Gangland.
It’s not a city but, rather, the stinking heart of every city. It thrives where pot-holes outnumber trees, where the mill-stacks belch their smog, dimming and yellowing the sun. Cities are built on dreams but somewhere, between the burnt out shells of old buildings and the dilapidated housing projects that are erected when they finally fall, those dreams have lost their glint so that only nightmare remains.
This is my world, my hell.
I awake each morning in a run down, ten-by-twelve flat. Perched high on the seventh floor, it is my fortress. Far below, past piss-stained hallways thick with the wails of unattended babies, the mean streets promise only bloodshed and despair. Down there, kids too young to shave have swaddled themselves in gang colors and stand in shadowed alleys, slinging hubbas and dreaming of the glory promised by the rappers that are their only idols. They strut amongst prostitutes and hustlers; the homeless, the hopeless, the hellbound.
I open the door cautiously, wrinkling my nose at the stench. There, on a once-floral mat, the morning paper waits faithfully. It is my guardian, my guide, my crystal ball. I lift it reverently, retreating behind three locks to the safety of my sagging bed. There, fingers blackened by the ink, I sit and smoke and read.
Another death in gangland. The victim is young, male, Hispanic, decked out in a blue rag and flannel. The photograph shows him smiling in his prime but I can see through it, see him sprawled out in the mini-mart parking lot, only shock and fear left on his stiffening face. There’s a tattoo on his neck: a scepter superimposed over the letter C. It marks him as a member of the Cryp Crowns, one of the most dangerous cliques in gangland, but his eyes remind me that he was only a child.
The article says that the police are powerless, under-funded. It says they have no suspects, no witnesses, and no leads. The story never changes. The press, the cops, the bangers themselves: all would have us believe that Gangland is eternal.
I believe differently. I see how all of them profit from our pain. I see the parts they play. From this high window, through the scope of my old M-1, I see a lot of things.
Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire. Someone must act to stop this frenzy of senselessness. That someone might as well be me.
With 12 alive, it takes 7 to lynch.
.
