Rerun #3

Crack Business Rule #1: The Customer Is ALWAYS Right!

100 days without a gunshot or knife wound!!!!!

This morning there has been a steady stream of crackheads outside of my flat, screaming, pissing and making a general nuisance of themselves. If anyone is actually out there reading this (and I suspect that no one is, so this is probably pointless to say) I would like to set the record straight and say that, when I use the term "crackhead", I am not making a broad or general statement about a certain group of people. In fact, the term crackhead is being used in the most specific sense of the word. There really is a crackhouse across the street. They really do sell crack. There really are crackheads milling around my neighborhood at all hours of the day and night.

Now, I don't buy or do crack, but I'm a pretty smart gal and I've figured out the way the business works. When crack is for sale and the crackhouse is open for business, there is a light on in the front window. It only took me a couple of days to figure that out. But their customers are not so smart.

This is the way that things should operate at the crackhouse:

Customer drives up to house in rusted out shitmobile, the sweet lament of Miles Davis' horn wailing softly from the interior. Seeing that the light indicating "open for business" is blazing in the crackhouse's window, customer softly taps the cars horn ONCE, to alert the dealer of a potential sale. Dealer promptly comes out and the two people conduct their business in hushed undertones, shielding their illegal activity from the neighborhood around them. Transaction complete, the dealer and customer do some complicated handshake that is only understood in the world of hoodlums and boybands, and quietly go their separate ways.

Alas, this is how it usually happens:

Customer drives up to house in rusted out shitmobile, pumping undecipherable rap music that suspiciously sounds like the inside of my head after a three day bender (I guess). Customer sees light on in window and proceeds to lie on horn for ten minutes while shouting from the car window, "HEY! HEY! YOU HOME?" Finally, dealer comes out of house and yells at customer. Customer yells back. I don't know what they are saying, or whether or not they are, in fact, angry, but this is usually when I head to the bathroom to lay down in the bathtub, safe from any unexpected exchange of bullets that might take place. More yelling ensues that I now can definitely not understand, as I am curled up in the fetal position in the bathtub. After about 15 minutes the yelling dies down and I am free to return to my living room and resume work.

There are the occasional deviations to this scenario, such as when the light is not on but the customer thinks that the crackhouse dealer just forgot to turn it on. This is usually followed by an escalating round of racial slurs shouted up at the broken windows on the second floor. If the crackhouse is occupied, which I suspect that it usually has a few cracked out ho's lying around at any given time, then they can surely hear the rantings of the lunatic needing a fix. Their entire top floor has only boards across the windows, so sound probably travels easily through the openings. In spite of lunatic rantings, no one comes out to deliver said "package", further inflaming the perilous crackhead. In one final fit of rage, the crackehead unfastens the button on his pants, pulls down zipper and takes a whiz on the crackhouse's trashcans, forever teaching them the first lesson of running your own business: The customer is always right!

Note: In the time that I spent writing this post, the crackhouse made 5 transactions. I'm thinking that today might be the day when my illustrious streak of 100 simultaneous days without a gunshot or knife wound comes to a precarious end. Let's hope not, because I don't have medical insurance. And I'm working on a deadline. And I haven't been paid in weeks. And I suspect gunshot wounds are costly...

Comments

[Haus Frau]

This is hysterical. I also live in a 'hood with many transactions made by stoopids who use um, colorful language. While watching "The Wire" at the same time, it's very surreal. It's also quite surreal while watching "Masterpiece Theatre." Good luck dodging the gunshots!