Rev. Lice

Hey girls! Let's all get homeless in Obama's old 'hood. Nice & warm there.

1992 was the year, and the directive was clear. If anyone lands in the New Life shelter, get them out of there fast. Of course, one of the many Hughes African-American Schizophrenia sufferers called and said, “I’m stuck up in Reverend Rice’s shelter.” Military man’s son, SSI people could not afford cell phones yet, and like my patience for the crooked, Mafia-loving, truth-impaired politicians in Saint Louis, I am sure the pay phone near NLEC is gone.

I showed up there for the first time to get the guy out, but was not allowed in, even with my cool business card featuring the two gold Missouri state bears. “What the hell is this?” I asked Larry Rice’s sentry. Later, another call was received with the same message. “Please, get me out of here.” On that visit, I was allowed to see the bunk beds, and there was no talk of Jesus. I quickly ascertained the staff was not equipped to deal with cases of serious mental illness, but they had a pair of socks for my unhappy client.

Now we must do the stale MI Warp Jump [MI = Military Intelligence] to a #97 bus in the night. Francis Slay and Bi State Development do not want to admit certain gentleman can enter the shelter any time they want if they have served their country with guns and bombs—no State Department paper pushing accepted. The topic with these fellows was your sickly VA. “I don’t go there” said one vet. The other sounded positively NYC as he said, “I’ve got to call my lawyer and get around to suing my old landlord.” Kids, I saw them go in the now closed shelter, and I know what time it was.

“Doing a little spying?,” Hughes constantly asks. Later, the civic angst was pervasive as apparently heroin was for sale on the Reverend’s lot. Chinese pill mill tablets that work like smack? I believe they had those too. Oh, the drama as yet another fireman was dispatched to revive junkies unresponsive on the asphalt. I was not there, but Kev Killeen told me about it, as did the flying saucer chasers at 550 AM.

Circling back to the Tony Mafia House, I did see Larry’s van next door, and I do not think any junior city attorney wants to explain the practice of wearing dark sunglasses, smoking cigarettes, and staring at me coffee cup in hand on Tony's front porch. They jacked the Reverend’s van that sat in front of their duplex? I don’t think so! Calling taxis to send the kids to private schools? Bill Hughes notices this sort of stuff.

Later, the guys who took apartment B next door brought two barbeque pits, lawn chairs, and unfurled a large American flag. By then safely and involuntarily in a new “Drug House,” I am constitutionally allowed to mutter this on the #73 bus: “Selling dope?” Yep, the remedy for drug traffic in Saint Louis is apparently to rake leaves, sweep the sidewalk, and stare at the offenders. Call the cops? This is dangerous, as anybody in Mike Brown’s family will tell you. Get it straight: Bill saw the African-American baby in about 1995, and she would later be shot and killed for no reason standing in front of one of those nifty public school academies neoliberal & neoNazi hipsters renovating old houses love so much. With all of the money in the world, I won’t buy one.