Shots Fired
Summer in the city.
Working from home has given me unsolicited access to the goings-on of my neighbors & their associates. With little effort I have come to a great deal of understanding about this Point Breeze street without concerning myself with particulars. I have to believe my perch in the middle of the block is better suited to intel than up around the corner, where Philly police have maintained a passive post for the year I've been living here.
If the position of the Ford Police Interceptor was meant as a deterrent, it's not working. That shooting involving a toddler last month? It was on the next block. The follow-up two nights later? It took place in the spot the cop van usually takes.
To hear these shots at close range was unsettling. It seemed my body recognized gunfire before my brain registered it. Still, I noticed I was mostly numb.
My block is never quiet, and that's usually okay. It is home to a Point Breeze peculiarity: the sidewalk tent. This year-round structure, unflappable against the winds of climate change, is shelter to a variety of hood archetypes. Tent guests include a half-dozen young bouls, an old head pit bull breeder, and several of the grandmothers, aunties & young moms on the block.
The queen bee is both the loud, obnoxious, entitled bully of the neighborhood and the loud, obnoxious, entitled watchdog of the neighborhood. Queen is in charge of our summer streets program, wherein she puts up cones to block the street so kids can play safely from 10am to 4pm. She's got a heart but she's mostly unpleasant.
The first night, Saturday, June 18, the shooting started with a low boom I felt before I heard. Immediately, in such rapid succession I couldn't count, came more shots than I've ever heard at once. I reflexively opened the front door, only to lock eyes with Queen, like a statue. She slowly shook her head & looked down. I looked up the street – no one. Down the street – no one. I came inside, packed a bowl & went upstairs to my bay window surveillance post.
It wasn't long before neighbors gathered at the tent, exchanging information. I heard about the grandmother and her kid, and someone with a nickname I'd heard, and how these kids weren't from around here. “These kids is DIFFERENT,” Queen hollered.
I watched the young buck who just got out of jail, whose older brother just went to jail, fast-walk back to his mother's house where I hoped he would stay put. I was pretty sure he wasn't involved based on what I heard at the tent.
One thing that may be true in any neighborhood in any city is shit is DIFFERENT block to block. My block is literally known as a “cat block,” which means, yes, a lot of stray cats, but it's kind of a metaphor for its multi-generational aspect. There are many elderly, lots of adults & young parents staying with their grandmas, and a good many young kids here, at risk of becoming teenage alley cats. There are the summer street closures. There's some type of street code that I'm not privy to, that would appear to protect our block. At least we hope.
Because grandmothers and a toddler were shot that night, one block over.
Two nights later, shots rang out again from the opposite end of the block. It sounded cartoon-ish, like popcorn popping. I peered out my front door window & there stood Queen, again motionless, with her hands on her hips. It was eerily quiet.
About 15 minutes later came the sirens. Then, an aggressive knock at my door. "Your car grey, right?" Queen barked. Yes, it is. "It got shot!"
The cops were already gone when I got to my car armed with trash bags & tape. A young mom on the block owned the car behind mine, which also had shattered back glass. She came out when she saw me taping up my windows. She had seen the shooters; they were on bikes and she guessed they were 12 or 13 years old.
The cops had yelled, “Call your insurance company!” over their shoulders to her as they responded to another shooting a few blocks away. It seemed they weren't going to be searching our vehicles for bullet fragments.
The glass installer couldn't have been more sympathetic when he explained that he couldn't do his job replacing my windows. The bullets had decimated both window frames. He re-sealed the holes expertly with taut plastic I could see through so I used the car for a day, running all the errands I could think of to the tune of tumbling glass shards.
I live in that part of South Philly that's 40 percent body shops. The one directly behind my house, under the trestle, has stellar online reviews so I brought it over. They guessed I'd need a new door. They were right; the bill is almost $3,000.
But, I wasn't in the car. I have the means to pay my deductible. I live in a city and can walk everywhere, which I have done for the past month. The car is leased so I'm stuck with it for a while but it's a luxury I'm strongly reconsidering. That’s the worst of it for me.
The young mom still has plastic for a windshield. I haven't seen the police in their usual spot since the shootings. There have been no arrests. Yesterday, a single shot rang out. We all came to our doors, looked at each other and went back inside.