I’ve lived in Dorchester for nearly all of my life. If one were to ask me to describe the town in three words I could find none more appropriate than these: it’s not safe. At least the part of Dorchester where I live isn’t. Where I hail from (just off of Geneva Avenue) people are robbed, beaten up, and sometimes even murdered. We’ve got it all! Hell, I’ve had things stolen from me on more than one occasion. Aren’t I a lucky boy? What does any of this have to do with trick or treating? It’s got plenty to do with it and here’s why:
When I was a kid our doorbell would sometimes get a ring from the occasional trickster hoping for some free candy. My mother would make it a point to categorically deny them (she is not a fan of the holiday). I admired these children and envied them as we, my older brother and myself weren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween ourselves. I wanted to be those children I saw on TV happily roaming their safe neighborhood streets in their awesome pirate costumes but alas, kids in my half of Dorchester do not get to enjoy such bliss.
As the years drew on and I grew older, the frequency of trick or treaters on my street, which happens to be a dead-end, dwindled. And along with the years came wisdom. We don’t trick or treat in the part of Dorchester where I am from. We stay the hell inside or die. This is no wild boast (and it would be a sick one at that) when I say this but living in Dorchester I truly have seen it all and it is not a pretty sight.
On days where the goal is to create mischief it is no wonder why Halloween is a day when violence and other great crimes such as vandalism spikes. Can you blame these kids for being reluctant to ring on the doorbell of some stranger for fear of being introduced to a Colt .45? We are not very trusting in these parts and for good reason. Around here the most popular way to kill time…is to kill. Ariel Rodriguez once said, “this ain’t a game!” and I beg you to heed his warning if you ever find yourself in these parts.
I’ve played the occasional game of “ding, dong, ditch” (what the EFF was I thinking doing that in Dorchester?) but I never knew the real point of the game was to make sure it didn’t turn into “ding, dong, death”. Now I say this knowing it may offend some because at first glance it may seem offensive and even a little bit ignorant-but what I say is the truth. Being a black kid growing up in Dorchester I realized something about the other black people here: we do not like each other and we definitely do not trust each other. There are no doors left unlocked when people leave for work and windows are almost always shut (even in the summer time…when the murder rate goes up. Yay!) I am not saying that we are trying to kill each other off but at the rate we’re going here we’re certainly heading in that direction. Good work, guys! Perspective time: I no longer set my phone as an alarm because I can count on the melodic, sensual squeal of the police siren to wake my melodic, sensual body up from its nightly rest. FYI that’s not really true. I still set my regular phone alarm but I could count on the police siren to wake me if I wanted. Seriously, those things never stop going off.
Glorious children of Dorchester or that part of South Boston that is close to Dorchester please heed my warning. On this October 31, in the year of our Lord 2011 keep your behind indoors because out here it isn’t trick or treat-it’s trick or die.
