The Block – Part Two

Frankly, the house needed quite a bit of fixing up. I was going to work a summer session to get a little more money to help me get the repairs done sooner then later. The ceiling in the dining room was in sad shape. When the contractor came to give me an estimate, he hit it with a hammer and half of it fell down. Don’t worry dear, he said in his Irish brogue, it will be fixed before you know it. The roof above the kitchen leaked onto the kitchen table when it rained. I climbed up on the roof to clear the gutters when it rained instead. That repair had to wait a bit.

The neighbors were great and everyone rang the bell to introduce themselves and meet me. Good your fixing the place up but dont make the rest of us look bad joked Jennie and her wife Kate. They lived a few doors down and were EMTs.

As promised, Gonzalo kept an eye on me. He and his wife Lidia lent me their clippers, mower and edger and watched me tame the overgrown yard. Soon their cat Gray found its way into the yard and then into my house.

On the other side of me lived the O’Reilys, they had twelve children and were nicknamed the O’Rowdys by everyone on the block. One or more of them were always involved in a brawl.

The J train rattled on the rails up the block. Soon the sound became a comforting song. Harold on the corner was raising his two girls as a single parent. He was an musician and walking by his house I heard the sound of the steel drum through the open windows. The girls always laughing and chattering along with him and the drum.

It was Friday and I circled the block to find a spot to park. The house across from me was also part business, a roofing company. On Friday evenings they held card games in the basement. There was always a “doorman” stationed on the sidewalk in front of the house. I squeezed into a corner spot in front of the place. When I got out of my car the “doorman” bowed and smiled at me. He watched me walk across to my house. He was the Friday night sentinel.

The next day I decided to do some chores. I went to the avenue stores to shop. I got home around 3pm with groceries and a can of black rust-oleum from the hardware store. The black iron fence in front needed painting. I used a little metal brush to scrape at the rust. I turned to look at the wall below the siding and decided that needed painting too. I was setting my paint supplies up on the stoop when a group of teens running burst onto the block from the avenue. I stood straight up to look. They were being chased by a second group who were throwing rocks at the first.

Mother fuckers they yelled. The first group divided and cut into two with one of the splintered groups heading towards my house. The group chasing was still throwing rocks. One whizzed by my head, another went through my front window. The groups ran onto the next avenue and I was left standing there looking at my broken window. I was no longer motivated to paint the fence. I packed up my supplies and thought about how grateful I was that I didn’t get hit in the head with a rock. I went in the house and packed it up for the day.

Fifteen minutes later my doorbell rang. I opened the front door to find a man holding one of the teens by the back of his neck. The three of us stared at each other for a few minutes in silence. I wasn’t quite sure why they were there. The man spoke first, for the window he said. He pulled a stack of bills out of his pocket and extended it to me. I stared at it for a moment and then took it. He still had the teen by the neck and he pushed him towards me. Sorry, the kid said, I’m sorry. I nodded my head and they left without another word. That’s how things worked on the block.