The Holly by Julian Rubinstein

Author:Julian Rubinstein [Rubinstein, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub

18

A chain-link construction fence went up in Holly Square. Tractors began digging a foundation for the new club. Alvin Jones, Nathan’s brother, who still lived in his childhood home, went by to look. Changes were coming so fast to the neighborhood that Alvin had started calling it “reverse segregation”—a reference to the 1960s, when whites left in droves. Now it was Blacks who were leaving.

With home prices rising, many longtime Northeast Park Hill residents decided to sell. Among them was Ernestine. After fifty-three years in her home, she put it on the market, accepting an offer for $117,000. Four months later, after a renovation, it sold again for $301,000.

Most residents relocated to the adjacent city of Aurora or neighborhoods farther north, but not Ernestine. Then seventy-six, she had been accepted as one of the first residents of an affordable senior living home on the site of the old Dahlia Shopping Center. The redevelopment of the Dahlia was finally taking shape. The “Dahlia Campus” included a mental health center and a planned forty-thousand-square-foot garden that would offer free food to the community.

At a subsidized rate, Ernestine was given a small apartment with a balcony looking out over 33rd Avenue at the Red Bricks. She turned the volume up on her church programs to drown out the sounds of gunfire and sirens.

A few blocks away, Terrance sat outside his office in camouflage. He was adjusting to a shift in the neighborhood few had seen coming: with only six months to the opening of the Boys & Girls Club, Carl “Fat Daddy” McKay and Joel “Way Out” Alexander, who were both Park Hill OGs, had opened a new shop right in Deloris Wilson’s strip. For the first time since the Holly Shopping Center burned down, the Bloods had a base right in the Holly.

The new establishment had literally opened with a bang. According to Fat Daddy and Way Out, they’d given the previous proprietors, who had alleged ties to the Crips, until sundown to clear out. The men did leave, but that night, in apparent retaliation, a Blood was shot in the leg behind the store.

Bryan Butler felt like he was back in the 1990s again, only the OGs were all in their forties. No matter, they still had their cliques of younger Bloods “up under” them, and they still believed that they were the self-appointed caretakers of the neighborhood. Terrance told Bryan he was going over to the new store. Bryan shook his head and watched Terrance walk over. This would be interesting, he thought.

The shop was at the far end of the strip, at the corner of 33rd and Holly. Terrance walked past the Horizon and Ned’s and the hair salon. At the end was a small asphalt parking area in front of what looked like a former gas station or auto repair shop. It consisted of one car bay next to an office. There was no signage out front. Terrance opened the door. Carl was behind a desk in a camo hat.

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