I woke up, turned over to my alarm clock and saw a blurred "4:33" in bright red. Mama was standing at my door, telling me to wake up because our next door apartment "neighbor" heard people breaking through a "wooden" basement window that had been nailed shut just a month or so ago after being burgled. So I wake up, put on my slippers/sandals/plastic shoe thingys, and walk slowly to the entrance to our apartment. Our neighbor is whispering that her husband saw a woman and two men open the window and go inside. I called 9-1-1 and the local precinct to report what was happening right then and there.

We waited while we heard them rummaging downstairs, behind a padlocked door, with flashlights to guide them. We waited as they left, carrying some of our possessions with them to the next-door apartment building, the 4-story building abandoned close to a year ago and now home to squatters, crackheads and other types of urban "humans". We waited as we heard one of the men shout at them and bang on the back door of said abandoned apartment building. We waited ten, twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty minutes; until finally we heard them no more, and saw them leave our basement and go back next door, happy with themselves for finding some poor and scared family to rob from, and happy with themselves for getting some money in their pocket.

I wake up at 10 in the morning, to the sounds of mama checking off the list of things that were stolen, most importantly, our 15-year-old air conditioner which barely works anymore. The police never did show up, but mama did see some guy loading our possessions in a pickup truck that was parked in the alley behind the two buildings and drive away. He came back later in a black car to hang out with his friends in the abandoned apartment building next door. And this is the second time that our basement storage room was burgled.

Now this is anger.............



Update: It's now 2:15pm, mama came home with the groceries, and went downstairs to the storage room on a hunch after seeing some men loitering outside in the alley. She opened the door and began to scream and cry, they had taken even more of our possessions. I quickly walked down there and saw the huge hole they left of the window, the same window they had broken in through earlier today. I was looking for a 2x4, or something big that I could use as a weapon. She mentioned that she saw them armed with guns, but I think she said that simply to stop me from going out to the alley. I walked back upstairs to my room to look out the window and saw a black coupe '88-'94 with blue Michigan plates (too far to write down a number) pull away from the crack building. If I was able to run, I would have gone to the street to try and catch a plate number. FUCK!

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