detroit rock city
I am inspired to write about some of my memories from my former life in Detroit proper after reading a post about third world cities from sweet trini. I was pondering what she wrote and a couple of incidences had immediately come to mind. I wish I had been blogging back then, but in reality I probably would have not wanted to write about it. I was a pro with a good job living in the ghetto. No one could understand why I would live in such a place, especially my family. I am prompted to wonder why I chose to live there for seven years. Insanity I suppose? Maybe a mortal danger fetish anyone? It was a bad decision that decided to live with.
I had a constant fear of getting shot or jumped. I guess that fear is exactly what keeps you from getting jumped or shot. I learned to be very alert to my surroundings and to try to keep and look cool, like I should be there and not scared that I am there. I had a dream recently that gave me the same feeling in my gut as when I lived in D. The feeling where you are always casing your way out if you need to get out in a hurry. Always make sure you have a way out. I luckily found mine in 2002.
On to the motor city chronicles. The night I moved into the house on Vaughan, I parked my truck out front and left the door unlocked. I was stirred eventually by the cops trying to get a naked guy high on acid out of my truck by spraying pepper spray in through the sunroof. He was handling the steering wheel as if he was driving to get way from the cops and fucking my vehicle up in the process. The guy’s friends eventually coaxed him out of the truck and into police custody. I should have realized right then and there.
At first the neighborhood wasn’t so bad because D had ordnance that all public workers including cops had to live in the city to be employed by the city. There were a few that lived directly on my block which made for a somewhat safer neighborhood. After the city repealed the live in the city rule, all the cops slowly moved out and the crime moved in. I think the only reason I was never broken into was because the neighbors thought or at least expected that I was a cop. In most neighborhoods bars on your windows are a common security measure. My little bungalow had no bars. But of course I had nothing that anyone would want anyway.
A cop used to live in the house next door and we were relatively friendly with each other. He moved out eventually and the house stayed vacant for about a year. The new occupants were crack dealers. Abandoned houses were on every block, and the crack dealers would have their people break into the houses and set up shop. Most of the houses were built in the forties and fifties and they all had small tin door near the side door of the house where the milkman would put your fresh milk. There was another companion door on the inside of the house where you would get your fresh milk without going outside. The crack dealers would serve out of the little door to keep things inconspicuous. There were tons of crackheads always coming and going, even in the daylight, with kids playing right on the sidewalk out front. Needless to say, having a crackhouse next door made me very nervous. Especially when the main dealer would stop by. I and a bunch of my neighbors were constantly calling the cops to complain. My slumlord even tried to remedy the situation so I wouldn’t move out. He was more worried about his house than he was me, saying that I left the house vacant they would move right into it. The cops raided the place twice before someone bought it and renovated it. I was raking my lawn one day during all of this shit and came across a syringe. I was lucky not to have stepped on it or accidentally stuck by it. I surely would have caught hiv. Such fun.
There’s many more where that came from, but we’ll save those for another time. Detroit is a burned up and torn down remnant of what it once was. Their slogan was “It’s a great time…in Detroit! I did get out because I was able to, but unfortunately there are many who can’t and some that won’t. When people are in survival mode, I agree that they could give a shit about arts and humanities. In a way the in-humanities abounding are all absorbing in that environment. A place where life is already cheap, and yours could go on sale at any moment. I noticed in me that eventually I became desensitized to all the trash, burned out houses, party stores, and stripped cars.
Stripped cars…that just conjured up another wonderful memory. One night I was sitting in my living room watching tv when I heard a car revving hard for a couple of seconds, and then a horrible screeching noise for a couple of seconds afterwards. This continued in repetition for a while until it became really loud and I had to look at what it was. It was someone who had stripped a car in front of their house down the street, taken the wheels apparently, and then dragged it up the street on its frame to leave it in front of someone else’s house to deal with. Before I looked outside I was boggling my mind to figure out what could make such a wake the dead sort of noise. It all made sense once I saw it, where the noise was coming from, but not why they were doing it. I was speechless after having laid eyes on the spectacle, that sort of “now I’ve seen everything” feeling. All I could do was to shake my head and call the cops to have it removed.
I had a fun Saturday night, one which I will write about before I forget all about it hopefully.
I had a constant fear of getting shot or jumped. I guess that fear is exactly what keeps you from getting jumped or shot. I learned to be very alert to my surroundings and to try to keep and look cool, like I should be there and not scared that I am there. I had a dream recently that gave me the same feeling in my gut as when I lived in D. The feeling where you are always casing your way out if you need to get out in a hurry. Always make sure you have a way out. I luckily found mine in 2002.
On to the motor city chronicles. The night I moved into the house on Vaughan, I parked my truck out front and left the door unlocked. I was stirred eventually by the cops trying to get a naked guy high on acid out of my truck by spraying pepper spray in through the sunroof. He was handling the steering wheel as if he was driving to get way from the cops and fucking my vehicle up in the process. The guy’s friends eventually coaxed him out of the truck and into police custody. I should have realized right then and there.
At first the neighborhood wasn’t so bad because D had ordnance that all public workers including cops had to live in the city to be employed by the city. There were a few that lived directly on my block which made for a somewhat safer neighborhood. After the city repealed the live in the city rule, all the cops slowly moved out and the crime moved in. I think the only reason I was never broken into was because the neighbors thought or at least expected that I was a cop. In most neighborhoods bars on your windows are a common security measure. My little bungalow had no bars. But of course I had nothing that anyone would want anyway.
A cop used to live in the house next door and we were relatively friendly with each other. He moved out eventually and the house stayed vacant for about a year. The new occupants were crack dealers. Abandoned houses were on every block, and the crack dealers would have their people break into the houses and set up shop. Most of the houses were built in the forties and fifties and they all had small tin door near the side door of the house where the milkman would put your fresh milk. There was another companion door on the inside of the house where you would get your fresh milk without going outside. The crack dealers would serve out of the little door to keep things inconspicuous. There were tons of crackheads always coming and going, even in the daylight, with kids playing right on the sidewalk out front. Needless to say, having a crackhouse next door made me very nervous. Especially when the main dealer would stop by. I and a bunch of my neighbors were constantly calling the cops to complain. My slumlord even tried to remedy the situation so I wouldn’t move out. He was more worried about his house than he was me, saying that I left the house vacant they would move right into it. The cops raided the place twice before someone bought it and renovated it. I was raking my lawn one day during all of this shit and came across a syringe. I was lucky not to have stepped on it or accidentally stuck by it. I surely would have caught hiv. Such fun.
There’s many more where that came from, but we’ll save those for another time. Detroit is a burned up and torn down remnant of what it once was. Their slogan was “It’s a great time…in Detroit! I did get out because I was able to, but unfortunately there are many who can’t and some that won’t. When people are in survival mode, I agree that they could give a shit about arts and humanities. In a way the in-humanities abounding are all absorbing in that environment. A place where life is already cheap, and yours could go on sale at any moment. I noticed in me that eventually I became desensitized to all the trash, burned out houses, party stores, and stripped cars.
Stripped cars…that just conjured up another wonderful memory. One night I was sitting in my living room watching tv when I heard a car revving hard for a couple of seconds, and then a horrible screeching noise for a couple of seconds afterwards. This continued in repetition for a while until it became really loud and I had to look at what it was. It was someone who had stripped a car in front of their house down the street, taken the wheels apparently, and then dragged it up the street on its frame to leave it in front of someone else’s house to deal with. Before I looked outside I was boggling my mind to figure out what could make such a wake the dead sort of noise. It all made sense once I saw it, where the noise was coming from, but not why they were doing it. I was speechless after having laid eyes on the spectacle, that sort of “now I’ve seen everything” feeling. All I could do was to shake my head and call the cops to have it removed.
I had a fun Saturday night, one which I will write about before I forget all about it hopefully.
posted by Christine Cormier @ 10:48 PM
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