1984. October 29th to the 31st. Three nights, 810 fires. Eight hundred and ten. Grown men sat on the porch all night with a garden hose in one hand and a shotgun in the other like a nativity scene. Coleman Young put every kid under 17 on a curfew. Then the city started Angels' Night, fifty thousand volunteers drivin around with flashlights, and it WORKED. Got so quiet that Duggan shut the patrols down, cause Devil's Night wasn't no worse than a regular Tuesday no more. They gave Halloween back to the children.
We had so many fires the city had to invent ANGELS. Name me one other city that did that. Greatest city on earth.
Then somebody put a candle on Gerald's dresser.
If you new here: in September I caught my upstairs neighbor Gerald in a laundry basket trap three times. Naked every time. The third time he brought his dresser down with him, ate the coney, and went back upstairs without it. The dresser been outside ever since. And one night somebody put a lit candle on it. Nobody knows who.
That was September 21st. Today is day 35.
The candle is still lit.
I need y'all to hear what I'm sayin. It's not a new candle. I been checkin. Same candle. And it ain't one of them church candles in the glass with the saint on it. It's from the adult store. It's shaped like a whole dick. Flesh tone. Veins. Lit from the top like a birthday.
I measured it the first week with a ruler from the Dollar Tree. Seven inches. I measured it again this mornin. Seven inches.
Thirty-five days of fire and it ain't got one bit shorter. I'm scared and I'm jealous and I don't know which one is bigger.
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Big Terry walked by Saturday. Stopped. Looked at it a long time. Said "That's been blessed." Then he crossed the street. Big Terry don't cross the street for NOTHIN. That man parallel parked a U-Haul in one move.
So that's where my head's at today. This city spent forty years puttin out Devil's Night, and Friday the only fire on my block gon be a dick that won't quit.
Discuss. I'm workshoppin this for my set. If my building burn down Friday, Marcus got the notebook.
