is bigger, isn’t it? You’re a lot bigger. Now just stomp on that damn spider and shut the hell up.”
So I did as she said. I stomped on it, and to this day I continue to take Tillie’s advice any time I can. It was sage wisdom, after all. In the end, we are all bigger than our fears. We should all just stomp on them and shut the hell up.
A Bad Housekeeper
I T’S TOO BAD testicles are such an easy target. Really. And they always seem to be hanging there at table-corner height, which just makes them cumbersome. But to have them shot off, that right there is the motherfuck of all motherfucks, if you ask me, even though you could argue I have none of my own anymore—balls, that is.
That police deputy did, though, poor guy. He and his partner were just doing their job in my neighborhood, visiting from their own district, serving what they considered to be a low-risk warrant on Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a Muslim cleric who is supposed to be a pillar of our community, and for some reason Al-Amin pulled out an assault rifle and shot them both. Then while they lay there in the street wounded, Al-Amin slowly approached one and shot his balls off, three bullets to the groin, which killed him fairly efficiently, while the other deputy watched, horrified.
The next day I knew something was up in my neighborhood the second I turned the corner past the crack dealers and saw immediately that our regular contingent of whores were nowhere to be seen, especially Pox Face, who was probably the most visible hooker we had. That was not her actual name, just one I’d given her. I’ve only seen her through my car window, and she was so ugly I wondered whether the reason she was so reliably on the street was because she had a hard time getting any business, an assumption backed by her lack of shoes.
Pox Face used to wear an old pair of riding boots I’d picked up at a thrift store as part of a failed Halloween costume a few years back. I was going to be an old-fashioned stewardess, and the closest thing I could find to the kind of go-go boots they used to wear back in the good old days—back when Pucci designed the uniforms and everybody belted shots in the cockpit—were these lame riding boots. So I bought them, figuring I could paint them white, but thankfully ditched the idea. The boots, though, stayed with me until I moved to Capitol View.
It is the practice of me and my neighbors to leave useable items we no longer want on top of the lid of our trash containers the day trash is to be collected, seeing as how there are so many needy people in the neighborhood, and it takes probably ten minutes, tops, before the item is picked up and disbursed among the miscreants who populate this place. Those boots, though, must have stayed out there for hours. I was really surprised. I thought they’d go fast, even though they’re a size ten. Finally they got picked up by Pox Face, and she wore them until she lost them, because crack whores lose everything eventually Every little thing.
But none of the whores were visible the morning after Al-Amin shot the balls off that deputy. What I did see, though, were police cars. I never saw so many police cars on Dill Avenue. The crack dealers were there, too. You can’t let a little cop killing get in the way of commerce, I guess.
Al-Amin is on the run right now, that’s why the police are canvassing our neighborhood. They believe he has a lot of supporters here, and he does. The Muslim population in our neighborhood is collectively aghast. They are insisting Al-Amin is innocent, a bastion of our community, and crediting him with having cleaned up the West End where we live. “He swept this place up,” they insist. If he is persecuted and put to death, they say, our neighborhood will be sentenced to death as well.
Now I’m not black and I’m not Muslim—not that I know of anyway, because the truth is both of my parents died before I started caring about heritage, thus making it hard for me
So I did as she said. I stomped on it, and to this day I continue to take Tillie’s advice any time I can. It was sage wisdom, after all. In the end, we are all bigger than our fears. We should all just stomp on them and shut the hell up.
A Bad Housekeeper
I T’S TOO BAD testicles are such an easy target. Really. And they always seem to be hanging there at table-corner height, which just makes them cumbersome. But to have them shot off, that right there is the motherfuck of all motherfucks, if you ask me, even though you could argue I have none of my own anymore—balls, that is.
That police deputy did, though, poor guy. He and his partner were just doing their job in my neighborhood, visiting from their own district, serving what they considered to be a low-risk warrant on Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a Muslim cleric who is supposed to be a pillar of our community, and for some reason Al-Amin pulled out an assault rifle and shot them both. Then while they lay there in the street wounded, Al-Amin slowly approached one and shot his balls off, three bullets to the groin, which killed him fairly efficiently, while the other deputy watched, horrified.
The next day I knew something was up in my neighborhood the second I turned the corner past the crack dealers and saw immediately that our regular contingent of whores were nowhere to be seen, especially Pox Face, who was probably the most visible hooker we had. That was not her actual name, just one I’d given her. I’ve only seen her through my car window, and she was so ugly I wondered whether the reason she was so reliably on the street was because she had a hard time getting any business, an assumption backed by her lack of shoes.
Pox Face used to wear an old pair of riding boots I’d picked up at a thrift store as part of a failed Halloween costume a few years back. I was going to be an old-fashioned stewardess, and the closest thing I could find to the kind of go-go boots they used to wear back in the good old days—back when Pucci designed the uniforms and everybody belted shots in the cockpit—were these lame riding boots. So I bought them, figuring I could paint them white, but thankfully ditched the idea. The boots, though, stayed with me until I moved to Capitol View.
It is the practice of me and my neighbors to leave useable items we no longer want on top of the lid of our trash containers the day trash is to be collected, seeing as how there are so many needy people in the neighborhood, and it takes probably ten minutes, tops, before the item is picked up and disbursed among the miscreants who populate this place. Those boots, though, must have stayed out there for hours. I was really surprised. I thought they’d go fast, even though they’re a size ten. Finally they got picked up by Pox Face, and she wore them until she lost them, because crack whores lose everything eventually Every little thing.
But none of the whores were visible the morning after Al-Amin shot the balls off that deputy. What I did see, though, were police cars. I never saw so many police cars on Dill Avenue. The crack dealers were there, too. You can’t let a little cop killing get in the way of commerce, I guess.
Al-Amin is on the run right now, that’s why the police are canvassing our neighborhood. They believe he has a lot of supporters here, and he does. The Muslim population in our neighborhood is collectively aghast. They are insisting Al-Amin is innocent, a bastion of our community, and crediting him with having cleaned up the West End where we live. “He swept this place up,” they insist. If he is persecuted and put to death, they say, our neighborhood will be sentenced to death as well.
Now I’m not black and I’m not Muslim—not that I know of anyway, because the truth is both of my parents died before I started caring about heritage, thus making it hard for me
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