I have lived in Detroit for what seems like ages. Definitely longer than I have lived anywhere else, save for my childhood home, though we are nearing the end of that window. Fifteen years and you think I would have acquired some street smarts. In my mind’s eye, I am a streetwise vigilante, patrolling a two mile radius with an invisible machete and twenty years of built up lady rage (just 20?). In actuality I am a disappointment to smart people everywhere. Tormented by a combination of a desire to make uncomfortable situations go away in a matter of seconds and latent childhood pressure which can be attributed to the parable of The Good Samaritan. Curiously this pressure doesn’t manifest itself when dealing with your basic street folk looking for bus fare to Pontiac, or the occasional spare change. No, I always have a prepared witty comment, or a polite “Sorry, no” for them. But when someone comes knocking on my door, the back door to our fenced in back yard, well then that just throws me off a bit. It’s like a pulled knife on a New York street, or the dreaded “La Gloria mugging of 2003″, one of those moments where all this political correctness and wanting to believe the best in human nature co-opts what your animal instincts tell you. For one, I don’t like people knocking on my back door, it simply isn’t done. Despite having a communal backyard shared by the four units in the complex, we generally don’t creep up on each other. A phone call it placed before there is a rap on the back door, this should be an adopted rule for anything back door related. Take note. So, it’s dark, it’s around 9:30pm on a Friday night and I am trying to understand exactly what is likeable about any of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” as well as deal with the concept that because of the entertainment industry, I no longer understand what a normal aging face looks like, and there is a knock on my back door. Those of you who appreciate my vampiric nature understand that once in my lair, I do not wish to be disturbed. Knocks on the front door seldom get answered and I lead a life of blinds drawn. Enemies are the other, the unknowns. Surely this means that one of my good neighbors is there to tell me I have yet again left my garage door open. It is not however one of these good neighbors, instead, a new neighbor, who I have never met. It seems she is in a bind, and there is a long, drawn out story of a sister, and car trouble and not having any gas, and unemployment not posting until midnight, and being embarrassed but having no where else to turn, and her boyfriend, the actual new owner of the home not being around. So what do you do? There is the curse of not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with a new neighbor juxtaposed by an animal instinct that this is complete and utter bullshit and wanting to get this person the fuck out of your house on a Friday night at 9:30. I will admit, panic set in, but not the fear kind, no, the kind that when you are on a bad date and you just want to get out. You will do anything to make it go away. In this situation, I, idiot handed over the requested dough to make this situation go away, and yes, I have been kicking myself mentally in the stomach ever since as I am not currently in a life position to be handing out money of any kind. That is grocery money people, but here, go help this mythical sister. Immediately, I am on edge. Now the mind wheels start turning and don’t stop until until I am murdered in my home for $20 and a bowl of Sugar Smacks.
So, today I examine the fine line between stupidity and being neighborly which I have so sadly and much to my chagrin, fell that I have crossed. Perhaps this neighbor is on the up and up, there is about a 3% chance that this is the case. Our constant hope in the goodness of human nature tends to get darkened this time of year, what with all the Black Friday antics involving security beat downs and pepper spraying consumers. I have lived in this area for many years and this is the very first time a ‘neighbor’ has asked me for money. No cup of sugar, no rogue ingredient for a Holiday Goose, just a straight cut to the chase supposed middle class version of the bus ride to Pontiac story so many of us have heard time after time. Is it possible to live in a modern world and harbor any sort of trust for goodness in others. I will get the money back, of this I have not doubt for I am planning on an adult version of the somewhat tenacious paper boy in “Better Off Dead”. The question remains, why is it that I feel shitty about helping someone who appears to have a fallen on difficult times? Yet don’t feel compelled in the slightest to hand a bum a bit of spare change. Does the borrower feel shitty about dropping her drama at her neighbor’s door? Have sensationalized news stories affected the way we interact with strangers? In this time of occupation, civil unrest and rampant capitalism, have traditional, societal moral codes been done away with completely? Have we de-evolved into a societal equivalent of a back alley dog fight?
The neighbor just paid me back by the way. But the distrust lingers, like the name of some C list actor in a movie that you have to look up on IMDB.
