The day before moving in to our new apartment, Mike and I took a walk through the apartment and the area. When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to have a diverse group of friends. I attended a school not far from the neighbourhood we were moving into. I had friends of just about every ethnic background. Despite this, I am aware of the prejudice I carry. I am not exempt from stereotyping. After all, I believe stereotypes exist for a reason.
I mention this because, during our walk through the area, I realized that, while the complex was predominantly black, we would have a family of Asian bloods living above us. This made me very nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I vaguely recall saying, “Oh good. Black folks” to Mike that day. I knew what to expect from black gang members. I had a game plan for them already…throw a BBQ (my BBQ skills rival that of the best soul food joint in town), and essentially, offer them a deal. They offer me the protection of gang “affiliation”, i.e. they will make sure their friends do not rob or jump me, and in return, I will offer them the protection that only an upstanding, educated white girl like myself can: I will talk to the police for them when requested. This will suggest to them that I’m not a snitch, so my car won’t get vandalized every time someone calls the cops.
The Asians, on the other hand, were going to be a whole other story, or so I thought.
Move in day, August 27th, 2003. Luckily, the apartment was located only a couple miles from the house in W. Seattle, so we wouldn’t rack up a lot of U-haul mileage. I finished up some cleaning back at the house while Mike drove the truck to the apartment to unload. When I met him at the apartment, I was surprised to see neighbours actually helping out. I thought to myself “This won’t be that bad after all, I suppose”. I climbed out of my car and walked over to the truck, hoping to introduce myself to this helpful neighbour. To my amazement, I found that he was one of the Bloods from upstairs. The $100 bill tattooed on his right forearm was unmistakable – he was a 26th St. OBZ (Oriental Boyz), which we eventually learned was a clique more money-oriented than violence. Thank god.
Over the next month, we got to know our upstairs neighbours quite well. We really had no choice in the matter. The black folk that I had so hoped to be friendly with wanted nothing to do with us as a result of our obvious interaction with the Asians. Crazy, isn’t it? People actually live like this! Rival gangs and all that bullshit! Unbelievable. Our upstairs neighbours (My, Maria, Peter and Joseph) turned out to be great people! They were Vietnamese. Grandma cooked fabulous lumpia, which we got plenty of. Yes, they were bribing us. The neighbours had essentially enacted my plan for the black folk with us instead. “Why” became painfully clear.
My was an immigrant from Vietnam and the father of three children. He was an accomplished drug dealer with very broken English and a fabulous sense of humour. He had a knack for working on cars, especially when it came to stereo equipment. From the day I moved in, I would never have to go to Car Toys again for as long as My was around. He had a friendly but reserved wife named Maria. We didn’t see her often, as she worked long hours in a shop downtown (can we say sweatshop? I’m thinking so). When we did see her, however, she always had a bright smile on her face.
Their two sons were interesting fellows. Both gang affiliated, Joseph was 14 when we met him while Peter was 17. Joseph was always decked out in red clothing with the price tags still hanging on. He was, by far, the best dressed 14 yr old I had ever met from a money-spent point of view. Peter had a similar wardrobe and drove a Lexus sedan. It was surprisingly low-key; the only modification was a set of chrome rims. No spinners, no crazy lights, no hydraulics…Smart kid. Nice boys, really, despite their business. Always polite, respectful and helpful, it was easy to forget that each of them had their own sprawling customer base.
My beloved neighbours sold everything just short of babies. I do mean everything. Bikes, cars, car stereo equipment, CDs, DVDs, guns, jewelry; anything you might find in a pawn shop, really. The real money maker, however, was the drugs, from A to Z. If they didn’t have what you were looking for, they could find it in a matter of hours, often, even less than that. And they were always busy. Lord, were they busy. It was not uncommon to come home to a line of people all the way down the stairs. Cars parked everywhere, from spectacular-looking Lexus sports cars down to Pintos with rust-coloured exteriors and hub caps that didn’t match.
Many of these customers paid us no mind, and we offered them the same nonchalance in return. A few were mischievous; trouble makers, certainly, but no threat to our safety. Like rats, they would scurry around and pose an annoyance, occasionally destroying property or spreading trash, but I knew that if I jumped at them, they would scatter. After some time, it became obvious that the focus upstairs had shifted to ‘whites’, and the folks began to sample their own product. Misery loves company, so a couple of these trouble makers became part of the scenery.
One such character was a young man named Dylan, a decent looking young man with a vicious coke addiction. There was a certain feral aspect about him that attracted my younger sister immediately. I found myself to be intrigued by the unpredictable nature of his behaviour, so while I kept a close eye, I kind of encouraged my sister’s attempts to befriend him. The boy acted kind of like a beaten but hungry dog. You’ve undoubtedly run into one – scraggily and maybe a bit unkempt, this dog strikes you as a prize winner if he were to be cleaned up and cared for. The dog is wary and approaches you grudgingly out of sheer desperation, but jumps when you hold a hand out and will break into a sprint if you so much as take a step toward him. This was the nature of my sister’s relationship with him. He would make himself casually available, hanging around the apartment more often, engaging me in small talk now and again, but as soon as my sister would take a step toward him, he would disappear, only to find himself back at the apartment in a few days.
Another character, a gentleman that I still see regularly, is Dominic. My apartment faces an alley, and he shares a house with his sister directly across the alley. Dominic is quite possibly the most tortured individual I’ve ever met. A severe drug addict, he had all but moved in upstairs for awhile. He is friendly and surprisingly well read, although I was not aware of this until a couple weeks worth of visits from him. He speaks in a hurried manner, jumping from topic to topic so quickly it is easy to get lost. Combine this with his borderline delusional reality and his southern slang, and you can understand how conversations with him are definitely an acquired skill. He is by far the most generous drug addict I’ve ever met, offering us burned custom CDs in return for our friendship and company (and a few other things). He can be a bit of a burden on me and cause culture shock to my friends, but I doubt I’ll ever put him out permanently.
All in all, a number of desperate individuals have crossed our porch, many stopping by to talk to us on their way. 13 year old crack dealers, 30 year old gangsters, fathers and mothers looking for their children, children looking for their next thrill, businessmen and hookers alike – I saw all of them at their most pathetic state. Are drugs the great equalizer? No. After all, some people can afford to buy more than others; some don’t get hooked as hard; some do despicable things to get them. Either way, it certainly does a great deal to remind me that we are all human, all fallible.