Roadside Flare

Private lives go public in homelessness. Belongings are left in the open folded neatly and tucked by Ghetto Park’s bowing chain link fence. Two memorials for sleep teach anyone how to make their bed. The slumber party is over. Meanings of things change living on limited means. Newly minted living quarters do not shelter you from everything. No matter where you stay there will be power washing. Numbered lives have order like the ticket taken at the deli counter. There’s a ticket for everything.

A rose and a sunflower freshly cut and held in the glass vase. A celebration of life even as it’s quickly taken away underneath the break dance branches. A single mother drove her teenaged son and a collection of his homies inside a white Chevrolet Tahoe to ‘Ghetto Park’. A fistfight with a rival gang should have evened up the confrontational score. Revenge sparked from dark motives blinds the eyes like roadside flares. The rumble just outside the skate plaza resulted in more consequences than expected.

Along the curbside, the life-threatening emergency increased in severity as the teens piled out of the Tahoe. Parental advisory disguised under an explicit script; each a viable participant. Latino youngsters barely old enough to acquire a driver’s permit chased down their rivals. They tossed and tumbled for self-preservation. Fight overtook flight. Factions become more important than fractions. Heriberto pulled out a single, factory-sharpened knife. A waring spirit plunged the knife’s razor tip quickly, nine times in rapid succession into Jose Cano’s flesh. One stab wound pierced his beating heart. The war in front of North Solano Court avenged a previous knife assault. Private lives go public in homicides. While there is time to make your bed let the sheets billow above the pillows. Be useful before you’re laid to rest: dead to sin and alive in Christ.