Warrant: What to do about the crack-smoker
I currently live in beautiful Pensacola, FL, or as I like to call it, "Hurricane City." My wife and I are currently trying to sell our house in an attempt to move further away from the ongoing path of distruction that seems to start coming our way this time of year.
Part of selling the home includes us doing some minor cosmetic repairs, one of which is replacing some old wood on the eve of our house. Since I am not a carpenter, I decided to ask a neighbor who frames homes for a living, 2-3 days a week depending on if he wakes up before noon. So I walked over to his house around 2:00pm and asked if he could help. He said yes, and we started taking various tools over to my house. I would guess for someone who is inexperienced, such as myself, that this job would take at least 6-7 hours. For someone who knew what they were doing, maybe 3-4 tops. As we went back to his house to collect that last of the tools, he went inside and asked me to follow him for a second. After we entered, he locked the door and proceeded to, I'm not kidding, pull out his crack pipe and smoke a couple of rocks!
After very graciously offering me a hit, which I didn't take, he started telling me that he was wanted in 2 counties for some "minor occurances." I played it cool, because 1) I didn't want him to make him paranoid 2) really needed the work done on my house. So he went to work on the eve and finished in about 2 hours. Then he thanked me, I'm not quite sure what for.
The problem that I have been going back and forth with is weither I should turn him in or not. On one hand he is a really nice guy and always looks out for us; house, odd jobs, shooting the breeze. He has never given me a reason not to trust him. On the other hand, I get pissed when I look at neighborhoods that are run down and infested with drugs, violence and people who are dependent on a monthly government check for no apparent reason. Is this the begining of a good neighborhood going south? Any suggestions on how to approach this?
posted by RED @ 4/14/2006 10:14:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Isaac,
That's crazy. In new york we lived right next-door to this really fancy-looking building that I thought for a long time was one of those ridiculously priced private schools. It turns out that it was a crack rehab center. So I guess a few crackheads doesn't automatically mean the neighborhood is going to "pot."
That's a tough one on whether you should turn him in or not...I mean, if he ever suspected you did it, it might put your family in some danger. I don't know. Tough call.
Posted by chris p.
Issac,
If it were me, I would just stay out of it and try not to let the guy get any closer to me and my family. If you didn't have any reason to suspect this guy before then he probably isn't too much to woory about. Like Chris said, if he or maybe his friends ever suspected you it could be trouble. If you just leave him alone you just have to try not to let him ever think of you and your house if he needs a fix. Crazy experience though.