Boundaries

There's an alley across the street from me, between a tall fence and the side of an old bar. 

It's a popular spot for people who want to get high, or as I saw a couple of days ago, people who want to conduct a little prostitution.

When I see people go into the alley or hear them talking, I go over and tell them they're on private property. The property piece I really don't care about so much as I care about defining the boundaries of what I will and won't put up with on my block.

The alley is a little offset from my front door, so I have to cross the street at an angle to get to it. This time, I rounded the corner to be confronted by a large white ass attached to a mid-thirties woman, with a tall guy standing behind it. 

"You have to go," I said. Normally I try to be calmer and just let people know they don't own the property and they leave. This time I was a little more incensed because, hey: you're right by my front door and there are families with kids here. 

They left immediately. 

The next day, I heard voices across the street. This time two ladies were sitting in front of the bar. 

That and the adjacent concrete pad are popular spots to have a seat and eat or drink. I took two pieces of caramel from a jar and walked over. One of the ladies was a familiar face. I don't remember her name, but she's a middle-aged black lady who's been on drugs for a long time. She calls my wife Nanny, and in return we refer to her as Nanny, which I admit owes more to the fact that she's hard to understand and we barely listen anyway. Nanny has a habit of wrapping a bandana around the calf of one leg.

As we were exchanging polite words and I was handing Nanny a piece of caramel, the woman with her pulled a meth pipe out of her backpack and began to light it.

"You have to go," I said. She dawdled, fiddling with her backpack, but when I reiterated my message, she left.

Today I saw a curly mullet-cut guy with a stocky build wearing shorts and high-top tennis shoes duck into the alley. By the time I got there, he had pissed in an old metal paint can people had been using as a seat, and on the ground all around it.

"You have to go," I said.