I had to go into the city yesterday to go see a buddy of mine. He owns a small chain of title/tag/insurance shops in ghetto TRE-type neighborhoods. Right now, he's holding down the fort in "K&A," or Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, in the near Northeast, almost into the Port Richmond neighborhood. Periodically, he has to clean house and shift up staff, as it's a typically cash business on his end of the client socioeconomic spectrum, and the employees can't stand the temptation. From time to time I've come in and stuck an ear out to listen to the finer points of suspect employees' dealings in Spanish.
Art Museum (Rocky, steps, etc.) to the left, the western end of Center City just off center, me on the Schuykill Expressway, and lovely graffiti adorning the elevated railroad structures to my right. I would be out of my mind soon if I had to do this every day.
I get up there, and drive around the block on a side street to find a parking space. As far as I can see from the corner at Allegheny Avenue as I turn, there's about three and a half blocks in front of me of nothing but pure dealers and smacked-up skeezers, standing around in dark little clumps of twos and threes, dressed in dark clothes, half in hoodies, cutting deals and talking sidewalk shit. The neighborhood used to just be bad. This is now total Indian reservation. The po po ride up and down the major arteries, doing a lights and sirens show, shoving them back off the mains where they're less likely to offend the sensitive.
I'm getting out of the truck, and I realize that I forgot my clear lenses, so I duck back in for a second to retrieve them, and then get back out and onto the street. In the time it took me to get out, get back in, get out, and lock up, a couple has parked about four car lengths behind me on the same side of the street, closer to Allegheny Avenue. On getting out, the male, mid 20s to mid 30s, has succumbed to an OD, dropping like a sack of shit at the side of the coupe's driver's side door. Girlfriend is on top of him, doing compressions and screaming bloody murder for Narcan. There's a group of amused dindunuffins clustered around watching. I start to cut for the opposite sidewalk, say fuck it, and then head over to take over the compressions. But I ain't doin' mouth to mouth on this sucker. Providentially, the EMS bus is heading hard around the corner just as I get there. PPD shows up a half second later, and when I look back down the block, everyone's gone to Betson's.
On Kensington Avenue, a half block south of Allegheny, under the "El." Nothing but "cold beers," pawn shops trading for everything imaginable, hair/nail salons, and businesses like my friend's.
4100 N. 5th Street, across from a good place to shoot pool and get a beer, called "El Cayey." These days, it's lit up like a Mexican taxi with running lights all around the rooftop and the windows. I'm at the edge of the parking lot for a supermarket called "Cousin's," where I come for my productos latinos. If you don't speak Spanish, think twice about coming.
On the way home, more lame Schuykill Expressway action, this time getting cut off across a solid white line just past City Line Avenue/US Route 1, because they want to get back to suburban sprawl 30 seconds quicker.
Obligatory Shankster bait. I had gotten home, dropped off the groceries, and gotten sent out to pick up Mexican take-out. 
