Let me spell it for you: G H E T T O

I'd noticed it lately, but this last weekend it became way too evident to try to pretend that it is otherwise. And I can even afirm that it's now official across the Carolinas, Continental United States and the world!

I live in a Ghetto.

Yes, my apartment complex that used to look and feel and smell like a nice place for people to live in peace and quite (minus a foreigner cranking up his stereo once in a while), has turned into a cross between a ghetto and a slump. And by Ghetto I don't mean the very elegant definition that refers to an area where people from a specific ethnic background, or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. Hell no, I only wish!

Ghetto as place where there's tires burning on the evening and kids with tattoos all over their chest, back and arms rule the parking lots; a place where once the sun starts to set you are not threat with a knife for your wallet, but they actually get a kidney out of you right there; walls are covered with graffiti, police is afraid to enter unless they are just following those overcaffeinated SAWT team killers; a place where girls who should be either in college or high school wear lingerie and wait for you in the corner promising to show you what heaven is all about; a place where meth labs are regularly busted and people end up leaving in handcuffs never to be seen again; and a place where there's shootings.
Yeah, people shooting at other people.

My landlord (L) called me over the weekend and the conversation went pretty much like this:
Me: Hellop?
L: Are you fucking out of your mind dude?
Me: What you talking about?
L: I told you not to shoot people man!
Me: WTF?
L: You should leave the country. Police know it was you
Me: Are you smocking crack?
L: Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.
Me: You should not smoke crack besides ____ (his three month old son's name). I've heard that shit is bad for a baby.
L: Don't you know about the shooting?
Me: Listen motherfucker, I'm busy. Go bother someone else.
L: There was a fucking shooting at the apartment complex!


And at the apartment complex, a shooting took place indeed. Rumor has it that two rednecks were drinking beer one afternoon and a brawl erupted over who was gona drink the last Budweiser in the 36-can pack. The argument was followed by mean looks, strong words and punches thrown in each direction. One of them decided to take it to the next level and rushed to his pick up truck to get his riffle (the same weapon he used during one deer hunting season to kill Bambi's mom). The other redneck sprinted to his Camaro and extracted a 9mm from the glove compartment.

No none knows who shoot first and who shoot last, but the truth of the matter is that they both shoot as straight as Mr & Mrs. Smith did while trying -and failing- to kill each other in their own living room. Once they run out of ammo, it still remains a mystery up to this day where all those bullets landed. Both cars weren't hit, even though each one was ducking behind his own, and neither the two story town houses in the back showed any perforations. Talk about shooting straight and those two motherfuckers.

Another neighbor who heard the gunshots, got his own pistol from under a pillow and sweared to God to put a piece of plumb between the eyes of whoever walked through the front door of his apartment. And again, following the best style of Mr&Mrs. Smith, he missed his wife who happened to come back home from the grocery store. The local rag reported that she took away his pistol, together with his privileges -no further comments on the subject matter were available.

I told my landlord that I want to renegotiate my rent, because this stuff ain't what he promised me. He mention something about the fine print, but I refreshed his memory saying that there's no contract between us other than a handshake; and a tennis game as a way to settle any dispute that may arise in our condo-wise relationship.

So we're heading to the tennis court this weekend. Hopefully a brawl wouldn't erupt between us so that we won't end up on the front page of our local rag under "The Ghetto Heats Up"!