gunned down

This past Thursday, I stood up to the gangs in my neighborhood. Don’t worry, I didn’t go all Grand Torino on them. I returned from work to see someone had put “clarissa is a fag” on our limestone wall. Now the boys are not too bright (or really young) because they wrote it in sidewalk chalk. A few weeks ago, they tagged our front door with spray paint. Our glass front door.
Five minutes with a razor blade, and the tag was removed. Anyway, back to the Thursday incident. I went out with a bucket of soapy water and a dish scrubber. I was working on the sidewalk chalk defilement when a cop car pulled up (don’t worry, there is almost always a cop on my block). The cop chided the boys just hanging on the corner (i.e. drug dealers) for just sitting back and watching “the lady scrub her wall”. The gang boys then asked me if I needed help, and I snipped back “yeah, you can help me by telling who wrote on my wall…it is so disrespectful”. They shook their heads and walked off to the other popular dealing spot. No retaliation yet, but I’ll keep watch nonetheless.
In related bullet news, I went on the Chicago Gangster tour a few months back with my Mom. Being a history nerd, it fascinated me. The tour covered Al Capone’s haunts, the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, the rift between Irish and Italian gangs, and the new lawmen call the Untouchables. One church with a bloody history, thanks to Capone, still has bullet holes. Of course, my mom and I couldn’t resist sticking our fingers in them.