Crackheads Can Be FUN In The Hawthorne Eco Village

Right after Saturday's Fifth Ward DFL Convention, Housing Director Jeff Skrenes was giving me a ride so I could blog like a crazy man, when my phone rang. It was Hawthorne Chair Peter Teachout. His pregnant wife, JoyAnne, was in the hospital...

Peter needed me to go watch his house and keep it secure.

"Turn the car around," I told Jeff. "I need to go to Peter's house."

Peter has an internet signal, so I was able to make a lot of blogging progress while sitting at their kitchen countertop, eating leftover fried chicken. (Well, I have to get paid for house sitting SOMEHOW) The house seemed like it was in "mid life," with stuff like pastry left on the kitchen counter.

I worried. I fretted. I thought of Peter's children and JoyAnne and the new baby and--being an oldest child, I can't help it--I came up with one awful, worrisome scenario after another.

And then there was a noise at the door. I jumped up, cell phone in hand, ready to call 911 and face down an intruder.

Oh. It was Peter. And JoyAnne was right behind him. She looked fine. It was a mysterious who-knows-what nothing. Could have been false labor. It happens, she said.

Peter gave me a ride home, and I commented on the paint job to his front door contrasted against the color and trim of his house.

"Red, white and blue?" I asked. "You REALIZE when you painted the door blue, you made the house red, white and blue?"

Yes, Peter agreed. The color scheme was no accident. I had to wonder if there was some connection to his truck getting torched on the 4th of July by the crackhead minions who live right across the street, living on borrowed time post-foreclosure, post-redemption period. Like it says on the redneck t-shirt: THESE COLORS DON'T RUN! 

Right at that moment, some random crackhead was standing on the steps of 3020 6th St. N., patiently waiting.

I guess the recent police raid just slowed "3020" down momentarily. It's pretty much back to running at full capacity.

Peter saw the crackhead, too. Suddenly Peter had that Wisconsin country boy grin on this face, the kind of look a guy gets when he SERIOUSLY BELIEVES God has 10,000 angels watching him, and so crackheads visiting the drug den right across from your residence where you live with a wife and three small children (one more on the way) can be a source of, well, amusement.

Refrain," I hissed to Peter. "Refrain."

"Gee," Peter said to me, loud, but he wasn't REALLY talking to me. "That place will be shut down soon. It's been foreclosed. I wonder where people will go to get their DRUGS?! Won't be able to get drugs THERE anymore. TOO BAD."

Words very much to that effect. 

The crackhead stood on the steps and looked back toward us, a woeful sight. First, nobody was answering the door right away to sell him drugs, and now he was being verbally tormented by Peter the Cheesehead. 

Once "3020" is vacant, that whole section of 6th Street will be pretty much cleaned up. So much demolition, so many 911 calls, so much videotape shot by Jake and Gabe of 611 Authentic. But now the area once called "Ground Zero" for drug crime has seen crime drop to ZERO on one particular week.

And yet the dealing continues out of 3020 6th St. N. The time when the House From Hell will be vacant is moving forward steadily; a rental license only allows the drug dealing renters to stay for just so long. Soon enough, they will be OUT.

But until that day one counts the months, weeks, days.

And sometimes one counts the hours.