crystelle002

Let’s talk about “hood gothic.” Young men scrubbing blood and brains off their white sneakers with old toothbrushes. The caterwauling of crackheads in the alley, punctuated by what you hope is only a car backfiring or a kid playing with firecrackers. Windows blacked out with aluminum foil and bedsheets, windows boarded up with plywood, broken windows gaping like enucleated eyes. Winos babbling in tongues outside the corner store, beseeching man, god, and the devil himself for just one more dollar, one more bottle. Graffiti like sigils, like signposts to the underworld, illegible letters pointing toward the trap house in the cul-de-sac. Old ladies in house coats sitting on the front porch, surveying the block with rheumy eyes.