POPI ON THE BLOCK

My Spanish is limited to Cafe con leche, por favor- coffee with milk, please and Donde esta bano?- where's the bathroom. But I've lived in latin neighborhoods- Ave. C and SF's Mission district. I have Cuban, Columbian, and Salvadoran close friends and I like mariachi music. For some reason I find kindred souls in the " little brown ones" to the sud. When I did the good deed of bringing attention to the drugs dropped by the kid on the bike word spread. Within a short period of time I was getting respectful nods and "Hola Popi" more and more. These were my last days of living in the EV.
Out on the street I was greeted warmly but in my own building it was a different story. The evil crackhead twin and her boyfriend/pimp were cranking up the music and smacking each other around in the hall at an increasing rate. A loaded 12 gauge leaned against the wall I shared with my neighbors. It was the one and only time in my life I felt it necessary to keep a loaded shotgun in the house. Then I smelled smoke. Two times over a six month period they set the place on fire. They just put blankets up over the smashed out windows and continued unperturbed. The cops did nothing to remove them. The landlord did nothing. I just argued with them. After a year they had won. I started looking for a place in the country.
Yummy was now Mrs. Yummy. I switched bar jobs, cracked a rib removing a drunk, quit and found a high end steady carpentry job at the Dakota apartment building. The Dakota is where John Lennon was killed and Rosemary's Baby was filmed by Roman Polanski after Sharon Tate was killed by Charlie Mason's cult of followers. I guess if you were to work at a place with a bizarre history and celebrity residents, this was a good one. Yoko lived there, as did Lauren Bacall and Connie Chung and Maury Povich. Friendly split and I wouldn't lay eyes on her for nine years. We saved our penneys and looked for a place outside of the city. Our first stop was Austin PA- the Slab compound.