On the street, it is surprising to see young men who do not affect the American gangsta stances and poses.

A few weeks ago a Traffic Enforcement Officer was walking down the sidewalk, issuing tickets. The city needs to keep feeding the machine that is the city, fifty-ish dollars at a time. Recently they removed some parking spaces and replaced them with yellow curbs -- no doubt it has increased the volume of infractions. Sly, in a bureaucratic conniving way.

The first car she tickets is a yellow Maserati. There are three Maseratis that occasionally park on this block of the street. All are driven by Japanese students. There is a Japanese karaoke club they frequent in a building upstairs; they wait outside and smoke until it opens in the evening. An expensive door fee to get in pretty much keeps everyone else out: if that is the plan then the plan is working. I think it is the plan. 

On the street, it is surprising to see young men who do not affect the American gangsta stances and poses. Even here, they are on an island. They stand by an expensive car, flashy rims, but they do not use that car as a portable stereo to blast the vicinity. Polite is it's own cool.

As the Enforcement Officer makes her way, she comes to a sprawl of heroin kids on the sidewalk; at least two are fully passed-out. She pauses for a moment, then steps over them to issue another ticket, this time to a beaten-up old pick-up with red-tape for a tail-light.

A bit later, one of the Japanese kids notices his ticket, shrugs. Doesn't look like he is going to lose any sleep over it.



-jj

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