Listening in the 'Hood

There is a thin brown boy who chirps and squeaks all afternoon on the porch across the street. He is deaf. He stands beside the large scary tattooed woman who screams off the porch and starts fights with everyone. Yesterday 16 people from the complex of red tenements came into the street yelling back at her. I heard sirens and two cruisers stopped under the porch. The police were good listeners, just like social workers but armed and in blue. A woman from the red buildings with shiny black hair, midriff showing, pointed and waved her arms. The policemen listened for a while and the tension finally dissipated.