No Rules

Stress or a bad cold can bring it back. It starts with redness and scaling skin which only the most self-controlled of men could refrain from scratching. Then bleeding; not profuse, but spotty and embarrassing. By then, my entire right ear might be inflamed and achy, a condition which lasts for about a week. Then it fades away. They crawl back into deep recesses of my own cells, hiding until I may have forgotten from whence they came. These virus particles re-emerge only to celebrate my moments of weakness. Remnants of other suppressed memories, of which I have many, aren't as predictable as these when escaped the muck under which I bury such things. I don't share other people's phones when I remember, for fear of sharing the consequences of my life with the innocent.

Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods, fiefdoms of ethnic groups and gangs, a confused mangle of unwritten rules of engagement, but nevertheless understood by us all. North Philly was a dangerous place all my life because I was a West Philly boy. We feared North Philly, though as large as the city is, never had to confront its people unless we traveled there. Germantown was more distant and unknown, though feared no less. South Philly and The Northeast were never mentioned because those were white areas; nobody would even think of going there. Good Rule Number One was that a solitary visitor could be safe most places during the day if they were skin-matched to the locals; it was easier to blend in. Two might draw attention, but three might be interpreted as an invasion, with challenges likely to ensue.

West Philly had its own set of toughs, block by block. A white boy living in a black neighborhood, I had special privilege in that I wasn't expected to join our local gang. The black catholic school kids had dispensations, too. We had to yield the basketball court and our basketball if the gang took a fancy to play. Our money was theirs, too, if they asked. But to opposing gangs, we were untouchables, as to harass us was to encroach on "our" gang's "boys". War might result. Nice, and small the price to pay for safety. As kids, the rules made sense. Better, there was safety in certainty when everyone followed the rules.

But faces were local. The 52nd Street gangs, still West, didn't know mine, though only a few El stops away. We were very careful traveling there to the movies because of Rule Number One. A girlfriend had to keep spatial distance there so we wouldn't be seen as a couple and raise rankle before the lights went down. The Bottom, where I lived, didn't have a theater, though, so hearts raced for many reasons on dates. North Philly was still a world away. We never traveled there, only hearing about it in gossip. Besides, their gangs used guns. In the '70's, our gangs fought with blades. The meanest may have used zip guns, improvised single shot devices made from a piece of wood or pipe, a rubber band and a single shell, but they were notoriously inaccurate shots. We made shivs, disposable knives shaped from metal salvaged from old TV chassis, hardened and tempered in fire. Friction tape made handles that didn't get slippery with the sweat that was sure to pour in the heat of summer battle, and made fingerprinting all but impossible.

Boys grew up back then. I left the old neighborhood and took a job that sent me alone on service to all parts of the city. An adult, I realized a new set of rules. A grungy white man in a black neighborhood is easily mistaken for an undercover cop if he carries himself with confidence and is given distance like any other undercover cop. Following the rules - unshaved, sloppy hair, worn clothes, air of confidence - I safely navigated for years in the most dangerous, crime-ridden areas of Philadelphia, black and white, with impunity. I watched other employees quit after being held up. Some thought I was insane for not carrying a handgun for personal protection; but I knew the rules. There was safety in the rules, which were better than a gun. I was surprised that people in North Philly were awed when they learned that I grew up in The Bottom of West Philly, certain that it was the most dangerous place on earth.

I had watched gun battles between warring gangs from front row seats; worked in a drug house that was attacked by a rival gang with hellish machine gun fire, praying they wouldn't get inside to finish. They didn't. I witnessed, aghast, a mob hit at a gas station, and stood as a boy was gunned down in front of me, taking a bullet that could have as easily hit me. It didn't. The rules were my rabbit's foot, and I always walked away unscathed. There may have been consequences if I allowed myself to dwell on any of the things I saw. Confident bearing required burying memories, mind fresh for the 'morrow, and I learned a trick to forget them. Not even my wife ever knew of the experiences, as I forgot them as soon as they were over. I was like a ghost, present but untouchable.

That changed on a service call to North Philly, the part even cops had abandoned to drug gangs. That afternoon my rules were breaking down, as I was lost on Butler Street, amid a maze of one-way streets, dead ends, railroad cut-offs, and my appointment time passed. I was lost and there was no safe place to pull over to consult the map. As if sensing my frustration, my pager began beeping, the office insisting I return a call immediately. Reset, it chirped again. Without considering the rules, I pulled to the curb at the first pay phone I saw and got out of the car.

A cluster of young men were lingering at the sidewalk - they had probably taken over the legitimate operation of the corner store to sell crack cocaine. There was no bus stop, nor any obvious reason to be there - just a phone no one was using. We eyed each other, but they parted as it became apparent that I was headed towards the public phone mounted on an outside wall. The rules were at work. I hoped that fear didn't show in my face or gait, and concentrated on maintaining the appearance of certainty and purpose. I watched the others from the corners of my eyes. The quarter dropped in the slot and I dialed quickly so that I could keep an eye on my company, but as the secretary answered on the other end, I became aware of an overpowering odor.

Public phones were always filthy - this one was awful. The face was spattered with thick, sepia globs, handset sticky against my ear. I thought that some kid must have had fun squirting the phone with ketchup. Even the sidewalk was covered and my boots were stuck in a thick pool of congealed condiment. It was the smell that turned my stomach. It was like a nosebleed, which was when I realized it wasn't ketchup. I was surrounded by, standing in, touching, and smeared with the blood of a recent hit. Sickness welled up in my stomach. Maintaining a mask of confidence, essential to the rules, had become impossible. I couldn't coax a breath of the deathly air into my lungs, as I was fighting an urge to vomit and run back to the car. I hung up and walked quickly, overcoming disgust I felt for a right hand smeared in blood, thrusting it into my pocket for the keys.

The memory went the way of the others - intentionally lost for a while. There are no magic talismans that confine and restrict violence forever. My ear broke out in my own blood weeks later. The slain was afflicted with herpes, his fluid so fresh when I used the phone that his disease passed through my skin, becoming part of my being. Old mind games to lose unpleasant experiences don't work anymore. Now I can't bury the face of the boy who fell at my feet, looking as if he wanted to ask someone "Why me?" but couldn't make any words come out of his mouth; nor the first thought in my mind: "Jeez, good thing he was standing there.... could have been me." The shame of that sin stinks like that phone and the bloody ear I've earned. We are, none of us, phantoms untouched when a child dies on the street, when all men are fathers found wanting. In my imagination, I now kneel, stroke and kiss my dying son's forehead, crying. There are no rules anymore; we've been absent for too long.