thug augra

After a fun weekend at a friend's house party in Sebastapol, I got home and was having a snack with the front door open.

I saw a car cruise by slowly, doors opened on the passenger and driver sides, pass down the street, with a group inside about 5 deep. One girl in the car was cussing out several young girls walking along the sidewalk.

This is not good, I thought. I went on eating, but I had a sense something was up. I went out on my front stoop and they stopped at the end of the block. I heard voices escalate. 

The car stopped.

Shit.

My next door neighbour also came out of his place.

' What are they trippin on?' I asked him.

' I don't know. ' he said. ' But they've got beef.'

As I turned back to go inside, one girl jumped out of the car and started brawling with another on the street. Their homies shouted the situation on as though it was entertainment. 

'NO! STOP!' I shouted. I ran out the front gate and into the fray to break them up. One girl was pregnant. As I was grappling with one girl to get her off the other, a neighbor across the street I call the Nosy Anarchist Hipster, approached and started with her kumbaya rhetoric.

'WHAT DID I TELL YOU BEFORE?!' I shouted at her. "BACK UP AND MIND YOUR BUSINESS! YOU COULD GET HURT!'

It took her a minute to process what I was saying. I could see the wheels were turning. Ohhhh! This is that authentic dangerous black stuff I know nothing about.

She turned and went back across the street to her place. Maybe to make a social justice flyer for the oppressed or post to her social about how, as a young white woman, living in the hood in solidarity with no one will dismantle racism. Neighbors told me they always had squabbles with her. I learned from the house fire two summers ago she didn't get it. We were monolithic to her, not people. 

At that point my other neighbor had called the cops and came down the street. I struggled with my phone ( Don’t put it on the ground. My pockets are too thin and it will drop. I need my adidas! ) I sprinted back to my place. Mathias, an Airbnb guest from Copenhagen, was at the door.

'' What's going on?' he asked.

' Girls are fighting over a thug or some shit. I knew it! I fuckin knew it! I ran inside, kicked off my flip flops, and quickly switched into my adidas.

' Do you need me to go out there?' he asked. 

'NO! Stay here. It's not safe!' ( Being that Mathias was a young trans man and far from home, I felt it was prudent he stay put ).

I ran back out and tried again to get the girls apart. No one said a word to me or swung on me in the mele. Not one and they were all in their 20s. Part of that is within the street context of today, my age and tattoos convey something other than art. I've lived through many Bay Area stories that are now legend or myth to younger people.

A black sedan pulled up and one of the girls jumped in. The girl I was grappling with reached into the car and got a grip on her hair. Then the car started to move. At that point my brain calculated my proximity to the girl in the car, the girl I was trying to pull back, while and the car was in motion. Hood physics. It was too hard and I considered my own safety.

I let the girl go and the sedan took off north on Peralta. The rest jumped in their car and sped off towards 7th street. Then everything went quiet; that silence after a chaotic situation stops.

I went back to my place. At that point my had adrenaline had spiked and I needed to calm down. I felt like I had been boxing or sprinting or both.

' What happened?' Mathias asked. ' How did you know they were going to fight?'

' Hood awareness.' I said, catching my breath. ' I've been around a long time.'

' Wow. I don't have that.' Mathias said. ' That was crazy.'

I needed air and water. I sat down on the stoop to chill and hydrate myself. Certain aspects of the culture, particularly the hardcore aspect of it, are strictly within the realm of black understanding. We have words and phrases for it: mark, trick, po-po, gat, glock, heaux, pimp, fresh out, meat, 3 squares ( what one gets in jail ), and game. The game can be destructive and all the girls in that fight were deep in it. A disagreement in the streets, however trivial, one could take the life of another. 

I texted Jamaica. 

Jamaica: Did this just happen?

me: Yes

Jamaica: On the block?

me: Yes

Jamaica: Are you okay? Dude, why are you almost getting punched by random heaux?

me: Because they're just kids and I want them to live.