My neighborhood is incapable of shutting up. I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building that while I have the fortune of quiet neighbors, is located on a street that is constantly visited by heavy traffic, booming car stereos, loud drunks and screaming ghetto drama. Ah, the motherfucking ‘hood.

In my last apartment, I lived above a person of some stature in a religious cult that I think is unique to New York, called the Black Zionists. African American men who claim to be the true Jews, chosen by God (you Ashkenazi and Sephardics are full-on fakers, don’t lie now). They were nice enough, I mean, they hated me and my white ass, but they were polite and while they didn’t respond to my hellos, good mornings or the occasional nod in the hallway, they left me to my heathen life, which is enough for me. In some ways I liked the uniqueness that I could claim due to my odd neighbors. Nothing like coming home on a Saturday morning to interrupt a prayer meeting in your stairwell or a conversation along the lines of “After we’ve taken over and crushed all the white people…” I’d squeeze by some huge robed guy wearing a scarf over his face, trying not to trip on the huge staffs covered in duct tape they’d carry around and zip my hungover, sinning devil self up the stairs to my Apartment of Doom. It was a nice little balance, me the White Devil, high all the time, leaving a stench of sin in the hallways with my passing juxtaposed against the holiest of underdogs, the Black Jews. Together, we did our parts in keeping it real in Brooklyn. My only complaint was the damn chanting.

Every weekend my days and nights would be spent with headphones, securely clamped over my ears blasting something, anything to drown out my neighbors. Drums, chanting of nonsense Hebrew, screaming, yelling, stomping over and over in an endless loop on the tape deck from Hell. My favorite was “talent night”, when everyone, young and old would entertain each other with a cappela performances from such greats as Mariah Carey, Led Zeppelin, Usher and Pink Floyd at the tops of their lungs. After two or three days of this God-vaudeville, the headphones would come off and I could expect relative peace for the rest of the week.

Now, living in my new arrangements, I am adjusting to the 24-7 noise pollution variety. I get it from both ends now. The window next to where I sit typing, looks out onto Washington Ave. and it’s non-stop drama. There’s a bar across the street with a gaggle of smokers out front who by virtue of the liberating effects of alcohol, find it necessary to shout every stupid thing that pops into the grey slurpee that’s their brains. Somewhere close by, is an all-night Caribbean dance fest, which in truth, is most likely some old dude with a boombox and a couple of Coronas, but it’s loud enough to be one. Soon there will be the inevitable pseudo fight, where the whole family, from grandfather to toddler will crowd the sidewalk screaming to the whole block everything you’d ever want to know about their drama and who is whom’s babydaddy. I give thanks daily that it’s not me. Since every good pseudo fight deserves a backbeat just as every superhero deserves his own anthem, you never have to look far on my street for the obligatory double parked car, doors wide and stereo blasting with bass powerful enough to loosen fillings and sterilize small animals. Add on top of that the traffic and the busy fire station around the corner, the occasional gunshot/firecracker and a hodgepodge of random screaming and yelling and you’ve got the average evening on Washington Ave. Seven fucking days a week.

My bedroom is at the opposite end of the apartment, far from the street and all the previously detailed noise. However, a nice, quiet little fortress of solitude it is not. The one window in the bedroom looks out into a cul de sac that acts as a natural amplifier for all the apartments in my and the surrounding buildings. With this wonder of acoustical science, I get such classic hits as the lady that screeches gospel hymns in french at the crack of dawn. The person who chants fervently, usually starting around two or three in the morning. Then there’s my neighbor upstairs who is in the habit of what sounds like furniture rearrangement in in the middle of the night. It’s a never ending party.

Still, it’s nothing. I once lived in Williamsburg, in a fourth floor loft on Broadway, with my bedroom window about fifteen feet away from the elevated JMZ line. My eardrums, my bed and everything else rumbled and shook every five to fifteen minutes during the day, blessedly slowing down to every half hour to hour in the evening. On top of this, I had the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway next to me. I learned to sleep like the dead.

Sometimes I think to myself, will it ever stop? Will I find peace in Brooklyn at least once before I die? Then, as if in answer, a car alarm begins it’s blaring and I know…Never, motherfucker. You’re in the ‘hood and I ain’t ya babydaddy.

I’m turning into a bitchy mass of scabs. My face is healing slowly. Laughing or smiling kind of hurts and while I am eating solid food now, it’s a bit of a joke to see it happen. If it didn’t hurt so fucking much, it’d be kind of cool that I now look like a completely different person. The swelling has gone down just enough that I don’t look freakish (well, no more than I ever did), but is present enough to give my face a different dimension and character. It’s kind of creepy. Looking in the mirror feels like someone stole my face. It’s alright though. Another week and I should be fine. Right now, I’m content to hobble around and fumble at things with my scabby fingers. My body’s going to heal, I’m not worried about that.

What’s going on in my head is a different story. I no longer walk down my street at night, opting for roundabout ways to get where I’m going and when I do go anywhere, it’s some fucking tense ass shit and basically removes any interest I had in doing whatever I was going to do. I compulsively scan everyone I pass, looking for the guy that mugged me. I had to go somewhere last night and it took five beers to get me brave enough and even then, I still carried a box-cutter in my back pocket. I own a gun, but I’m not that crazy yet.

I’m moving soon, but only around the corner where it’s at least always busy with traffic and businesses. It’ll be marginally better but I plan on moving again, within the neighborhood but to a more gentrified block or street. I’ve had it with living in the fucking ghetto. The area I’m in is a cancer. It’s eating itself alive and for all I fucking care it can swallow itself whole and die.