.
I watched the sky light up in front of me as I sped down side streets,
unfamiliar ground; I am a target. The ground beneath me rumbles, shakes,
a loud clap of thunder and I fall off my bike;
An unruly tree root.
I get back up, I'm almost home.
Keep going, keep pedaling,
I recognize my surroundings.
Home, home, keep thinking home.
I never knew what this place was like.

A simple task on a simple night;
Visit my grandfather, stop for an ice cream cone.
That's all I ask.
And in return I received a greater notion, the place in which I live, where I reside, what it has in store for me.
I never knew what this place was like.
I guess grime and crime go hand in hand here.
This is my city.