The Third World

Wei Wei is in 5th grade and she is amazing. She just had braid extensions and she feels confident now waiting for the bus. We met the family when we filled their blow-up pool last summer. Her mother Edie has cancer and has had a transplant that her body rejected and so she's on a list for another. She gets treatment locally for infections and goes to NYC for surgery. Wei Wei's mom Edie is so tiny we thought she was her sister. Edie's parents were drug addicts in South Providence, so her grandma Dotty raised her, and now raises Wei Wei.

The front door at the four-way intersection has been wide open for months. The tenants complain to their landlord but she just raises the rent after each complaint. The landlord fraudulently told the city that she lived on the 2nd floor so she would get a tax break. She refuses to give her tenants a lease. She's never even seen the condition of building. Windows are smashed with jagged glass exposed. The front door has been open for a few years. I suggested that the tenants speak to the police captain who has helped with so many things in the neighborhood.

 

There must be some advantage to this door being wide open, I said to Bill. The first-floor tenants tell us they hear people coming in and out all night. Everyone has noticed cans & bottles of beer, soda, cigarettes, Wendy's  and Burger King packages, tacos and other fast-food wrappers left on the steps. It's a late-night drug dealing operation at our famous intersection, I guessed. The first-floor tenants did speak to the Captain, and last week at roll call he alerted the uniform platoon night division to keep an eye out concerning that front door. He told the tenants to call dispatch if they hear anything. Two nights ago the cops and undercover police were here, they made an arrest. Wow!