The Disturbing Tale Of Khameron "The Shitter" Lake

Flickr.com photo

With apologies to Peter Teachout, the new chair of the Hawthorne Area Community Council, (HACC) who wants my blog content to be free of expletives so he can share it with (I kid you not) his apparently numerous missionary friends.

But the word "shitter" is integral to this story about Khameron NMN Lake, the scourge of the block...

A resident told me these things over the phone. It turns out--first of all--Khameron has apparently been "banned from the block" in the past. There was a geographic restriction on him at one time (reportedly, and according to this resident) and Khameron more or less followed it. This was a time of relative peace and quiet in the neighborhood, according to this resident, when Khameron was banned.

But now he's not banned--not yet, anyway--and we suffer his pimp and druggie doings on an almost-daily basis while waiting for the system to slowly respond, submitting our community impact statements. (The good news is I have confirmation of at least three statements being submitted, counting my own, and I'm working to "turn pledges into donations.")

In any case...

Some years ago, when Khameron was a druggie but had considerably more brain cells, or so it appeared, this resident actually gave Khameron work which involved--if I recollect the story right--something to do with rain gutters. Even when doing honest work, Khameron is never very far from the gutter, it appears. And--to my amazement, and apparently the resident's amazement, too--Khameron did the work.

"What a fool I was," the resident said. "Letting him on my property."

"Hey," I assured the resident. "If you actually got honest labor out of that crack head, you're a miracle worker. I had no such luck with Worthless Mike Williams."

The resident has long observed the comings and goings of Khameron and learned of his doings. For a period of time, Khameron and his prostitute, Kathy, strung a tarp between two dumpsters and resided there. For a period of time some of the residents at 3119 4th Street North allowed them to sleep in the hallway, but Kathy would conduct her whoring openly in the hallway, and some of the more decent folks were disturbed, so they blew that deal.

Once Khameron had Kathy in a house which had--oh, the luxury!--actual plumbing, but at some point Khameron ripped out the pipes to buy crack. For a long period of time, Khameron and Kathy settled on the scary little garage, the one which has now been torn down.

Near the edge of the resident's property...near the fence and bushes...human excrement began to appear one day. It was not just a little, but a lot. Over time, the place was almost turning into a haz mat site, so much feces was present, and the resident couldn't catch "The Shitter" as she began to refer to her mysterious depositor of doo-doo.

She more or less staked out her own back yard, and one day old Khameron came out of the scary little garage, walked over to the edge of the property to do his business, and was literally caught with his pants down. The resident yelled, shouted, confronted the man who--once upon a time--had actually been his benefactor and paid him wages.

"Sorry!" Khameron said, struggling to pull up his pants. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

He appeared truly chagrined. Even a pimp and a crack head has a little decency left in them somewhere, enough to be ashamed.

After that Khameron stopped crapping at the edge of the resident's yard and found other places to crap. But ever since that day, the resident has referred to Khameron NMN Lake as simply "The Shitter."

"Khameron is too nice a name for him," she told me. "He doesn't deserve a name like that. He should just be called The Shitter."

And, if I have anything to do with it, so he shall be.

Hey, check out the photo of an outhouse I found on Flickr.com. If I'm not mistaken, the roof is made out of a shipping pallet. Clever!