respect

“I must do something” always solves more problems than “Something must be done.”

~Author Unknown

When I published yesterday’s post, I expected two basic reactions: Good for you or You should be more careful.

I did not expect this:

You played cop over a sticker, lol. Bet you think you’re some hero now.

*unsubscribes*

That comment was beautifully articulated by Benjamin Solah, or Benjamin SoLONG as Kimmelin referred to him two dozen high fives later.

My response:

Benjamin: With a wide web between us, I’m unable to properly measure your sarcasm, so I’ll take your question straight.

No, I don’t think I’m a hero. I saved no one, and was considering my needs during the entire confrontation. Such are not the actions of a hero. I do all I can to make my neighborhood safe and friendly. The gaggle of hoods who stroll our streets, intimidating others and destroying property, are able to do so because no one is willing to stand up to them. They are not plastering a political message, or working toward change. They are simply being destructive, making the neighborhood feel unsafe, and wasting the time of others. The story wasn’t about a sticker. It was about a disrespectful bully. This is clearly written. I imagine you must have your own issues with authority to respond as you did.

Yesterday’s comment wasn’t Benjamin’s first. When someone takes the time to comment on Writer Dad, I do my best to stop by their site. So I already knew Benjamin was a “Marxist revolutionary with a passion for writing fiction which shines a mirror on capitalism to reflect its innate horror.”

Obviously I’m not convincing Benji of anything.

A few hours later, Benjamin dropped another comment.

Writer Dad, I’m know I’m gonna cause a fuss, but I actually disagree with what you did. It’s a sticker, get over it. Do you really think you’re such a hero for making a kid peel a sticker off a stop sign? Does it matter at all?

No (again), I do not consider myself a hero, and yes it matters:

Benjamin: I understand your perspective, but it isn’t JUST a sticker. It’s pandemic. I live in a ghetto where public and private property are defaced daily. Stop signs get postal labels slapped on them, obscenities follow. The labels take half an hour to scrape off. My half hour, that I don’t have. If I don’t scrape the labels, they multiply. Exactly like graffiti. We paint over that immediately as well. You don’t have to agree, but I corrected a neighborhood bully while he was disrespecting community property in front of our preschool where we endeavor to teach our little ones respect. I did so with control and manners. Observing vandalism, and doing nothing, is apathy. That’s not me.

I’m not a Marxist, so perhaps the logic’s lost on me. Benjamin tried to help me understand:

Sorry, I still think it’s all relative. Why is he sticking that sticker there? Why has he got nothing better to than to graffiti (aside from the fact some people actually find graffiti beautiful, as opposed to neat and perfect coz it looks unlived and inhuman IMO) but you said you live in a ghetto. So isn’t poverty more of an issue?

I’ve lived in areas where graffiti is rife, but it never bothered me, because the things around it were so much worse. I think when you look at businesses on the verge of being bailed out to the tune of $700 Billion, this poor kid gets ignored and the only way he gets noticed is to slap a sticker on a stop sign.

Many of you are probably wondering what Benjamin did to deserve this dedication. Nothing. It’s not about him. He just happened to be the voice of ignorance (no offense, Benjamin. Failed political infrastructure will do that).

This kid was victim of nothing. He slapped the sticker on the stop sign because no one taught him different. He’s one of the miscreants who meander around, mutilating their morals. They do not create art or anything else. Their graffiti is a sequence of barely legible letters, awkwardly scrawled onto the sidewalk (or the walls, windows, car doors, or anything they can get away with) in sharpie.

Poverty isn’t the issue, it’s respect. The kid was wearing an ipod, as do most of the kids in my neighborhood. I’ve got a shuffle, his was a touch, but at least I have manners.

I don’t understand people who, regardless of the facts, assume aggressor as victim, and hand out excuses like candy.

Benjamin, a $700 Billion dollar bailout has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Mini-Thug needed to learn a lesson in simple human decency. He tried to look cool, and got faced instead. He accepted his consequence. Why can’t you?

Writer Dad

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Stop.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.

~Joan Didion

“Daisy, I need you.”

I’m out the door before she can answer, feet over the fence, three seconds later.

“Hey,” I yell.

I land in front of both of them, but grab the bigger one by the shirt as he’s passing. He’s holding a handful of labels from the post office. Kindergarten logic paints his paws as red as the stop sign he just slapped a label on.

He shrugs me off, and starts to walk, 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 for the cops.”

He stares.

I stare back.

The vandal’s a big kid, not used to being challenged. He’s between fifteen and seventeen, six foot two, two-hundred and fifty pounds.

He’s got seventy-five pounds on me, at least, 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 turns. I maneuver back in front.

Silent, I produce my phone and hit the police, non emergency (our neighborhood is such that this number is immediately accessible).

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

“It will come off. The last time I scraped one of those stickers, it took half an hour, but 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 scraps with the scraps of his nails. Every peer is peering, dozens of eyes, peeking from windows, trees, and alleys.

I’m 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 put on our corner, 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, but 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 point to the can on the corner.

The can on the corner came from our city. We waited two years. We wipe it down and dump it every Friday. This is preferable to the era when we didn’t have the can, and people instead used our yard, sidewalk, and hedges.

Since we’ve had the can, it’s suffered intermittent detonations in the few weeks preceding and following the Fourth of July. 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 not at all.

He continues to stare, hatred now mingled with defeat. The sticker peels off the trash can 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. I turn back to the house.

I’m being watched, not just by Daisy and the entire neighborhood.

Our final client of the day is on standing on our porch. I wonder what he’s thinking, but then I see the applause on his face and feel relieved.

We live in one of the oldest houses, in the oldest part of our city. The neighborhood was overcrowded to begin with, and has continued to brim. We nurture our corner and it’s improved immeasurably since we planted a flag in our preschool three years back.

Neighborhoods are life, filled with all kinds of people.

Life advances with effort and deteriorates with apathy. Income means nothing, 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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If you’re reading this post for the first time, discussion spilled to the next day.

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