Mr. Ron’s Neighborhood

Ron is a real person. Sometimes I wish he wasn’t.  Welcome to Ronday!

Ron and my sister eventually wore out their welcome at Lola’s place. Well, and Lola was about to get evicted too – because she decided to stop paying rent on her section 8 housing.

So Ron found a place over an hour from where he worked, and moved my sister out there. Now, my sister had no car or means of transportation other than the bus system, and knew no one other then my dad & stepmom, who lived in the next town over and both travelled a lot.

But Ron felt it was a great place for them because “they saved lots of money.”

Soon after moving out there, Ron realized that the commute for him to go to work was just too long, so he began staying in town with friends each week, leaving my sister in this new place all by herself. She didn’t have a phone because they couldn’t afford to put one in. Ron did give my sister a beeper, however, so he could beep her and she could walk to a pay phone and call him on a calling card.

He didn’t have a beeper, so she had no one of contacting him, except at BK if he happened to be working then. And my sister kept “misunderstanding his schedule” because often times she would call and he wouldn’t be scheduled to work like she thought.

My sister found a job working at a grocery store bakery, that required her to be there by 4:00 AM every morning. The buses didn’t run that early, so she would leave her house shortly after 3 AM and walk there.

When I paged her one day she called me back and told me all about her job and walking to work. I asked her if she felt frightened, and she said not since she’d gotten to know a few people she saw on her route every day.

People at 3:30 AM?

“Newspaper men?” I asked.

“No – just a few girls who work at a club downtown and are usually getting home around that time – and some of their boyfriends.”

I asked her for her street address and made arrangements to come visit her that weekend. I went to her dumpy little place – barely the size of a closet and she shared a bathroom with others on the hall.

“Why are you staying here?” I demanded. “What does Ron have to say about all this?”

“Ron says it’s fine – the cops patrol this place all the time – and he likes being able to take care of me.”

“The cops patrol this place all the time?” I asked. “Ron calls this taking care of you?!?”

“Oh yes,” says my sister. “This is a very popular neighborhood. Why, it was just on the news the other day as the city’s #1 street!”

I looked up the news story she referred to. The street was in fact #1 in the city . . . for drug-trafficking and prostitution.