Graffiti, the shorthand of chaos, covers everything in G. Drive by at 25 m.p.h., and the tagging looks like one, long, 10-block word. Pusher pit bulls mess the sidewalks and strain at their leashes, taught by their owners in quiet moments how to find bone in a man's arm, the cops say. Two black ostriches stand in their own waste, dumb-eyed and trapped, behind a Cyclone fence down an alley where, police say, a drug dealer lives. They crowd into a tiny rectangle around one-tenth of a square mile. So many people look hollow-eyed and starved, hungry and lean.
Gunshots are a constant counterpoint to the salsa music that spices the air at night.
Dead factories, their boarded-up windows looking like eyes battered shut in a street brawl, remind people of the work that used to be. The walls are decorated in spray paint by the patrons, who never consult with the owners about motif. The proprietors cook with their heads down behind bulletproof glass, while famished dealers troop in and out of the places all night long. The kingpins of the North Philadelphia drug trade are nourished by stir-fried bok choy, broccoli and beef. You can always tell when business is going well out here - the air is redolent with egg foo young.