The Mothers and Fathers of Tomorrow

Today’s Deja Vuesday/old favorite takes us back to one year ago when some punk ass kid was outside my house uglifiying my corner more than it already was. In the year that’s passed, the neighborhood has continued its decay of comfortable apathy. It’s sad really; what could be one of the more romantic rows of our beautiful city, lined with vintage houses and hard working families has been mostly left to fester and rot.

Hopefully the sun will shine brighter on this zip code on some once upon a someday.

Enjoy!

“Cindy, I need you!” I’m out the door before she can answer, feet over the fence three seconds later.

“Hey!” I yell.

I stop in front of both of them, but grab the bigger one by the shirt as he’s walking away. He’s holding a fist full of labels swiped from the post office. A kindergartner’s logic paints his paws as red as the stop sign he just slapped a label on.

He shrugs me off and starts to walk off, his friend a beat behind. I grab his shirt, pull him toward me, then sidestep in front. “You’re going to clean that off, or you’re gonna wait with me until the cops get here.”

He stares.

I stare back.

The vandal’s a big kid, not used to being challenged. He’s somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, about six foot two. Maybe two-hundred and fifty pounds. He’s got about seventy-five pounds on me, but I’ve the advantage of an inch, and I press it on him like it’s the peak of a mountain.

“Two choices.”

He shrugs me off and gives me his shoulder, but I maneuver back in front. Silent, I produce my phone and hit the number for police, non emergency, our neighborhood enough decayed that the number is immediately accessible.

“Fine,” he says, walking toward the stop sign, “but it don’t come off.”

“It will come off.  The last time I scraped one of those stickers, it took me about half an hour. Though I’m probably faster than you.”

He stares, hate boiling.  ”I don’t have to do this,” he says.

“Then don’t.”

He stands on tip toe, and peels the sticker from the sign. When it’s gone, he scrapes the what’s left with the scraps of his nails. Every peer is peering, countless eyes are peeking from windows, trees, and alleys.

I stand on my corner, arms folded, watching him work, enjoying it far more than when I’m the one scraping. It took three years to get the four way stop sign put on our corner, and all of two days to get it tagged.

“I bet you wouldn’t have done that if your mama was watching,” I say.

“I just did it while my grandma was watching,” he boasts. There is genuine pride in his face, though it is clearly masking a different emotion.

“I hope she’s watching right now.”

The stop sign is shining and he turns to leave. “Don’t forget the trash can,” I said pointing to the can on the corner.

The small trash can came from the city. We first petitioned and then waited two years for its delivery. The trash can is our responsibility. We wipe it down and dump it every Friday. Yes, it is a filthy job, but still preferable to the era when we didn’t have the can and people used our yard, sidewalk and hedges instead. Since we’ve had the can, it’s suffered graffiti, frequent beatings with a baseball bat and intermittent detonations from fireworks stockpiled during the Fourth of July weekend. At the moment, I’m looking at a postal sticker splayed across the side. I didn’t see my new friend do it and don’t know for a fact he was the culprit, but it matters to me not at all.

He continues to stare, hatred now mingled with defeat, then peels the sticker from the trash can. It comes off easy. Just like they always do. I let him leave, but not without a final word. “You need to show respect around my property.”

“Which one’s yours?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” he sneers.

“The whole corner,” I say.  ”Anything in eyesight of my kids.”

He walks away and I turn back to the house.

I’m being watched by Cindy, what feels like the entire neighborhood, and our final client of the day standing on our porch and waiting to pick up his son. I wonder what he’s thinking, but then I see the applause on his face and meet it with a smile, relief deep in my bones.

We live in an ancient houses in the oldest part of our city. The neighborhood was overcrowded to start with and has continued to brim. We nurture our corner each day and have helped it to improve  since we planted a flag in our preschool three years back.

Neighborhoods are ecosystems of life, filled with all types of people. Life advances with effort and deteriorates with apathy. Income means nothing and manners are free. I believe in my neighborhood (always have), but the mothers and fathers of today should be paying more attention to the mothers and fathers of tomorrow.

Writer Dad

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