Urban Studies

So today I'm waiting for the bus a couple blocks from my apartment when this woman asks me if I know where she can get some weed. The reason I'm out of my apartment instead of taking a much-deserved nap is a memo that appeared yesterday in the elevators stating the following: "The fire alarm systems will be tested Tuesday, October 26 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. If you have any questions please call the management at" etc.

This memo set off several trains of thought in my brain, none of them reassuring. First of all, if there was a real fire, what would they do? Would they stop running the fire alarm? Would they go around to the apartments and tell us about it? Or did they expect us to read this memo and then still leave the building every single time we heard the alarm go off? Complicating matters is the fact that no one ever leaves the building anyway when the fire alarm goes off, so if this was intended to be a drill it wasn't going to work. For another thing, how could testing the fire alarms possibly require eight hours? What the hell can you be doing to fire alarms that takes eight hours? Are there different ways to flip the switches? I theorized (and my theory was bolstered by the reaction of the first person I complained about this to) that the management had actually devised a cunning strategy to get us out of our apartments so that management-sponsored burglars could relieve us of our valuables.

Nonetheless, I am not a great fan of loud bell-ringing, and so I got out of my apartment as soon as I could when I got home and went to the bus stop to go to the discount grocery to buy truly vast amounts of salsa. I was just beginning to be relieved that lining of the garbage can that so often has pornographic Polaroids in it did not have any this time when the woman asked me about getting weed. I do not understand why anyone would choose a garbage can across the street from an old folks' home as a dropoff point for pornographic Polaroids, but someone apparently has. One can only speculate as to how the old people react. Perhaps their cataracts or other visual ailments impair them sufficiently that they do not see them. In this case (and this case only), these impairments could be counted as a blessing.

The first time I saw them, not particularly wanting the exploitation of women by the Polaroid corporation to continue unstopped, I thought about pulling them out of the lining and putting them into the garbage can proper. I realized then that this would probably signal to the other people waiting at the bus stop that I was some kind of pervert, and enough of them look suspiciously at me anyway that I decided to pass, looking away for the rest of the time I waited like people try (for principle's sake) to avoid looking at three-car pileups on 495. Ever since then, I've looked for the photos when waiting at this bus stop, apparently so I can avoid looking at them on principle. The human mind is a convoluted thing.

Anyway, I had just stepped back from the garbage can when the woman behind me asked if I was "from around here." Having lived in Silver Spring for 15 or so years, I said yes. She said, "Oh, I'm from South Carolina. Do you know anywhere where I can get some weed?" I asked her to repeat what she said; like so many other things, I knew what it was but I couldn't believe it. She repeated, "Where can I get some weed? Some smoke?" and made helpful smoking motions with her hands and mouth. I immediately denied all knowledge (mainly because I don't have any), while pointing out that there were undoubtedly people around here who were better-informed on this matter than I.

After I turned around to stare at nothing again, a raft of questions floated through my mind: Do I really look like someone who would know that? Why would that offend me if it were true? If I knew, would I tell her? Does she think that now I'm going to inform on her to the police? She then interrupted my train of thought by asking again, "You're from around here?" This time, though, it had a dubious edge to it. I pointed at my building, visible from the bus stop. Now I wondered further: Do I look like someone who acts like a ganja dealer and then takes in people who ask him about where to get some weed? How would you do that if you wanted to? Is her dubious question related to the fact that I'm white or the fact that I don't know where to get any weed? Does she think that since I'm from Silver Spring, I should know where to get weed, like people from Las Vegas know how to play blackjack? Or was it just simple curiosity?

Cities have many challenges. So do their inhabitants.

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