The devil's advocate.

I am always cautious around people who play the devil's advocate. I guess it has to do with the person playing "the devil's" advocate. They usually aren't aware that they are crossing the line from "problem solver" to "saboteur".

A worthy thought.

Never let someone's low opinion of you guide your life's path.

Music, A Troubled Neighbor and The Gravity of The Streets

Music, A Troubled Neighbor and The Gravitation of The Street

I consider myself a reasonable individual. I believe in giving a guy a fair chance in a disagreement and I try to talk things out. In most cases, if I feel disrespected, I walk away. I'll just put that person in a category with people I will not associate with. After all, how can two walk together if they can't even agree? This philosophy has served me well and kept me out of a lot of trouble. That is until I met my beautiful wife. My wife was a new homeowner when I met her. She had only been living in her house for about three months. Buying a house was a very wise decision as she was paying far more money in rent than she would on the mortgage for a house. When I first saw where she lived, I did not get good vibes about the small block. The block is not horrible. I just felt some bad vibes. Most people who have grown up in the city develop a type of "spidey sense" about their surroundings. We walk into a different neighborhood and with a minimum of observation, we can deduce a fairly accurate picture of safety, drug activity, neighborhood attitude and other environmental characteristics. One of the main vibes I felt from just a couple of homes on the block was possessiveness. My wife is originally from Massachusettes. When she moved to Philadelphia, she rented in a progressive University oriented part of the city. She left that area and purchased a house ten blocks away in a more mixed income section of the city.

Early on, I never told her about my observations. I knew she was proud of her homeownership. We fell in love and I moved from my building, an investment property, to her house. I observed that one of our neighbors was involved in selling drugs. We'll call him P. My wife noticed it also. P is an interesting character. He introduced himself to us one day and began talking about how he didn't have a father and how he had gotten involved with the wrong crowd when he was younger. He told us how he got in trouble with the law once because he was in a car with friends he didn't know had carjacked the vehicle. I don't know what the purpose of his revelations were. All I know is he didn't learn anything from getting into trouble in his youth. I would observe him doing drug transactions and look around to make sure no one was watching, all the while holding the money almost above his head and counting it. I heard him body slam a young man against the metal railing of his house then say to another associate that "the guns were in the car". One night a skinny little white guy came on the block looking for a cell phone that P's lady had taken. P kept telling the guy to go home. The white guy just kept saying, "I don't give a f??k." Apparently, P had approached the guy in a threatening manner and that's when we heard the gun shot. My wife and I were laying in the bed listening. She was six months pregnant and became very upset. She asked me if we should get on the floor. I giggled a little. I told her to relax. P's voice was heard way off in the distance at this point. The white guy let off another shot and repeated, "I don't give a f??k." I didn't want to see P get killed, so I called the police as did other people on the block. They arrested the shooter. P wasn't hit. The shots were just warning shots. While the police were outside, a neighbor came out and yelled, "You need to be ashamed of yourselves!"

On many occasions P would walk up and down the block yelling profanities into his cell phone for most of the day. The only time he would seem to leave the block was when he hopped on a small BMX Bicycle to run his errands. One day my wife was tending her garden when P came outside and began talking on his cell phone about how much money someone had in their safe and where it was located. Then he made a statement that his two best friends were Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson. Even though P exhibited this criminal behavior, I just ignored him. He seemed to be trying to intentionally draw attention to himself. I grew up with some real tough guys. I was and still am friends with some of them. Real tough guys don't want to draw attention to themselves. Real tough guys don't want you to know what they have or what they will do. The just exude an air that lets you know; don't start none, won't be none.

Things on the block were mostly quiet apart from P's profanity filled cell phone conversations. That is until P bought a sound system with a sub-woofer. My wife and I were watching television when we heard music traveling across the front porch. It was loud. We could not enjoy the program we were watching regardless of how high we put the volume. The music continued and continued. Finally, my wife went over and asked them to turn the music off. They complied. She told me that the new sound system was on the porch and that there was no one outside with it. They were all inside drinking malt liquor. After that, they only played the music inside their house with the sub-woofer going almost full throttle. We couldn't tell what songs were playing, but we could tell the beat and base patterns. The music was coming through the walls of the row house. Funny thing is, our house is separated by one empty house and we could still hear the bass. Having already approached P about the music, we resorted to calling the police. The police would come, and the music would get turned off. But Philadelphia police don't make music a priority and P wasn't getting the message. P would play his music loudly. He would play it when he was home. He would play it when he wasn't home. One day I couldn't take the music anymore, so I went over to talk to him. My wife followed. P was outside having a conversation with the music blasting out of the front door. I walked across the empty porch and asked him if he could turn the music down. He then told his cousin to wait for him in his car while he talked to us. P then proceeded to ask if we were the ones who called the police on him. "Yes, we called the police and we'll do it again," my wife said sternly. I just continued staring at P expressionless, but inside I was thinking, why why why did you tell him that. He then proceeded to tell us that we shouldn't call the police because we didn't know "what goes on" in his house and that he could "get in a lot of trouble". I told him that I grew up with hustlers and that everyone has a hustle. I stated that the only way he could mess with my hustle is if he kept me up at night with his loud music.

He offfered his phone number and told us to call him if the music was ever too loud. We called him once with no success. That only led to a small argument. My wife had told him that after she has the baby, she would call the police if he kept playing the music. The police had to be called every now and then to get him to keep the music down. After a while, he seemed to have gotten the message. The music would be loud only occassionally in the day time. Then Jonah was born. When we brought our son home, we were welcomed with some loud music. It was like P was letting us know that we could kiss his butt. I wanted to go over to his house and solve the problem by this time but didn't want to get into a confrontation with an infant in the house. My sister and I have an investment property, so I took my wife and son there for a few days in the early evening. We would come back later when P would turn the music off. Then he stopped playing the music in the evening. I don't know why. I know he would, constantly, look at us out of his window . Maybe, if he were trying to be spiteful towards us with the music, he felt it was useless seeing us leave as soon as he started blasting it. All I know is the evenings were much more quiet.

My wife took three months off from work to stay home with the baby. Then I started getting phone calls at work. "P was playing his music today, it was ridiculously loud," my wife would tell me. Or she would mention it to me when I would come home. He slipped into a ritual of blasting the music early in the day. One day I came home and saw P walking over to my car with a not so happy look on his face. "Yo, can I talk to you for a second," he said. I got out of my car cautiously, since I don't trust him the slightest.

"What's up," I asked.
"Your wife keeps calling the police on me. Every time I look outside, there is a police car sitting in front of my house."
"Oh really," I said.
"I have never seen the police so much in my life," P told me.
"She didn't call," I responded.
"Well, who else did it?"
"Who knows?"
"You didn't do it. You were at work," he said.
"We've already had this conversation," I responded. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Then P's lady came out and told me very calmly that she was going to file a complaint with the district attorney's office. I told her that I was fine with that and that she should do what she had to do. That's when I guess P decided I wasn't reacting the way he wanted me to and started to get loud.

"She's talking the DA. F**k that, things are about to get crazy around here," he yelled.
I stopped in my tracks at this. "Crazy? What do you mean crazy," I yelled.
"I mean things are about to get crazy," he repeated.
"You know what P. You are thinking about what could happen to me. You are thinking about all of the things that could happen to me and not about what could happen to YOU!!"

My wife opened the front door and told him that she would call the police right now. I told her to go back into the house. She kept arguing with that fool. She called him crazy. He told her if she wants to see crazy, he would show her crazy. The more I heard him talk, the more I wanted to run over to him and get physical, but I have a wife and son and didn't want to get arrested or even injured or do anything that could have my family without me for any period of time. I pulled my wife into the house and told her to let me handle it. She picked up the phone to call the police. I told her not to call the police; I was tired from work and just wanted to relax. My wife was very angry and for good reason.

"He threatened you and I am calling the police," she said.
"I'll tell you what," I told her. "Let's go down to the station and file a complaint there."
"OK, fine," she said.
"OK, you get our son together. I'll give you the car key. You open the car and put our son in his seat. Then you sit in your seat. I'll stand outside the car and make sure nobody tries to get 'crazy'."

My wife did as I asked. I stood beside the car so I would have a clear view of the car and a clear view of P's house. P was knocking on his window so that I would come up onto his porch. I ignored him. Then his door opened and he came walking down his front steps with his hand jammed inside his jacket like he had a gun. He was looking at me with a menacing look on his face.

"It don't even have to get to this," he said as he slowly walked up to me sideways so his tucked hand was aimed at me. "It don't even have to get to THIS, you know what I am sayin?"

I just stared at him with no reaction. I was in a ready stance. I am a martial artist. In martial arts we are taught to do everything to avoid a fight unless there is no other recourse. I probably would have walked back into the house when I saw how he was approaching me to avoid a situation, but my family was already in the car. In my field of martial arts, we are also taught that if we are about to have a physical confrontation, we should view our enemy not as a human but as a target. All I saw as P approached was, eyes, groin, knee, spine, neck, ear, and anything else that could be damaged and cause serious injury. He approached until he was about three feet away from me. "It don't even have to get to this," he said once more. I barely heard him. I was going to grab him behind his neck jump into the air and pulled his nose into my bent knee as I ascended. I decided I had to make sure he was armed before I did anything that could cause a catastrophic injury. I just stared at him emotionless. My mind was in combat mode. Then I spoke.

"Are you going to pull that gun or are you just going to keep talking?" I asked him.

P threw open his jacket. There was nothing there.

"Gun?!!!" he exclaimed. "What kind of guy do you think I am?!"

I just stared at him, still without emotion.

"You are playing a dangerous game," I said.
"I was cold so I was pulling my jacket closed."
"You just told me things were about to get crazy," I said. "Now, you tell that to the nicest guy on the block, and he might make you regret ever saying it. P you aren't the nicest guy on the block and I am NOT the nicest guy on the block."
"No," he exclaimed. "I don't mean it like that. I just mean that my lady is planning on calling the DA and things are about to get crazy, that's all."
"P, if I tell you things are going to get crazy, they are going to get crazier than you think."

He then went on to explain how we should work with him with the music and that he didn't buy the system just to play it on level five. He said that when the police were being called, they were being called on him, emphasizing that it was personal. I didn't respond to him. I was very angry and had to calm myself. I had to stop looking at him like a target that I would have to damage. I ended our conversation and drove to the police station with my family. I couldn't believe what had just happened inside of me. But that thing inside of me has always been there and ready. My wife is an attorney. I own my own masonry and plastering restoration business. We are for all intents and purposes, professionals. At this point in our lives, we are far beyond street confrontations and petty arguments. The problem is, people in the city and especially people of color in the city can at any point be pulled by the gravity of the streets- pulled into violence; pulled into confrontation; pulled into having to solve things through lawlessness.

Years ago, the city of Philadelphia began to tear down their housing projects. The projects were rife with crime and violence. The project model didn't work. Instead of housing projects, the city was going to implement section 8 housing where a person gets vouchers to live in an apartment or a house that is not government owned. The government instead pays part of the tenants rent based on their income. For and apartment that costs $600.00 a month, one tenant might have to pay $300.00 of the rent while another tenant may only have to pay $50.00. This program helps a lot of people get on their feet and helps good people find a nice place to live. But sometimes, it helps a criminal element live next door to me and you. As it turns out, P is just the type of criminal element who would have been living in a housing project, but instead, he lives in a section 8 house one house down from me, my wife and child. And his name is not on the lease. The lease was actually signed to two women. Believe me, I would not want to see P in a housing project. But I sure don't want him living next to my family. There are two adults who live in that house, neither of them work. Neither of them have any intention to work. P sells drugs and does other illegal hustles, and he is happy with that. Fine. But his illegal activities, including disturbing the peace, are being subsidized by the government. And because the government subsidizes his ability to live near us, my wife and I feel the gravity of the streets pulling us into P's world. We feel like fish out of water. I believe P also feels like a fish out of water. He honestly can't understand why we would operate outside the rules of the street and call the police. He told me just before I went to the police station that he would never call the police on anyone for "anything". P comes from a world where snitches get stitches. I come from a world where snitches call the police to avoid giving the stitches. But the section 8 program has helped our worlds to collide. My wife and I are planning to move prematurely. With a new baby and a new life, we just don't have time to fight for this small house on this small block. So we will have to rent the place or sell it. Both will be hard to do with a neighbor like P. If we have trouble renting or selling this property, it's no problem. We'll just bring in tenants from the section 8 program.

A Goat Story

My Grandfather had a magnetic personality. Everyone loved him very much, especially his children and grandchildren. He always had a good joke and always had a good story. Now, being from the south, he often told stories that were incredibly amusing yet at the same time had no particular moral to them. There is one story in particular that I never really understood. It was pretty funny the way he would tell it. But when you would stop to think about it, you would realize how cruel it probably was. It didn't really have a moral- that is until he lay on his death bed in what were literally his final days. I like to call this one-


A Goat Story. A Childhood Memory

My Grandfather always had a funny story about his childhood on the family farm in Virginia. He use to tell this story about wanting a goat. He just wanted a goat so badly as a pet. So one day he went to his father and asked, "Pappa, Pappa, could I please have a goat? Please Pappa please." He asked over and over again. So his father looked at him and said, "Son if you finish all of your work well this week, you can have your goat." Now we are talking about the early 1900's. So I am not talking about childhood chores. Children had to work back then. Having summers off for school back then was for the sole purpose that children could help tend the farm.

Well, my grandfather went out and did his work and did them well. He milked the cows, gathered eggs. He helped till the fields and feed the animals. He probably did a lot of other things I don't even know about which I am sure I would find unpleasant. He probably did some of the other children's work too just to get his goat. At the end of the week he went to his father and asked, "Pappa, Pappa, now can I please have my goat?"

"Did you finish all of your work well?" his father asked.
"Yes Pappa," answered my young grandfather.

His father looked at him, leaned forward and spoke, "You will get your goat when broomsticks turn to pine trees." This is the part where we would laugh at this story. Broomsticks turning to pine trees will never happen on this planet. Then we would ponder it and think to ourselves, geez that is mean. There was no particular moral to the story. The moral came much later when my Grandfather was much older and had fallen ill.

I can't say my Grandfather grew old and frail. I had the honor of working by his side. Well into his late 80's he was outworking the younger guys on the job including me. It was something to see. Then suddenly, he began to get a little tired and sick to the stomach. He couldn't keep his food down. This went on for a couple of years but he was still outworking the younger guys till it started getting worse. When he went to the doctor to have it checked out, they found leukemia. It had spread to his lungs. He was told to stay home and not work. He was 90. He was going quickly. He was disappearing before our eyes.

He was on pain medication and was displaying some unusual eerie behavior. He couldn't walk so he was bedridden. He was having hallucinations from the powerful pain killers. He thought he was plastering his bedroom. He would call out to his brothers one by one. They were all dead. Most times he would carry on a conversation like normal. Big Pop, as we called him, knew he was going to die. There are two things he said in his dying days that really stood out. My Aunt Nell was keeping him company one day when he looked at her and said, "I am not afraid to die, but I am going to miss everyone something awful." The second thing he said revealed the moral and true ending of the Goat story. My Aunt was tending to him another day and he pointed into the air and said with such a satisfied whisper, "look at that little goat." My aunt turned to him and replied, "Daddy I see it. He is so beautiful."

God showed my 90 year old Grandfather the goat that was promised him when he was a boy of 8 years old. That funny story turned out to be a memory that had bothered my Grandad for years. That thing my Great Grandfather said about brooms turning to pine trees was painful. It was so painful Big Pop took it to his death bed. I am not saying my Great Grandfather was a bad man. He is the one responsible for our family being in the building trade. He provided for his family and taught his boys to do the same. But he said one thing to his son that hurt him to his core. He would have just been better off telling my Grandfather from the start that he could not have the goat, instead of making a promise and breaking it. I guess the moral of the story is, be careful what you say to your children. Choose your words wisely. They look to parents for guidance. They adore their parents. So parents make sure your children have good memories of you, not cruel ones. You plant seeds with everything you say. Make sure those seeds aren't weeds.

The Burning Man

My father and I have a Masonry and Plastering business. One slow cold day, we were looking at jobs and went back to my place to take lunch. I noticed a man in the driveway some distance away. Upon seeing us, the man quickly left and moved out of view through an empty lot. I paid it no mind. Many people would use that lot for a shortcut. My father and I went inside my place and ate our lunch. We watched a little bit of a the matrix after lunch then decided to head back out and do more estimates. When we got outside, we saw something burning in the driveway. My father was angry. He said, "I knew somebody was going to do something like this, setting trash on fire up here." I looked a little harder. "dad," I said. "Those are legs sticking out of the flames."

The man was too far away from my house to use the hose, it wouldn’t reach. Filling a bucket of water would have taken too long. So I ran down to him and started knocking his burning crumbling clothes off him with my jacket. It was working. I put everything out but his synthetic sneakers. He was laying there now naked with his feet still burning. The firemen had arrived when I was about to go get some water for the sneakers. They sprayed water on his feet. Unfortunately I was too late. Even though he didn't look horribly disfigured at all, the flames had shocked his system and stopped his heart. he looked to be about 45 years old. Turns out, he was 72. The heat had caused his skin to shrink and smooth out making him look younger than he was. He was on his back, arms and legs bent from the tightening skin pulling his limbs toward his center. Later on, when he made the news we found out a little about the man. He was mentally disturbed and had tried different suicide attempts in the past. This one worked. He had children who hadn't known his whereabouts for years. His wallet had survived the fired and the authorities notified his family, so when they were reunited with their father, it was only to bury him.

I had dreams about the burning man for only about two weeks after that. They were never nightmares. I dreamed I had reached him just as the flames had started and put them out. I dreamed that he was walking around engulfed in flames but remained unharmed like the burning bush in the bible. And I dreamed that I saw him burning just as I did in my waking life. In that dream, I went to get water and when I turned to help, he was gone. No trace of him there. I don't know what the dreams meant. I guess my mind was trying to make sense of the senseless, of something I would have only read about in fiction.