Neighborhood Antics

Panfilo heard the gunshots and ran towards the parking lot. The steady pop of the discharged hand gun sounded like someone trying to unload the whole clip as fast as their finger could move.

“I told you we shouldn't come to this ratchet ass club.” Panfilo scolded his high school buddy Patrick. They had both met at the dingy and underfunded school within the city center. Now the area was a target of gentrification, but their were still some businesses along a stretch of highway going into downtown that catered to the lower-income neighborhood holdouts. Earlier that evening, the pair had decided to hit up some of their old haunts after each came home to visit after their respective college graduations. Club DMX was the most hood place they could think of ending their night.

Patrick looked side to side as he ran next to his homeboy. Club goers ducked behind the row of cars parked on either side of the street. The parking lot they chose to station the car was across the street from a gentleman's club and was the most well lit space for a few blocks.

The sound of ricocheting bullets halted their advance, and they looked at each other hoping the other would suggest what to do next. Patrick began to remind them that hanging out in these spots never led to any good. “You know when the special is a long island and a shot of cheap ass tequila, motherfuckers are gonna act crazy,” Patrick said though he had ordered that same special right when he got through the door.

Panfilo was no longer enjoying Patrick's belly aching. “We don't have to run into the crossfire fool, but I wanted to make sure my car wasn't shot up.”

Patrick then started to get irate himself. “Then why the hell are we running towards the gunshots?!”

“People usually blast a few rounds and then run off. I didn't think we'd get here and a battle would still be raging,” Panfilo replied.

Panfilo had taken his philosophy degree very seriously. After years of dealing with what he saw as emotional and irrational Mexicans, he was determined to always rely on logic for every decision. His college friends liked to remind him how emotional he was despite the hot air he preached. Panfilo was also a sucker for an emotional animated feature. Frogs to royalty stories usually made him tear up, his emotion amplified during a well placed musical number.

The car was an innocent bystander to what was probably amounted to armed crack heads blasting it out. Gangs had not really ever been a problem in Dallas. Patrick had once lived by what he assumed to be a house where an MS-13 member lived. The polite man and his wife kept to themselves though never left the the house for a long enough stretch for anyone to assume that they went to work. This guy also had a rather noticeable 13 tattooed on his face. Patrick never asked for his name, but figured an “Hola señor ,” was a good enough level of weekly congeniality on his part. Suburban sprawl in the Dallas area had mostly led to youngsters acting macho largely with a help of a few friends, and if ever anyone called themselves a Blood or Crip, one could assume they were full of shit.

* * *

Both friends had agreed that enough time had passed after the last exchange of shots, so they crept towards the parking lot. The first shock was seeing the parking lot empty and Panfilo's said in resentment of his bad luck, “I think they towed the cars!” At least the car would be undamaged but that would be another hassel for an already inconvenient night. Across the parking lot, the friends see two people at the end of a desperate wrestling match. It looks like the guy at the bottom received a stabbing motion to his belly, and the one on top quickly bounced up and ran off into an area of warehouses.

Patricks was quick to asses the situation in favor of his own skin and looked at Panfilo, “I'm not about to get shot trying to help a crack head! Let's call the cops and hang back.”

They went back down to the street where more people had been waiting out the shooting. Patrick was on the phone with the dispatcher, and Panfilo walked around saying loudly that it seemed that the cars were towed. Groans of discontent rippled through the small crowd, which did not encourage anyone from wanting to scope out the carnage left behind. Although the parking lot was decently well lit, the edge of the concrete lot immediately went completely dark. All sides of the lot, except the one touching the street, had been cleared out for construction but any progress had been halted a while back. About a block past the gravel and grass began a row of warehouses where you were sure to find prostitution once the sun went down.

Once the police showed up, the crowd learned that in fact their cars had been towed. After combing the lot, the cops said that they had not found a body or seen any blood. They found some bullet shells, but there was no knowing how old they were since that area had seen its share of shootings.

Patrick and Panfilo each called a taxi, since there was no getting the car until the morning. Before going their separate ways, Patrick mentioned that they'd probably hear if someone from the neighborhood got shot.

* * *

Sunday morning seemed ordinary enough. Panfilo had come home around three in the morning, waking everyone in the house with the dog's homecoming bark. A Mexican mother's disappointment for their son's night life never subsided, no matter how old someone became. Panfilo would chuckle when his white friends he met at college would assert how turning eighteen meant that they had to be seen as an adult. Any such declarations of independence to a Mexican mother usually ended with a punch to the gut, and that's if the claim was taken as a joke. When Panfilo lurched towards the kitchen for some morning coffee, all he got was a sinvergüenza! from his mom and a scowl that lasted up until mid-day.

Around four in the afternoon, Patrick was walking through the neighborhood and decided to drop in on Panfilo. Neither had heard anything about what went down, but were sure to have seen the stabbing and the following repose that signals resignation to one's fate. Patrick pointed that “if it was a crack head, then that fool probably had the energy to half die and then still take off home.”

Panfilo could not deny the will power and audacity of a cracked out junkie. He had once seen a an argument between a group of crack heads where one of the party began yelling to the others that they were ruining their lives smoking on that shit. He then pulled out a canister of bear spray, gave everyone a good coating, and then ran off into the neighborhood while balancing a forty ounce in his left hand. The lesson was always clear – never underestimate a crack head and you'll be better off.

The friends chuckled at the night's events and Panfilo found his car. Set back two hundred bucks, the buddies split the cost and began swearing they'd never go to that club again.