On a serious note, for some reason... the other day I had a fare who brought up the topic of the violence in the neighborhoods.  Apparently he'd gotten into some sort of discussion with a bus driver and a female passenger on that bus concerning the topic... and when he hopped into my cab the topic was still burning in his brain.  I just happen to have overheard on the news the other night, on one of those evenings when I'm too drunk to be bothered to change the channel and yet sober enough to still be able to interpret the Charlie Brown-like noises newscasters often make... I overheard that as of early May, 2002, there had been 39 homicides in Oakland.  Now, figuring really quickly, 30 days has... ok, that comes out to 120 and change days... which comes out at about a homicide every 3 days and some odd hours in this fair city.

    Holy Shit!!  And I'm driving a cab here??!!

    I quickly dismissed this initial reaction though... through whatever trick of idiosyncratic brain chemistry it may be that has kept me doing this job for going on 5 years now... and I thought about a response.

    "Yeah... I hear it's been getting pretty bad..."

    "Well, there's no argument, dawg... but, and I'm not endorsing or saying that I'm in that lifestyle... but, it's easy to say that when you got your regular paychecks and you're getting yours, you know what I'm saying?" Dude pointed out.

    In other words, these poor cats lack, and they kill to acquire, and if you don't lack, then you just don't know what it's like...

    "Yeah, I hear you... but, I mean... if the violence keeps up like this... then whatever they do get, they ain't gonna get tuh keep it too long..." I answered.

    For some reason, when I'm talking to the cats from the neighborhoods, I start to pick up their quirky syntaxes...  Maybe that's what's kept me from being a statistic for this long...

    "Yeah, I feel ya, but, what I'm saying is... there's fellas out here on the streets that don't give a fuck... and they're gonna get theirs, and they don't give a fuck 'bout what they gotta do to get it, you know what I'm saying?..."

    "Yeah man, I dig." I answered, "... but it's hard to feel sorry for those cats when they get popped... 'cause, shit... they didn't give a fuck, and they was just looking to get theirs, so they really got no place to complain if someone else that don't give a fuck beats 'em to it, and blows 'em away in the process... The real problem, what makes me feel for all these poor bastards, is that some of 'em don't seem to realize that they're putting themselves into a game where it's just a matter of time. You know?, it's like a war of attrition, and these poor fucks are playing for relatively penny-ante stakes, you know?"

    "Yo, I feel you.  But, like, you got your job and your little monies, and I got mine, and those folks on that bus had theirs... but these fellas they ain't even got cars, you know what I'm saying?..."

    I knew what he was saying... but I didn't see how cars were something worth killing each other over... especially some of those hooptie pieces of shit I'd seen these fellas tooling around in in the neighborhoods...

    But then again, I remember the first time I had a wheel stolen off my car at night.  I had to spend the next week fighting the urge to stay up, standing guard over the fucking thing, with a gun.  I was ready to kill over my car.

    "Yeah, well... sucks to be them... If they don't get more creative though, they ain't gonna live long enough to worry about those cars passing smog..."

    Dude didn't get the irony though. He just paid his fare, and went on about his business.  And I went on about mine.

    It took about 20 minutes for it to dawn on me- Wait a minute, I've lived in Mexico!  I've lived with people who had to burn their own trash because they couldn't afford to pay for garbage service.  People who had to throw their toilet paper into their trash, and then burn it themselves, because the city sewers couldn't deal with toilet paper.  People who had to use out-houses, and use their children's corrected homework assignments for toilet paper.  People who used wood fires, lit with white gas, or something like that, to cook.  People who wash their laundry in a river.  I've washed my laundry in a river, by hand.  I've slept on a park bench with nothing to eat but cold hot dogs for days at a time...  I've seen entire families sharing one bed.

    These guys on these street corners who don't even have cars really don't have it that bad.

    Hell, they're better dressed than I am... A week's worth of their wardrobes would probably cover the cost of the car I drive...

    And so my serious response is... how the fuck does a white boy like me, who can pronounce poly-syllabic words, manage to survive running back and forth through the cross fire for so long?... And, having done so, who's got time to give a shit one way or another if these fuckheads kill each other or not?...

    I'm busy keeping my eyes open, and watching my own ass.

    It's mid-June now, and the death count is up to 44, last I heard. That means the average is down to just over 2 murders a week.  All fads pass... I guess.


(p.s. At the end of 2002 the homicide total was in the neighborhood of 120... which means the city managed to keep it up at the rate of one every three days for the entire year. In 2003 it wasn't even news anymore. In 2004, as of mid-January, we're apparently on track to beat our record for '02...)