Desperate Ghetto Housewives

Desperate Ghetto Housewives

So I'm standing outside talking to a woman who lives down the street, who I don't really know that well. Her tenant walked by and the conversation (about house renovations) died a bit when she walked between us. I guess there's a history there because all of a sudden they started screaming at each other. The landlord made some random comment to me about respect and all of a sudden the tenant turned around and said "WHAT BITCH ARE YOU TALKING TO ME" and they started going at it. I think I was just standing there with a flabbergasted look on my face, because it erupted out of nowhere. Women are straight out vicious. The things they were saying to each other, I almost busted out laughing because they were just so damn mean. "Look at you sloppy bitch are you pregnant" and then the other one "Well look at you bitch, your parents tossed you out because they don't want you anymore." Christ. I much prefer the fighting of men. They just get down to business without all the cruelty.

The almost-almost funniest part is that the young tenant turned to me when I blocked her from punching her landlord and said "She's a nosy bitch in everyone's business. She's in your business too." At the risk of sounding generic, I have no business. I don't have raging fights with Geo, don't do drugs and don't turn tricks from my home while he's at work. Nothing to see here people, nothing to see.

The almost funniest part is that the tenant's boyfriend was smoking a joint in the car and never even got out the whole time it was happening. The FUNNIEST part is that when the tenant made her first charge at the landlord (I had to step between them like the person who gets inadvertently stabbed in every movie fight scene) she slammed the bag she was carrying down on the ground first. Later on when she went to her car, a van drove by and she handed the bag to him. It was the electrician's bag, who was at the house earlier and had left it behind. I remember seeing when she went by that it was full of wires and electrical stuff. Hope it all still works. Heh.

The whole thing was weird to me because the tenant is in her early 20s and my neighbor is in her 40s. It would never occur to me to try and beat up someone older like that, unless they attacked me first. Then again, I also wouldn't attack the person who rents me my apartment so oh well. To each her own. I went inside after it was over, because you know it's always the Good Samaritan trying to play peacemaker who gets their ass shot.

Okay kids, one more story, speaking of Good Samaritans.

Janelle and I were sitting outside late Saturday night when a man came by and asked for help. His car had broken down and he seemed panicked. Apparently people hadn't been very helpful financially, but they gave him advice like "Don't go near so and so street or you'll get mugged" or "Don't stand too long in one place or someone will jump you, looking like you do." He was bewildered that he could barely even get people to speak to him, saying that where he was from (a little town by Atlantic City), if someone needed help people bent over backwards to help them. Welcome to Chilltown JC. You could tell he was swallowing his pride even to ask. We gave him the six bucks we had, and felt guilty we didn't have enough between us to cover his train ticket home. You might scoff at us, but I know the desperation of wanting to get out of Jersey City and not being able to. Except it would take more than six dollars to get us the hell out of here.