Hookers, tacos, The Count, & a boy named Mickey

in my first year at Rutgers i lived on a block of town called Handy Street. this was one street over from Seaman. the place was thick with bands. next door was a band Real (later to be known as Boss Jim Getty). across the way was the house of debauchery, here lived the band that would adopt me into their lives. (you can hear some of us over to the right. Lumous. if i can find a place to dump some mp3's you'll get to hear more.) a few houses down was the Headstrong house. these guys were straight edge kids and had the weirdest parties. i walked in on one once and watched a guy cut a chair in half with a chainsaw. more correctly, i was watching the watchers of the chainsaw guy while they stood in silent rapt awe. like i said, a little weird. in another house on the block were the Bouncing Souls. (i've been told). these were the only guys that made it out of the New Brunswick non-scene. eventually,Remote Controlled Yeti would live in my house (when i moved across the street) and Felix Frump would move into that one. Spook Handy was a conceited little folk singer that lived on the corner of the next block.
i lived in this hole of the world for a year and have a million stories from that. for example, the time when someone caught i guy trying to break into an apartment on the street and yelled out to everyone, "Hey! That guy is trying to break into that house!" to which he responded "Fuck you! I live here!" so the first guy shut up and the other one ripped the place off.
this street was where the the Thanksgiving turkey was stolen and nothing else in a B&E.
there was an old curmudgeon that we called The Count. he had a t-shirt with those words in alphabits cereal iron-on letters that he wore as often as he could. also he had a dog we named Cujo that tried to eat it's way through the wall to get at us. with him lived a sister/wife (we never really knew) who had a The Countess t-shirt.
but the point of this post is the seven year old named Mickey. so here's the story of how i knew Mickey.

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Mickey was a 7 year old puerto rican kid that ran up and down the streets in traffic. he had a younger sister named Pebbles and an older one named Niesha. i don't remember when he started coming over and talking to me, but he would bring his sister and a bunch of his friends too. a few of my friends and room-mates sort of took it upon ourselves to watch over them when we were around. he would come into my house and play on our nintendo. once he showed up with 2,000 of his friends and they laid seige on my house. everyone else left and i was stuck trying to restore order. when i finally had to leave for class i literally had a kid under each arm and was kicking a couple more out the door. others would run in when i was occupied thusly. eventually, Mickey and Pebbles started to push them out with me and i was finally free.
i was working at a taco bell that year (the guacamole gun rocked). i would make the biggest fuckin burritos you ever saw cuz i didn't care how much we were supposed to put in. weekly i would hear someone get their 7-layer and yelp "Holy Shit!! Lookit the size of that thing!!" every so often i would steal tacos (that was the year they made those extra long tacos) and feed all the street urchins.
i may have mentioned once before (maybe not) that there was at least one hooker that was always on the corner yelling out "$20. I give you a blowjob for $20!" turns out she was Mickey's aunt. his father told him that she kept getting arrested because the cops hated puerto ricans. how the hell was i supposed to fix that?
once he even invited me to his birthday party. it all just started to get a little too weird.
anyway, i lived on this street for a year. and i remember all this shit. sometimes i wonder what ever happened to that kid. i wonder if he remembers i gave him free tacos.

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