She looks up as the car passes. Her eyes lift higher, to three men drinking beer and arguing on a dingy apartment's balcony across the street. Somewhere close by, glass shatters and a car screeches off. Three girls are playing Barbies in some weeds on this 80-degree afternoon around the corner from Williams. A quick glance down other streets shows some men sharing a laugh as they work under a truck's primer-gray hood.
Friends mill about on sidewalks, in the streets.
But the other half of reality, residents say, are the drive-by shootings, drugs and bandits who steal hubcaps, strip cars and scribble graffiti wherever they choose. She raises one hand, a pack of Marlboros clamped tightly in her palm. That's why I'm out here now. Them dopeheads that roam the streets at night, there's no telling what they gonna do next. Sadly that's only a rumor.