Blackfellas
(Decades, clothing styles and music styles all change, but cars "roar off." Likewise, the calm of a neighborhood is always "shattered by gunfire." You can believe me. I was a reporter for nearly 40 years.)
The kid on the sidewalk was on his way to an "alternative high school" called the "Resiliency Preparatory Academy," a high school for kids who aren't doing well in a "traditional learning environment."
The street calls it "the bad boy school," and the street is far less likely to lie to you than the people who name schools.
The kid's not gonna get a movie, and if he does, it's not gonna win an Oscar.
The kid died in front of a church that was once attended by wealthy Protestants with thin faces and milky skin. When the thin-faced, rich, white Protestants went extinct, the old church became a restaurant that closed because its menu had more ambition than the neighborhood. It's just a big red-brick, empty building now.
The other kids from the school have made a shrine with the kind of tall votive candles you can buy in the Spanish corner stores and some mylar balloons, and they mill around there sometimes with their hoodies and backpacks.
It's not a movie, not at all. It won't become a "cinema classic." It's a grimy death and some tall candles and balloons that are getting just a little slack.
To find out more about Marc Dion, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.
