It’s 10:22 am on Easter Sunday and me and my roommates begin to hear someone yelling outside, “I’m down here!” He then mutters repeatedly, “Where are you, muthafucka?” We peek outside and ascertain that Mr. Black Man with Unrealistically White Shoes has spotted the shoes hanging from the power lines outside our apartment. Or rather, the power lines outside the apartment of the crack dealer who lives across the street. He clearly needs a fix but doesn’t know which apartment the shoes are signaling. So he does the best he can by announcing his presence and hoping for the best.
The guy yells again, in a Barry White voice that booms all the way down to Mission Street, “I’M DOWN HERE!” He then pulls out a wad of money and begins to count it in a very obvious way.
Alas, our neighborhood drug dealer is not awake yet, and Barry White ambles on down the street, muttering and counting his money.
UPDATE: Jack says, “Oh look, drug dealer’s awake. Omg that guy has no pants on. That just ruined my life.”
ahhh….life in the hood!
Ahahaha…
Those shoes on the power lines don’t mean anything, the thing about them signaling drug dealers is an urban legend. Me and my dumb-ass little buddies would throw our old shoes up on telephone wires all the time back when I was just a young malcontent.
Then clearly that dude also heard that urban legend, because he was definitely looking for a fix. Furthermore, there actually is a crack dealer across the street from me.
Perhaps the urban legend about shoes on telephone wires came first, and the crack dealers came second. In any case, if enough people believe hanging shoes indicate a crack house, then for all practical purposes, hanging shoes DO indicate a crack house.
This is an uncomfortable read. How does one yell in a Barry White voice? What does a sonorous, lustful yell sound like? Also, the shoe business is hokum. Even if there was truth to it, it’s clearly a faulty model on a street with multi-unit buildings. It’s just…it’s just not how things work.
I’m willing to be wrong here, but, but, but.
You MissionMission readers are the complainingest bunch of little bitches I ever saw. What we have here is a little slice of life involving a crack house, a crack head, and a telephone wire laden with shoes. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. This may be a case of correlation does not equal causation, but so the fuck what?
Just enjoy the read and shut the fuck up.
But Tomi it’s true. Just this morning I was reading the minutes from the last circle of crack genius meeting and there was a lengthy discussion of the drawbacks of the sneakers-on-the-wire model on a street with multi-unit buildings. A proposal for corrolating the number of sneakers with apartment numbers was tabled when the police rolled up….
Hahahahaa. Awesome.
Crack is whack.
I learn so much from Sexpigeon — “Codes of the City
“, I never knew shoe orientation was so critical:
Pair of shoes, side-by-side: This way to haircuts.
Pair of shoes, toes pointed towards each other: Safe to poo between these cars.
Pair of shoes, toes pointed away from each other: Do not poo between these cars.
Single shoe: Abortionist.
[...] – In 3D! Sexpigeon documents the meaning of various urban signs, a la shoes hanging from a telephone wire = crack dealer, [...]