Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Gasoline



 I usually buy gas at a station downtown.  I run over there at lunch or after work; it's always a few cents cheaper at this one particular station.

In order to get there, I have to cut through a pretty sh*tty neighborhood; delapidated, low-income, high-density housing.  The crap side of town, if you will.

I've never had any problems over there, until yesterday afternoon after work.  I was a block or two from the gas station when I saw a clot of kids in the road up ahead.  There were a lot of them, probably thirty or forty, pre-teens and young teens,  cutting up and running around, and they were clustered in the street in front of two multi-family houses.  I was too far down the street to turn around by the time I saw them, and frankly, I was a little ticked off that they would just block the entire road.  Where the hell were their parents?

I drew closer in my car, and the kids on the fringe started moving out of the street, although a couple of them actually rode their bikes right in front of my car, like they didn't understand what a car could do to a kid on a bike.  Oh, who am I kidding, of COURSE they understood; they were just jerking my chain.  One or two kids ambled in front of me, close enough to touch the hood before they turned and strolled the other direction.  As I slowly drove forward, I could hear catcalls, most of which included the word "white".  Yep, I am.  I am that.

I wasn't scared.  This was a busy street in broad daylight, and I wasn't the only one trying to maneuver a car through the crowd.  I did kind of wonder where the cops were; we were only a block or two from the main station. 

I wasn't angry, particularly.  Just inconvenienced.  I just wanted to get my gas and head home without having to run a gauntlet of kids.

What I was, was sad.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon on a weekday, and here's a bunch of punks harassing cars on the street.  They weren't in an after-school program, they weren't playing sports, they weren't doing homework, they weren't in the park a block away, and they weren't being supervised by their parents.  They were just running wild, acting up, acting ... aimless.

Where will these kids be in five years?  Dealing drugs, some of them.  Doing drugs, some of them.  Some of the girls will be knocked up, and some of the boys will be in jail.  Some of them will be working in fast food, and a lot of them will be on welfare, because that's what they know. 

Very few of them will be in college.  Very few of them will go on to a career as a teacher or a doctor or a cop, with a home and a spouse and a couple of kids and a couple of cars in the garage.

Grim view?

Yep.  It's just a sad fact that very few get out of the hood.  Very few even try.  Kids model what they see, and what they see is welfare and unemployment and drugs and violence and broken homes and taunting the people who pass through their neighborhood.

It's sad, is what it is.  Is what I was, yesterday.


5 comments:

Domestic Kate said...

Yes, it is sad, which is why kids--from all walks of life--need to see they have options and can break the cycle. Because it *can* be broken. But it's an uphill battle when you're surrounded by one message, like your future has already been decided. Even those who go to college still have to fight that battle--their parents can't or won't help them, their friends don't understand why they can't hang out, and their employers don't understand why they can't work at a moment's notice.

rockygrace said...

Kate, that's the kicker - even the kids who try are knocked back by those around them. It just seems like we've been trying for fifty years - since LBJ's War on Poverty - to "break the cycle" on a large scale, and nothing seems to work.

In cat rescue, there's a saying - "You can't save 'em all." (See also: starfish story.) Harsh, but particularly with ferals, who will never acclimate to human contact, about the best we can do is neuter 'em so they can't reproduce and ... oh my.

Yeah, not the right analogy, but seriously, do you think there's anything that WOULD work? I'm curious. How do we get these kids out of these neighborhoods?



James P. said...

For the love of sanity, girl, please find a new (safe) place to buy gas! (Don't make us come up there.) The world is more confrontational than "the old days", and you don't need to place yourself in the very middle of it. Sheesh.

fmcgmccllc said...

One plant that I covered was right smack in the hood. I had a summer route to work and a winter route and I still had to be vigilant to make sure the crack ho's stayed off my car. Be careful out there.

rockygrace said...

Thanks for your concern, guys. It just sucks that a bunch of kids think they don't have anything better to do than harass cars. AND GET OFF MY LAWN! Ha.