From the local TeeWee news:
Officers found the body of Matthew Greer around 2:00 am on Valley Avenue near I-70 and Rural Street.
This is a neighborhood where, after taking a wrong turn one night, the following conversation was overheard in roomie's Hyundai:
RX: "Was that a drug deal going down?"
Me: "Yes. Don't look; just keep driving."
Even though I am neither a psychic nor a doctor, I can tell you that the cause of death was being on foot near I-70 and Rural at 0200hrs. (I'll give the coroner a dollar if he actually puts that in the report.)
"I can tell you that the cause of death was being on foot near I-70 and Rural at 0200hrs. "
ReplyDeleteIts a shame high school doesn't have a course on how to navigate an urban area. I would think it quite useful.
It is a shame we have such urban areas. But it has been that way for a long time. I went to college in Chicago as a commuter from the N. side of town to the south at Ill. Inst. of Technology. The campus was 20 square blocks along S. State Street with the el line running down the middle. Bound on the north by 31st St., the south by 35th and the east by Wabash Ave. Cross the street off campus on those three sides and you would be without watch and wallet within fifteen minutes. Do it at 2:00 AM and you would have a time of useful consciousness about like a flame-thrower operator landing on Tarawa Beach.
ReplyDeleteIronically, most of those scary urban areas are smaller, less dangerous, and fewer and farther between these days than at almost any time in the past century or more... But if it bleeds, it leads.
ReplyDelete(The worst parts of NYC now are nothing compared to the crack war years of the early '90s, and downright paradisaical when compared to the late 19th Century...)
So, uh ... Rural St ... isn't?
ReplyDeleteSo, uh ... Rural St ... isn't?
ReplyDeleteHahahahahaha!
No seriously. It ain't.
My 2 cents worth. If your car breaks down in any city on Martin Luther King Ave lock your doors, draw your pistol, and call 911. Report a body in the street, cops won't come for anything less. When they get there, tell them he crawled away and plead for a ride to the police station.
ReplyDeleteI'd give the coroner 5 bucks to put "lead poisoning."
ReplyDeleteI thought about getting a job as a coroner and under the "cause of death" always listing "lack of oxygen to the brain"...
ReplyDeleteCond0010, right after high school, there are some swell organizations that will send you to exotic places where you too can navigate urban areas. With machine guns. And grenades. And several dozen of your bestest buddies watching your back. Upside? Getting paid to do it. Downside? IEDs, VBIDS, EFPs and suicide bombers.
ReplyDeleteAl T.
Let me guess: decedent was walking home from just finishing reading the Bible with his mother (they couldn't get enough of Psalms, hence the 2 am walk) and "minding his own business" when Sumdood came on the scene, and plugged him from 50 feet away for "no good reason."
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear your version of Klugman's "It's muuuuuuuuurder, Sam!"
ReplyDeleteThen we can see if you are truly more like Quincy, or Kresge.
Tickmeister --
ReplyDeleteI think Chris Rock said it best:
"Ain't nothin' good ever happened on MLK Avenue after 1 am!"
I was in New Haven, CT, some 14 years ago, to attend a funeral. During the prelims, going here and there, the driver of the car I was in decided to take a short cut that just happened to go through an open-air drug emporium. I told the driver the same thing, "Just keep driving, no matter what happens, don't fucking stop!". We had to get on the sidewalk at one point but kept going. The older I get the less I like such excitement, especially when armed only with a folding knife.
ReplyDelete