Anatomy of an underworld dealing

I guess the U-Street hood isn’t completely revitalized. While sitting in my car last night listening to an album finish before going into my buddy’s house to complete our bitchin’ Halloween costume I had the pleasure of observing the anatomy of a shady deal in gentrification land.

I was parallel parked between two cars on the right side of the steet. The left side of the street was free of cars. A tan sedan pulled up to park on the left. The driver sat there with his headlights off, as I was. I thought. I wonder what album he’s listening too? (for the record mine was “Homicidal Dolls” by Armageddon Dildoes). Anyway, the guy sits in his car for about ten minutes. Then a an old, burgundy conversion van speeds up and pulls onto the left side of the street about 4 car lengths ahead of the sedan. The sedan flashes it’s lights twice. An arm pops out of the conversion van window and frantically waves. Then the sedan speeds up and parks behind the van as two guys jump out of the van’s side door. They scan the street, look at me for a second, and get in the back seat of the sedan. They hurriedly do their exchange then the two guys jump out of the sedan, look at me again, and then hop back into the van and both cars speed off into the night. The whole thing took about 3 minutes.

I thought for a second that maybe I could be in a little danger having just witnessed that. I thought maybe the van could go around the block and pull up next to my car and pop a cap in me. But then I was quickly reminded of where I was as a mob of about 40 yuppies jogged down the street past my car and the spot where the deal had gone down moments before. Of course I was safe, this was the new U-street, all the renovation and business and influx of professional folk and marathon joggers has chased out all that pesky 80’s crime. Hasn’t it? Yeah, those guys were probably just finishing up a sweet real estate buy.

Originally published on October 28, 2005.