FOOL THAT I AM

when i walk to the train station around the corner from my house, i usually speak to the neighborhood regulars--the retired men who wake up early to go get their coffee & daily news fix; the prostitutes just starting their day; the young brothers & sisters who gave up on school a long ago but they go back & forth around the block, stopping in 40- to 50-minute increments like they're going to class. these are just a few of the people in my neighborhood.

riding the train, however, is something altogether different, as those of us who share the same train car come from several other neighborhoods, sometimes carrying all of our neighborhood prejudices with us. i live in bronzeville, or as the map says "douglas". i do not live in the pseudo-pretentious-at-times hyde park nor do i live in the hidden gem of kenwood/oakenwald with it's mansions & well-manicured lawns amongst new construction & million dollar rehabs on former grounds occupied by squatters. i call bronzeville home, an area so close to changing but not soon enough to dispel the reputation of being home to one of the largest housing projects in the nation--the robert taylor homes, which, to date, has only two buildings remaining. don't get me wrong, it's not a bad place at all to live/want to live, however, the changing of the guard is slow moving.

there is no grocery store close by other than jewel food store which you damn near have to curse out the cashiers each rip cuz they want to eat skins with hot sauce while ringing up your groceries. & it's actually not that convenient to get to unless you have a car (cuz although the famed ida b. wells housing project is coming down in shifts, there are still enough folks who'd want to rob you that you don't want to walk past there to get to the store).

there are two sit-down restaurants not too far from one another that you can eat at, however, you might want to bring a book to read at one (which shall remain nameless), because they take a millenium to bring you your food--sometimes, it's someone else's food they bring you. the other one...well, let's just say that i'd rather go get takeout from the bulletproof counter joints which are all over the place. as distant as many of us would like to believe we are, during the work week, we all catch the same trains/buses & though we don't always speak, the truth is that this public transit gets us all to work in the morning, regardless if it's mandatory or optional.

but this entry is about train rides, more importantly the one i took this morning. unbeknownst to me, the car i chose to enter had just been privy to an attempted robbery by a group of youth walking through all the cars in search of something to take that had to be: easily pawn-able, easy to snatch without interference & tacky (a prerequisite, obviously). no sooner had i sat down near three of the several passengers in that particular car did i realize not only were they loud in their disbelief of what had just happened, but the whole train was in an uproar. so what do i do? i asked the person sitting nearest to me only to find out i had just missed the display by one train stop, but i couldn't tell that things had calmed down, as vigilante justice became more real the more i listened to the voices get louder & louder by the minute.

folks were cussing & saying things like, "i wish that was me, i'd beat the fuck out of them lil' young punks" & "it don't make no sense that you can't even wear the nice things you work for without someone trying to take shit from you" as well as "that's why i'm gon' get me a gun & put a cap in any mu'fucka who try to take anything from me!"

although i feel where everyone is coming from, i can't help but look beneath the surface at a few things. true, stealing is stealing, but it is partly the blame of society for the emphasis it continues to place on the importance of having all these material possessions that could further entice the with-out/have-not young man or woman to feel that stealing is what he/she has to do to be, visibly, worth something. that, by no means is an excuse, but it is what it is. & not all thieves/wanna-be thieves come from families of robbers/burglars, i'm sure. the part that wasn't so surprising, however, is that only one woman intervened when the shit went down.

she was older, had a cane & had a mouth that would make a sailor seem more like an altar-boy. it was her quick actions that caused the young men to run to the other car, according to the woman sitting across the aisle from me. but the way everyone was in an uproar, you'd have thought they had all decided to block all the exits on the car & push the emergency button on the train for the conductor so the police could be called. unfortunately, it took someone's mother to put a stop to the would be attempt in which a chain was still snatched, but only one of about five the victim had on. i don't know if it was a male or a female, but there were enough folks on that train who looked like they slapbox buildings for fun.

public transportation is how i get around & there is always something to see/hear on the train. the green line train is interesting itself whether you're headed through the loop to the west side or headed either to englewood or woodlawn which are southwest & southeast respectively, but for the most part, my commute isn't bad. but this whole robbery on the train is making me nervous, moreso because if it was me, would i have just been left to get robbed by a group of young bandits while everyone just sits in their own worlds reading their magazines or talking loud as hell on their cellphones? i am notorious for carrying several interesting items in my bag--box cutter, vice grips, bag of black pepper, alcohol & a box of matches, but that's just for art's sake (that's my story & i plan on sticking to it), but there is no art in victimizing folks over jewelry or cellphones or gym shoes...

i do wish that i could've seen the lady beat the would-be thief with her cane. that had to be a sight to see.

i'm getting a car soon...& when i do, these urban rides will be no more, as i will become the road raged driver who flips lazy pedestrians the bird when they take all year to cross or cuts off soccer mom's to get into those parking spaces that take hours to find. i can smell it now...the freedom!

H.
8-11-2005