Touring with Tweety - Ghettoside

"Hey! Can I ride wit 'choo?"
I hear it all the time. A few times each day. My typical response is "Ha ha" or "You couldn't keep up, baby!" or "Get a bike, honey! We’ll race!" But I always keep riding, and only a handful of times has one with a bike endeavored to race me - usually little kids who give up after two blocks, despite my efforts to go slow so that they are never far behind me.
On the hellacious five way corner that is McMicken and Vine, I heard "Aw, c'mon - just let me run inside and get my bike; I'll be right back."
And I waited. Maybe a full five minutes.
He hopped on his bike and we headed up hill, complimenting one another on our mutual strength and ability to ride well with one another.
"Well, what you doing riding around here?" he inquired.
"I ride through here a lot - I live on Main - but I'm actually looking for my stolen bicycle."
"Oh yeah? You're riding with the right guy. Follow me."
I thought I lived a block from the ghetto. I thought I'd ridden through the roughest parts of the ghetto alone quite enough. But there were streets I missed. And others that I just flew down too fast to truly experience.
"Tweety" took me under his wing - and on the craziest ride of my life.
"If anyone asks, we're looking for crack - NOT a stolen bicycle."
I looked in his earnest eyes and understood completely.
We rode slowly. We rode on sidewalks. We rode down old cobblestone alleys.
"Drugs, drugs, drugs" whispered persistently in my ear as those who once shot silent stares at me with fear and hate, suddenly saw me as "one of them" with my new companion in tow.
"Hey, Tweety! What's going on, man!"
Jovial faces were greeted with his stern expression. "I'm okay, buddy. But listen: something was stolen from me. You hear anything about a good bike coming around these parts? 'Cuz if you do, it's mine." Informants whispered and buzz filled the streets, but noone really spoke.
I saw upwards of a dozen drug deals within two hours. And I think one dozen is a gross underestimation.
Tweety devised plans – specific for each area of town – as to how we should “safely” execute the apprehension of my beloved bike. “Now, thirteenth ain’t really my turf, you know what I’m saying? I mean, they’re not really my peeps and don’t necessarily got my back. So, I’ll do my best to distract ‘em…. Can you carry one bike on your shoulder while riding the other?”
“Sure. I mean, never tried it, but I can.”
I assumed all the folks approaching us were Tweety’s buds. But one was headed toward me: “Hey, you find your bike yet?” “Nope!” “Well, I’m keeping my eye out for it sister. You’re my nigger; I got your back!”
I think I’m supposed to be flattered by that expression of respect.
The ghetto that I discovered that day is far worse than what I’d already known. And worse than any I’d seen in movies. I mean, if you remove the creepy underscore, camera angles and various tension enhancing effects out of most films in the ghetto – they are all infinitely kinder than this one. Nauseating piles of trash everywhere. Needles, broken glass, fast food containers, plastic jugs and endless crap piled thick on the ground. Open spaces sprouting rot instead of grass. Filth festering on broken stoops, cluttering doorways and filling the spaces between uneven cobblestone. And babies riding their Hotwheels on through while gangsters trade guns and drugs; mommas ignoring the cries of the bruised and fallen.
“This is so fucking weird man!” Tweety was nervous. “Everyone’s staring at you ‘cuz your white!”
“No shit. That shocks you? At least now they’re looking at me more with curiosity than hate.”
People were virtually silent in shock. Usually it’s hoots of “Hey! Hey! Watch it! Po Po!” or “Hey baby, slow down” or “Bitch, what choo doing in my hood.” Maybe it was the combination of being with Tweety and riding down streets that quite possibly no white person had been down in years. People just froze: jaws dropped, drugs in hands….
I had to go to work at 6:30. Promoting Cadillacs to the rich white folk who patronize the Aranoff Center. Quite the extreme shift in surroundings!
I was searching for my bike; Tweety for his daughter. Neither of us were successful. “Next time?”
“Yeah.” I gave him a hug, grateful for his kindness, his protection, his risk, and for this experience.
His smile was immense. “Damn! I got a hug! Thank you, baby! I’m gonna find you that bike, you hear?”
“I hear. Good luck to you. And thanks.”