In Which Miss Jill Dejectedly Acknowledges That If She Packed Heat for Protection, She Would Die from a Self-Inflicted Wound

This post is NC-51 (Not appropriate for 51 year olds. Sorry Mom)

A few months ago I was returning home at around 10:00 p.m. and noted that there was a shrine adorning the south wall of my apartment building. There were flowers, candles, and pictures of a teenager with a liberal dose of R.I.P. I sadly wondered what had happened to him and reflected on the frailty of life and our tenuous grip on mortality, etc. Luckily some teens walked by and relieved me of my curiosity.

Teen 1 (pointing to my apartment building): Girl, is that where that kid got stabbed?
Teen 2: Oh yeah, they stabbed him so many times and there was blood everywhere.
Teen 1: That’s sad.

Awesome. I went home and googled “Stabbed, Washington Heights,” but Manhattan media was only able to produce an article of one sentence stating his name, age and cause of death. I realize that gang related deaths are commonplace up here, but doesn’t everyone deserve at least a paragraph acknowledging their existence on this planet?

In other tenement news, one day I was climbing the stairs to our sixth floor apartment, a journey I was forced to take in spite of the fact that I had written a passive aggressive repair request in white board marker on the elevator door. Twenty minutes into the treacherous ascent, I was pleased to see some teens meticulously rolling joints on the top stair. I’m not going to lie-I was disappointed that I was too early to enjoy the sin-free pleasures of second hand marijuana. As they started to clear me a path up the stairs I said, “I can get through, don’t worry. You’re good.” One of the girls flashed me crazy eyes and replied (as a joint dangled precariously from her adolescent hand), “Sorry Miss, but you are wrong. Drugs are not good.” Touché.