The Death of the Neighborhood Drug Dealer

I live in a small town. A unique, well-defined, little community in the shadow of a booming metropolis. First ring suburb, aging, middle class. Houses close together, all alike, one right after the other. You don’t even have to be paying attention, and sometimes, you can hear your neighbors discussing the death of the neighborhood drug dealer.
I’m sure every town, big or small, has its version of a drug problem. I watch the news each night and shake my head when I hear about the drive-by shootings that accompany the drug trade in the big city. And I’ve heard horror stories of 50% or more of a Nebraska small town’s population being hooked on meth. But there is something particularly uncomfortable about knowing your neighbor deals drugs across the street from where you live.
He lived in a dumpy mini-Tudor home, on the side of the street where the houses are pitched side-by-side up on a hill. The houses where you rarely see the neighbors leave for work in the morning because they exit via an alley in back.
His house looked shabby and sad, and hid behind the overgrown limbs of dying trees and shrubs that needed water and a good trim. The steep steps up to the front door were crumbling cement, and the railing looked as if it would come off the posts in your hand if you tried to use it for support. Thistles and other weeds grew out of the spotty bits of grass. It was the one house on the block that not one child visited on Halloween night.
If it hadn’t been for the non-stop traffic that stopped in front of the house for five-minute visits each day, we never would have suspected that our neighbor was selling drugs. You can’t have that many BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz owners driving into the neighborhood without something being up.
The clinching moment, and the first time we actually saw the man, was early one fall morning. As I made my way to the kitchen to pour my first cup of coffee for the day, I saw my husband, arms crossed, looking outside the large picture window in our living room, exposing his underwear-clad self to the entire neighborhood. An expression of mock outrage at his indecency barely passed my lips when he said, “I don’t think anyone is paying attention to me.”
I joined him at the window, more modest in my robe, and saw a surreal scene in the street in front of our house and the yard of the drug dealer. FBI, ATF, county sheriffs, city police, weapons drawn, ready to descend on the dealer’s house. The surrounding neighbors had been told to either stay inside or leave quickly via the alley. We watched as the officers moved carefully up the crumbling steps and surrounded the house. Within minutes, a small, fragile man came out, handcuffed between two officers, guns ready to shoot in case he bolted.
Which was not likely. As I looked at my neighbor, I couldn’t tell his age, but I could tell he hadn’t seen sunshine, fresh air, a decent meal or a shower for weeks. His skin looked dewey and gray, as if smoke from cigarettes and dope clung to it. He moved slowly and tentatively, and the officers on either side used their free hands to help the man as he walked. The entire crew climbed down the front steps and moved to one of the five police cars parked on the streets and drove off to find some wise judge to dispense some much needed justice.
And five days later, the luxury cars began arriving again. He was back in business.
A year or so later, neighbors from the problematic rental property on the block (the duplex run by the Tough Woman with the Yellow Hair) began bringing Corning Ware dishes filled with casseroles down to the drug dealer’s house. Rumor was, he had cancer and though he still did a little business on the side, things were pretty quiet. He was just waiting to die.
Two days before his eventual death, another ruckus took place outside of his house. A couple drove up in a navy Ford Taurus. The woman seemed to be on a mission. Her frayed cut-off jeans and jeweled turquoise tank top didn’t cover much of her very large body, and her exposed flab and bleach blond ponytail bounced up the crumbling steps with determination. The man apparently was along to provide some muscle, though how much was questionable since he couldn’t have been more than 150 pounds. His skinny arms sported a variety of faded tattoos and his wife beater shirt was partially tucked into a pair of filthy jeans that were falling off his waist.
Five minutes after arriving, the couple came out, slamming the front door. The woman, visibly filled with rage, yelled at the top of her lungs to no one in particular but of interest to those of us watching, “If you people feel sorry for this old shit because he’s dying of cancer, don’t! He’s a liar and a thief and a drug dealer.” And they got in their car and sped off.
The house stood empty for a number of months after the man finally died. Doug, the realtor who lives next door to us, bought the house and worked for almost a year to fix it up. He cut back the overgrown trees and shrubs and let the sun shine on the house for the first time in years. Inside, he cleaned every inch of the place and removed years of smoke and sickness and decay. He painted the walls and upgraded the kitchen and refinished the beautiful hardwood floors. And then he rented it to a darling young couple with a two-year-old little girl and another baby on the way.
I live in a small town.

The New Football Coach

I live in a small town. A unique, well-defined, little community in the shadow of a booming metropolis. First ring suburb, aging, middle class. Houses close together, all alike, one right after the other. You don’t even have to be paying attention, and sometimes, you can hear your neighbors discussing the new high school football coach.
Our town’s high school has never been known for its athletic prowess. Every so often, we’ll surprise the conference and play competitive games and maybe even win a district championship or two. In the 60’s, a few state championships were even secured. But we were never a serious, consistent contender. Never a dynasty in any sport. Every student knew it, every resident knew it, the entire state knew it. But it didn’t really matter. We always had academic excellence on our side.
But as mediocre as we are when it comes to sports, it was still hard to swallow five straight years of losing by our football team. Five straight years of winless football. We were a joke, the sure victory for any opponent, no matter how bad they were. Academic excellence aside, it was a wound into which salt was rubbed Friday night after Friday night each fall for five straight years.
My son was a football player in this dismal program, and suffered the embarrassment and indignity of never winning a game in the first three years of his high school career. He was chosen to serve as co-captain of the team in his senior year and that same year, the new superintendent of schools, recently hired away from the big city school district, lured the big city football coach, of the state championship winning team, to run our football program.
The fact that this new coach, and most of his staff, were African American, only added to the discussion worthy nature of this small town happening. These unsuspecting, championship winning, big city coaches were coming to run a program that historically had attracted mostly white students and repelled many of the good athletes. Most black athletes didn’t participate, and when they did, it didn’t produce the desired results, either for the individual players or for the team as a whole. Like the school itself, the potential of the diverse population hadn’t yet been realized.
When practice started in August, the new coach’s hard work to recruit any player who had talent appeared to have paid off. For the first time in years, the bench was overflowing and the faces of the team reflected the school’s diversity that had evolved over the last 20 years. Day by two-a-day, the team began to have hope that maybe this would be the year they would finally win a game. As the weeks of preparation went on and the players worked harder and had more expected of them than ever before, they couldn’t help but imagine a “worst to first” scenario that would create a stir, surely across the conference, and maybe even across the state. We parents, ever the realists, tried to manage expectations from the grandstands, but secretly hoped that the players’ dreams could come true. And we subconsciously hoped that the experience of this newly integrated football team and their potential for success would translate into the easing of the unresolved race issues that continually brewed at the high school.
When the team lost their first game of the season, it was heartbreaking for the players, the coaches, the school and the entire community. And when they lost their second game, disappointment threatened to turn back into the apathy that defined five years of football in our town. When the third game started, against a team much like ours, the stands were half full and hope was all but dead. Once again, we felt like a joke, the perpetual losers.
Which is why, when my son, a linebacker, intercepted a pass in the second quarter, it caught us all by surprise. When that interception turned into a touchdown, we were stunned. And when that touchdown looked as if it would actually turn into a winning game, we were all beside ourselves. By the end of the game, the stands were full as kids and parents called their friends on their cell phones, telling them to get down to the field to watch the team win. Towards the end of the game, the fences surrounding the field threatened to break down as students waited to rush the field once the clock ran out, victory finally in hand.
And when the game did end and the cheers finally died down, the most amazing thing happened. The entire student body, it seemed, was on that field, surrounding the team, and the coach as he did his post-game wrap up with his players. The silence was more deafening than the recent cheers of the crowd. There wasn’t a sound other than the soft voice of a man who had worked a miracle.
The team won a few more games that season, five in all, and lost some games, too. Certainly not a “worst to first” scenario, still not a serious threat to anyone. But it felt good to win for a change. And as far as improving race relations, let’s just say tensions eased a bit. All of the kids had something to share – the pride of having a winning team, and the realization that there was a place for everyone on the team.
Throughout the fall and winter following that memorable football season, the local cable access channel played that first winning game over and over again, and we would watch it every time it came on. My favorite part during every repeat was when my son intercepted that game-turning pass. The look on his face, the eyes wide open in surprise, the smile of excitement, the slight flash of fear, captured all the joy of accomplishment and the anticipation for what was coming next.
I live in a small town.

Mr. Anderson and the Tough Woman with the Yellow Hair

I live in a small town. A unique, well-defined, little community in the shadow of a booming metropolis. First ring suburb, aging, middle class. Houses close together, all alike, one right after the other. You don’t even have to be paying attention, and sometimes, you can hear your neighbors arguing.
Some people might think this is a big, bad city. 45,000 disparate souls, packed onto tiny parcels of real estate, moving in and out of neighborhoods without ever knowing the names of the people who live near them. Children attending schools that have become ominous with locked doors, issues relating to race relations and a blind eye to the drugs and weapons that proliferate in the deteriorating halls. Colors and cultures of people who don’t look or act like the neighbors we used to know.
But to me, it’s just a small town, the one I didn’t choose to live in when I was born, but the one I have chosen to live in as an adult. My children attend the same schools I attended, love and hate the same teachers I loved and hated. They buy candy and comic books at the stores where I bought candy and comic books. Play at the same parks, swing on the same swing sets, bike on the same bike trails.
I know my neighbors, perhaps not as well as my mother knew hers, but I know them well by today’s standards. I know their names, their professions and enough to know whether they are here to stay or just marking time until the next real estate surge gives them an economic reason to move up and out. Doug to the left (real estate sales – he’ll be gone in five years), Ann and John to the right (software development and marketing – they’ll stay through the birth of their second child), Mr. Anderson across the street (retired – he’s a lifer on the block).
And then, there is “the house”, the rental property, the duplex, the property with dirt for a front yard, a trio of women whose professions are dubious, a pack of children (number uncertain), ages ranging from 3 to 12, colors ranging from white to tan to brown to black, and cars and people and police officers coming and going at all hours of the day and night.
The head of this household is a tough woman with yellow hair, orange, pot marked skin and a foul mouth. Her relationship with Mr. Anderson, her next-door neighbor, is tenuous at best. He spends most of his time from March through October each year keeping watch over the neighborhood, and his yard in particular, from an old, aluminum, folding chair he keeps perched on his front step. And she spends most of her time offending the majority of neighbors by her very essence – her brashness, her out-of-control household management style and the fact that she doesn’t care that her life and its lack of conformity by normal middle class standards shocks us and affects our property values.
One particular Saturday afternoon a few summers ago, they had an intense verbal altercation when one of her five motley dogs pooped, for the umpteenth time, on his perfectly manicured front lawn. For once, Mr. Anderson gathered his courage and told this tough woman with the yellow hair that he didn’t like it, not one bit, and would she please get control of her dogs, her children, her household and just everything that puts a blight on our neighborhood.
She responded as you might expect, with a slew of profanity that called into question Mr. Anderson’s character, his manhood, his age, his intelligence. And all of us who happened to be working or relaxing in our own yards that afternoon and heard the entire exchange, stood, holding our collective breath, waiting to hear and see what would happen next. When the tough woman with the yellow hair screamed at the top of her lungs, “Deal with it, you f***ing old man, you’re not getting rid of us! We’re here to stay!!”, the argument ended. She turned her back on Mr. Anderson and marched into her rundown house, and Mr. Anderson stood speechless and helpless in his driveway.
Almost 3 years have passed since that unsettling bit of human drama took place just across the street from my house. Mr. Anderson still has the greenest lawn on the block and plants dozens of bright red impatiens plants on either side of his front walk each spring. And he still keeps watch from that folding chair on his front steps. The woman with the yellow hair still lives across the street, next door to Mr. Anderson. Her children come around when they are selling candy for school fundraisers. They help us look for our dogs when they get loose. They wave as they ride their bikes up and down our street. Some of the little ones even sit with Mr. Anderson on his front step on warm summer evenings. And the garden that the woman with the yellow hair planted last summer is beginning to bloom and looks almost pretty sitting in the middle of the patch of dirt that passes for a front yard.
I live in a small town.

For most of the almost 53 years of my life, I have lived in the same suburban community whose borders long ago began to blur with the booming metropolis that is its neighbor.
I tell people I live in a small town even though it doesn’t reflect the stereotypical image of that virtuous American icon. 45,000 disparate souls are packed onto the tiny parcels of real estate that offer up a modest version of the American Dream. We don’t have a quaint Main Street with precious little shops and a diner. Serious crime still surprises us, but isn’t a rare occurrence. You may feel uneasy and may even be in real danger when you walk our streets after dark. Our schools are gray and deteriorating, our young people pierced, tattooed and intimidating. Guns and drugs are prevalent. Race relations are strained by those in authority who haven’t quite figured out how to adjust to the increasing diversity that now defines our community.
But despite the description to the contrary, I still maintain that I live in a small town. My definition has less to do with geography and Norman Rockwell and more to do with people and how they interact with one another. Like people in any small town, we know who has the power in the community and can love them or hate them, support or oppose them, trust or be skeptical of them at any given time. We gather in key places where news is shared, ideas are exchanged and stories are told. We adjust cautiously for newcomers and interlopers. We worry about and react to change. And we celebrate with one another, argue with one another, gossip about each other, judge one another and care about one another.
I believe we all live in small towns. Some are just bigger and have more sophisticated ways of activating the town drum. Some offer more exciting and diverse entertainment options than others. Some keep their police departments busier than others. Excitement, danger, activity and sophistication are all relative. What really matters is how we judge our neighbors when they come in at 2:00 a.m. on a weeknight.
Everything we read and see and hear today is working hard to convince us that our world is spinning out of control, that people care less and hurt more, that hope for our future is gone. And believing this, we long for that small town place and time when life was simpler and safer and people were more civil. I, for one, believe that the small town place and time we long for was probably just a sanitized version of reality even back then.
I choose to embrace my community as the small town of my life, not all that different from the small town of my parents’ and grandparents’ experience. All small towns are comprised of people living with and around each other, creating a shared community environment that supports them cooperatively, judges them arbitrarily and celebrates them collectively. How they do that and how they relate to one another is what makes life interesting and meaningful. It also provides the basis of stories from a small town – any small town.
So much happened on the world stage at the end of the last millennium. Power shifts, massive brutality, economic boom and bust, war, famine, medical breakthroughs and political scandal. The biggest news in my town? We got our own movie theatre and another McDonald’s.
I live in a small town.