I live in West Oakland. It's not necessarily the part of Oakland where people get shot up everyday, or where the Panthers centralized, or where Too $hort blows his whistle, but it's still Oakland. But sometimes, to my dismay, I'll get the twisted-face reaction, like, "Oh. West Oakland? Well, you don't live in the real Oakland then. You don't live in Awwwwkland."

I never try to over-gangsterize my life. Even if I did live in East Oakland and had to fall asleep to gunshots every night and be prepared to duck and cover at any point while walking to the store, it's not something that I'd glorify anyway. But lets make things clear. I do live in Oakland. We've been through this before. (This is a link to a blog from a long time ago so only click it if you want to get distracted. Wait. Stop reading this sidenote and let me finish my point)

All I'm saying is that I feel like I've paid my Oakland dues. If I lived in a squeaky-clean street secluded from the whole experience that comes with being an Oaklandite, then fine, I'd lay off it. But the truth is, crackheads exist in my neighborhood, and they are a part of my life. It's not like I hella interact with them on a daily basis and ask them "What's crackin" or anything, but there have been several occasions where I've found my car with the passenger side window shattered, seats smelling of King Cobra, and my CDs stolen, but only the burnt ones. The point is, I live in Oakland, dammit.

Which brings me to my next concrete example of why my apartment's Oakland-ness should never be called into question: Yesterday while walking to my car I found a pair of panties lying on the street.


Even as a poet, it's difficult to describe the level of appalled-ness (appall?) on my face when I found a pair of blue women's underwear soaking in the rain, right next to my left rear wheel. Sure, I've found more extreme and disgusting things on this street--dead rats, used diapers, human feces (not inside of diapers)--but in this particular situation, it wasn't the panties themselves that were flabbergasting. Rather, it's the question as to why and how they ended up on the street, next to my car.

Now, I have to admit that it may be discriminatory on my end, but anytime I ever find something random/disgusting/mysterious on the street by my house, my automatic thought is, A crackhead did it. But when I expressed this to Ruby, she was shocked and shot back, "Adriel! Crackheads are people too!"

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the crack epidemic is a laughing matter. But a crackhead's panties lying on the street in the rain? Kinda funny.

Over the past day, I've racked my brain for the possible situations in which someone besides a crackhead might find it necessary to strip off their underwear in the middle of the street, in the rain, and toss it on the floor. And try as I might, the most reasonable explanation I can come up with is a scene where someone screams, "I'M SO HIGH ON CRACK, I CAN'T WEAR THESE ANYMORE!!!!!"

Trust me, if I could reason it in a way where I could be proud of finding a pair of wet panties in front of my doorstep, I'd be all about it.