| | Our house is kind of in limbo land. We live on the edge of Florence and North Omaha. Florence is a little historic town that, I guess is part of Omaha but still has its own unique character of a blue-collar mostly white Midwest neighborhood (those of you who know more about Florence can correct my assumptions). North O' however, is an urban, mostly African American, economically depressed part of Omaha where its not uncommon to see houses that are boarded up, bars are on windows, police helicopters hovering frequently looking for who-knows-who and sometimes, people on our street have been suspected of dealing drugs.
Nevertheless, our neighborhood is usually peaceful apart from the booming bass playing from souped up classic Mercury sedans.
The peace was broken late last night. I woke up hearing someone yelling, "hold it right there!" followed by more yelling and a woman's voice screaming expletives. Looking out our bedroom window out over the backyard, I could see a flashlight's beam moving around the backyard of a house two or three houses down from ours. But the yelling soon stopped so I went back to sleep.
This morning while i was working in my garden, I heard three people fighting in that same backyard. So I did the natural thing--I paused "This American Life" on my MP3 player and tuned into an unedited version of "This North O' Life". And it payed off. I found out what took place last night.
Apparently, the woman I heard screaming last night was the owner of the house and her tenant--the one who yelled, "Hold it right there"--owed her rent money. So she and her boyfriend had come over last night to steal his car. What they didn't plan on was that the tenant would hear them and come out with a flashlight and a gun. Fortunately for them, he recognized them and didn't actually shoot.
The rest of the story was just as interesting. The tenant said he didn't have the money because he owed money to someone else. The landlady took her screaming and sheer number of expletives up a notch (apparently you can use the 'f' word for more verbs and nouns than I had previously thought possible) and unfolded a story that i pieced together for you (edited for grammatical clarity and G rating):
"What do you mean you owe money to someone else? You owe money to me fool!... And they (who 'they' are is not crystal clear to me but 'they' don't seem to be nice people) are going to come after me cause I couldn't sell the stuff. I have to have the money you owe me or else they are gonna' wan tot kill me. If they come after me, I'm gonna'' send them after you cause you have the money I owe them."
Again, 'they/them' must not be nice people and I do not think that the 'stuff' was old lawn furniture and used clothes on Craig's List because the tenant seemed to change his own story and decided to try to come up with the money he owed by the end of the day.
That was about it. After that, they talked in, what I label with my own children, 'inside-voices'.
Now, I tell this story with some sarcastic humor. But that does not mean that I am poking fun at these people and the little drama that unfolded in my neighborhood last night. The reality is, there are people who live around us that have tragic situations going on in their lives every day. Teenage kids whose step-dad verbally abuse them, single moms who have a different guy living with them every month. And at the same time, we have people who really try to care for each other and help their neighbors or give a kind word to the kids. Its not a neat little package that makes sense. Its a paradox. Welcome to a little slice of our lives in Omaha.
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| | Posted 6/3/2009 10:58 AM - 31 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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