Drugs and murder

I wrote a little thing about encountering drugs behind the mini school where I grew up back in the 80’s which triggered some long forgotten memories of the neighborhood and what it was like. 

I grew up on the block of the mini school and we’d find some vials behind it when going after a foul ball or if the football took a weird bounce after an incomplete pass.  Vials and used condoms weren’t exactly prevalent but they were definitely there.  The elementary school that the mini school was a part of was one block away and significantly bigger.  It took up a small city block with the right half more as park space and the left half as the actual school building.  The right half had a full basketball court with what we called the pyramid behind the furthest hoop.  The pyramid was a cylindrical concrete structure that had steps cut into it every 18” or so.   It could have been more than 6’ tall at its flat peak.  Behind the pyramid was a handball wall, which has nothing do with anything relating to the story but more for you to get a sense of space.  A good 20’ before the hoop closest to the street was the chicken pit.  The chicken pit was strange even to us kids back then.  It felt out of the gladiator days.  A three or four foot drop into sand with concrete walls all around.  It was what you’d expect to find in camps where the kids fight each other to the death.  It was strange because if you were small enough to be intrigued by playing in the sand there was no way for you to get in or out.  Unlike today the playground equipment of the olden days NYC factored more with what could be done affordably and less with safety in mind.  So there was no ladder or any other way in or out of the chicken pit outside of jumping in and climbing out.   What I would imagine was installed for safety was some railing outside of the chicken pit so no one would walk right into the hole. 

Keep in mind that this elementary school only went up to 3^rd or 4^th grade so we are dealing with kids ranging from 5 to 8 or 9.  We’d hardly use the chicken pit as kids.  The sand was dirty and really after your initial use the novelty would wear off and it would be largely ignored outside of a marker for foot races which was tantamount in the hierarchy of 7 and 8 year olds jockeying for status.  Anyway, I remember one morning making my way to the main school building and seeing a small crowd of kids by the pit and seeing the yellow and black police tape all around the railing.  There were a couple of syringes down in the sand and come to think of it something worse must have gone down since the caution tape was put up but the evidence was still there.  I remember thinking that it was a cool thing, mainly because it was out of the ordinary but it didn’t have any impact on our days outside of the chicken pit being shut down either by an order or de facto since no one wanted to go down there. 

The scarier thing that had happened one morning on my way to the main building so I couldn’t have been more than 8 involved the pyramid.  I don’t remember if I saw it or if my brain put together a mental picture.  School started around 8 so we would have to get there by 7:45 to line up and get ready to go into the building.  Getting to school early was another weird source of cache between the kids.  On some level it had to do with hanging out and being kids, meaning busting on each other, saying things we believed were true but with only the limited understanding that kids have.  I would always try to get to school as early as possible in an effort to be cool but living a block away and having responsible adults around me wouldn’t really let that happen.  On this one day we were walking to the main building and see a large amount of people, police cars and tape all by the pyramid.  Apparently only an hour or so before hand someone was shot, (if memory serves over a drug deal gone bad but I’m not sure) and spread out crucifix style with their head on the top of the pyramid and their arms and legs on the steps.  Looking back on it with adult perspective, I don’t remember the teachers mentioning it or being visibly shaken by it.  I definitely remember that school wasn’t cancelled or any other deviation from the norm. 

I’m trying to reconcile whether it was because New York was tougher back in the day or if we’ve become more understanding of how trauma effects people these days.  It’s strange to think about either incident, the syringes or the body, causing a massive uproar by everyone these days.  Maybe it had to do with more of an immigrant population, maybe because so many people were doing drugs and getting killed in new york back then that it wasn’t seen as such a big deal.  I don’t know but do I know we’ve most certainly changed as a society.