neighbor hood
By Brad Barry
the Craft-Trades of my hometown
were none that grown men taught boys
we instead learned them from finely tuned jumps over rows of backyard fences
spired redwood spikes, upward pointing rough-hewn arrows
splintering into our palms, slivers embedded in ever-thickening city skin
that would eventually fester, long after being yelled at
for creating a racket
for catching a glimpse
- our splintered eyes seeing though the calloused visions of our (neighbor)
hood
we learned many skills in that row
after row of apartment-like “condos”
papertag
doorbell ditch
jive talk of the white and black and brown and yellow
killing time
between loads (of lights mixed with darks) at the First Congregational Laundromat
camaraderie and evasion in cycles of warm, cold and hot
tumble dry
the shock of about-to-be wrinkled tees
the Craft-Trades of my hometown
were taught by boys to boys
(where to find the parents and older siblings?)
our Trades:
makeshift bmx ramps (the miracle of a board and a curb)
carport roofs (the miracle of a climb, and a broader vision)
speeding cars (the thrill of city “dodgeball”)
careful cars (Dillard’s creampuffs, just asking for it)
our Skills were those of wary, watchful boys
always looking, always on the edge of perceiving,
sensing behind our shoulders the slowly cruising cars with windows rolled
down
“Hey kids, want some candy?”
neighbor
hood
Our elders voiced their concerns only by way of our “sitters”
“Take a different walkway to the laundry room; they say a perv lives on that
route.”
“What’s a perv?” we asked too soon in life, and not soon enough.