A historical account of Boulevard

A life in Boulevard

Carol Holmes and her husband have lived in boulevard for 25 years.  They spent most of those years in a unique, large brick house surrounded by tall oak trees which hide the house from the street.

The neighborhood school, less than a half a mile down the street, is where Holmes has worked for 23 years.  And now, even after retirement, she returns to the school to work part-time.

Holmes said Chase Street Elementary has definitely gone through a lot of changes over the past 10 years and until recently the majority of the kids were actually not from the neighborhood.

“Most neighborhood kids went to Barrow Elementary because of school choice,” Holmes said.  “Most parents thought their children were too much of a minority at Chase.”

It was about 15 years ago when Athens switched from a controlled choice school system to a system where parents could choose their child’s school.

At this time Chase was about 50 percent Hispanic, 45 percent black and 5 percent white and had not been renovated since 1987.

“If you were making a choice between schools, then no it wasn’t what you’d choose,” Holmes said. “But I stayed because I liked the kids, I was comfortable and I was right up the street.’

“There were several things–I mean you feel as a teacher you’re doing the right thing to stay with the kids who really need the help.”

The school started to change drastically a couple of years ago. 

“In the last couple of years they renovated the school,” Holmes said.  “A group of kindergarten parents said they were going to make it a neighborhood school again.”

Today about a quarter of first grade and 25 percent of kindergarten students come from the neighborhood and this will continue with each grade over time.

“The kids walk and ride their bikes to school,” Holmes said.  “This just adds to the neighborhood feel.”

Holmes said she and her husband appreciate the large sidewalks and the opportunity to walk downtown if they want.

“I love the front porches, I love the number of people who walk,” Holmes said.  “There are people of all ages, from babies to grandparents.”

Holmes describes her neighborhood as friendly and diverse. 

“We intend to stay for good, forever,” Holmes said.  “The diversity is what I love the most.”

Organizations still need donations this Christmas

Christmas is the time for giving, even during recessions.

Boulevard residents can find many organizations in Athens in need of generosity, but perhaps they should look at one started by Boulevard residents, the Cottage.

The Cottage, started by Boulevard women in 1974, always needs volunteers for the 24-hour hotline and food and clothing for victims during examinations.

This organization, formerly known as the Sexual Assault Center of Northeast Georgia, has only survived with the community’s support.

Local businesses helped this center stay afloat, after troubles last summer, by donating everything from fencing to tile for the renovations to the once condemned building.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony commemorated the over $32,000 renovations and a new name on October 21.

“I’m proud to say, not one of those services ever ceased,” District Attorney Ken Mauldin said at the ceremony, speaking of Athenians’ efforts to continue hotline support and assistance to victims of sexual assault during the Cottage’s hiatus.

Glossy wood floors guided visitors through the expanded lobby into a toy-filled room for the children’s reinstated Hero’s Group sessions and into another renovated room for a new adults’ support group.

In addition to these donations, Jackson EMC handed over a $3,000 check on October 22 which can cover at least 10 therapy sessions each for five clients, a service made free for victims with grants like this.

Still on the wish list is a teen support group, an onsite therapist for individual support and more community awareness projects, Hannah Anderson said, child services program manager.

Nearly 500 people from Clarke County have been helped by the Cottage since September 2007, which also serves six other counties.

Clarke County alone had 39 charges of rape in 2007, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and most sexual assault cases never even result in charges.

The center is vital as apparent by the reaction when it closed and considering that just from 1973 to 1996 Athens endured at least eight serial rapists, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.

“The great thing about the center is that when it happened it was a woman-led response,” Julie Meehan said, former vice president on the Board of Directors for the Cottage.

“It started in the seventies, when no one else would have taken it seriously,” Meehan said, a Boulevard resident for nine years. “Since then, we’ve seen an increased recognition and willingness to talk about these issues.”

Help your community

-Donate: Browse the list of items and types of donations needed on their website. The Cottage needs donations ranging from household items to money for training, community outreach and therapy.

-Volunteer:A couple of hours of training for three days will qualify you to be a hotline volunteer. Volunteers offer information and crisis counseling on nights and weekends. “You just have to pick up the phone; they just need someone to listen to them,” Amanda Fleming said, a junior at UGA who volunteers roughly once per week. Call 706-546-1133 or email at sally@sacnega.org.

-Get Help:Call the 24-hour hotline at 1-877-363-1912. As of July 1, 2008, anyone can get a free examination without reporting to law enforcement and still have a year to prosecute offenders.

 

Rocksprings Introduction

Rocksprings, a neighborhood of 153 households, is community in a centrally-located part of Athens. Residents live along Baxter Street, near shops, an Athens Transit bus line and Clarke Central High School.

The neighborhood, which benefits from having two community centers in it, is managed by the Athens Housing Authority. Athens-Clarke County plans to build a park for residents in early 2009.

Residents tend to be involved in the community centers. One, run by Athens-Clarke County’s Leisure Services, offers multiple programs for young people and senior citizens. The other center provides tutoring for students.

The community has an infusion of young people. Clarke Central High School is across the street from the neighborhood, and 41 percent of family members in Rocksprings are younger than 18 years old.

Rocksprings residents tend to be lower-income families. According to the housing authority’s quarterly demographic report, 22 percent of residents make between $1 and $1,999 a year. The report states that 26 percent make between $7,000 and $7,999 and 21 percent make more than $13,000.

This semester, our group has seen the members of the community express enthusiasm about the 2008 presidential election and the Clarke Central High School football team. We hope you will be interested in the information we found about police protection in the neighborhood, the community centers’ activities and high school football.

By Kristen Coulter

A New Community Center

Rocksprings’ community leaders say their neighborhood needs an upgrade, and Athens-Clarke County is willing to grant it.

ACC Leisure Services and the ACC Commission support the proposed Rocksprings Park, the neighborhood’s commissioner, George Maxwell, said in an October phone interview.

The park will be located behind the Athens Housing Authority between Henderson Extension and Columbus Avenue, Maxwell said.

The commissioner said proposals for the park include a new community center, outdoor basketball court, a small picnic area and a renovation of the swimming pool.

“This is what the community is looking for,” Maxwell said.

Jacqueline Elder, Leisure Services employee and director of the current Rocksprings Community Center expressed excitement about the new park in an interview.

“We get to do a lot in this center, but it’s small,” she said. “A new facility would be a fantastic help for what we’re trying to accomplish here with programming.”

Elder plans computer classes, an after school program, teen movie nights and a trivia competitions for students. For seniors, she organizes trips, game days, cooking classes and other activities, she said in an interview. For more information about the current community center, please see our story “Community Life.”

Though bids for the center have not gone out yet, Maxwell said he expects construction to begin at the start of 2009.

By Kristen Coulter

Boulevard experiences little crime

Boulevard is quiet in the afternoon. The streets stretch and yawn as neighbors wave hello after work, and then it slowly returns to its slumber.

In the evening, Boulevard slowly awakens. Residents emerge, using the cracked sidewalks of the neighborhood. Some walk downtown for dinner, others are pulled enthusiastically by dogs. Some walk slowly, hand in hand, while others pound the sidewalk with the rhythm of a slow jog.

Lights flicker on as the sun begins to set. Boulevard seems at peace with itself, with the city.
It isn’t perfect. Residents will boast of the neighborhood’s diversity, of the sense of community. They talk of truly enjoying where they live, but they know its drawbacks.

“I’ve had bikes stolen,” Carol Holmes, a long-time resident of the neighborhood, said. “Potted flowers, things like that. Now, we just don’t leave anything valuable on our porch.”

Crime in the Boulevard neighborhood isn’t rampant. It’s mostly petty theft from cars and porches, according to Lt. Gary Epps, with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department. Epps covers most of the Boulevard neighborhood.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of fear for safety in Boulevard,” Epps said. “I do think that, as with anywhere in Athens, residents fear that they will be victimized in a property related crime.”

Most of the property related crimes are just that–solely theft, with no victim involvement.

“The violators that we have don’t want to interact with the owner of the vehicle or the home,” Epps said. “Their intent is simply to steal property, and they don’t want confrontation.”

Damage to property depends on the method of entry, but more often than not perpetrators are entering unlocked cars and stealing iPods and GPS systems.

Violent crime isn’t an issue. Most of the serious crimes that occur there are between people who know one another, but there hasn’t been an incident in Boulevard in years.

There has been a history of prostitution on Barber Street, Boulevard’s western boundary, but there have been no complaint within the last 18 months. When it does become a problem, Epps and his department act quickly.

“When we do get a lot of complaints,” Epps said. “We do a lot of targeted enforcement action, spend a lot of time in that area, maybe do some stings and take some people to jail.”

In the current economic crisis, Epps has noticed a sharp increase in property-related crimes throughout the Athens area. Boulevard, however, remains relatively safe.

“When I meet with the Boulevard Neighborhood Association, I tell them that Boulevard is doing well in comparison to other areas in the county,” said Epps. “It’s experiencing some crime, but there hasn’t been a sharp increase.”

The crime rate in Athens has been falling since 1992. Boulevard, along with many neighborhoods in the city, has developed neighborhood watch programs. Epps works closely with the Boulevard neighborhood, notifying them of any trends or increases in crime.

According to Epps, a good deal of crime prevention is common sense, like locking cars and putting expensive electronics out of view.

“If a perpetrator is determined, then you can’t really stop them,” Epps said. “But you can do a lot to deter them from picking your car.”

For now, the night air is calm. Boulevard returns to sleep, awaiting the next morning with the ease of an accomplished master. After all, it’s had over a hundred years of experience.

Community Life

The two community centers in the area provide Rocksprings residents with a variety of programming and entertainment.

The Athens-Clarke County Community Center, a facility owned and operated by the Leisure Services department on the edge of the Rocksprings community, provides residents of different ages and varied interests with programs that can fit their needs. The Rocksprings Community Center, a facility in the neighborhood, offers tutorial programs for students.

Jacqueline Elder, 49 and a Leisure Services employee, is in her fifth year of directing the center. She said the majority of the programming at the center is directed at school-aged children and senior citizens.

For kids, Elder said the center provides computer classes, an after school program, teen movie nights and a trivia competition.

She said that although a few high school students come, the children who attend the after school program tend to be about six to 12 years old. Elder said she is trying to improve the after school program and make it a more academic experience for students by providing tutors and encouraging University of Georgia students to provide assistance.

Kids may enjoy visiting the center and playing, but she said they don’t enjoy the homework part as much. To increase the focus on learning, Elder said she requires the students to spend 30 minutes on homework or reading each day.

The center also provides many activities for senior citizens. Elder said the seniors, who tend to live in a section of Rocksprings near the ACC center, enjoy trips,game days, cooking classes and other activities.

She said she develops programs that the seniors are interested in doing, noting that traveling seems to be a favorite among many. The types of trips they take vary, but she said she tries to find affordable day and weekend excursions that the seniors will enjoy.

In the past, the seniors have gone to see plays, visited the mountains, gone on tours and had shopping trips.

Despite all of these programs, the center is fairly small, and Elder said the county plans to build another facility just behind the existing center.

By Kristen Coulter and Whitney Kessler

Unearthing old railroads for new greenways

Boulevard residents will access a proposed greenway at College Avenue through a trail along Pulaski Creek where untamed grass sweeps over an old railroad.

W.R. Toole Engineers, Inc. developed the master plan for the SPLOST project with community input, Derek Doster said, project administrator for SPLOST Program Management.

Along with the greenway and multiuse trails, Pulaski Creek will be restored from its meager state, according to a project concept approved on Oct. 7 by the mayor and commission.

The project concept also states a desire for recreational features such as picnic shelters, playgrounds, and restrooms, as well as intersection improvements at College Avenue and East Hoyt Street.

However, without a purchasing price agreed upon yet for land from the railroad companies, Doster said money can’t be allocated to other features right now.

Grant funding is still a possibility, but at this time has not been pursued, Doster said.

Greenways encourage alternative transportation and have major health benefits for walkers, joggers and bikers, Buice said, co-chair of BikeAthens.

“I don’t commute that way to work, but it’s great for recreation,” Brent Buice said, a Boulevard resident at Yonah Avenue.

Buice said that with the increased gas prices he has seen an increase in bikers, many of whom ride unsafely on roads.

“Now at least six people are riding the same route as I am every morning,” Buice said. “It’s great that there are more people, but there are more people riding without helmets, without easily-visible clothing or riding on sidewalks.”

The greenway could alleviate some of this unsafe riding, but bikers still have to be more careful when riding around pedestrians and still need to wear helmets, Buice said.

There are also economic benefits for the greenways in Athens, Buice said.

“People go to Amsterdam because it’s so bike-friendly, and it’s a spectacle for tourists,” Buice said. “It would be great for Athens to be recognized locally or regionally for being bike-friendly.”

Flagpole writer Kevan Williams advocated in his articles for plant buffers, which Buice said create a psychological barrier between bikers and cars, and infusing local Athenian design into the project.

“There’s a shockingly high cost with making minor tweaks,” Buice said. “I’m happy with a greenway whether it’s a ‘glorified sidewalk’ or not.”

“The ultimate vision that we have is an interconnected route on a protected path, off road path or a greenway,” Buice said.

***

Details:  ACC plans to bring another greenway to Athens along the Pulaski Creek and abandoned rail lines.
Status:  Land acquisition is in process with Norfolk Southern Railroad and CSX Railroad.
Cost:  $984,308
Who’s Paying:  SPLOST funds
Builder:  The bidding process has not opened yet for the construction project.
Estimated Completion Date:  It is expected to run through June 2010.

 

Rain, rain go away

A large wall of ivy cascades down into a garden apartment’s level, where Hope Cymerman has lived since February. A pebbled path at the bottom of the stairs leads to the muddy backyard, where only patches of grass remain.

Cymerman’s home rests in the 500 block of Boulevard, which, as she was told by the ACC Planning Department, has 80 acres of watershed draining into the area.

The houses on both sides of her have increased their ground levels, further lowering her yard’s level and leaving it even more susceptible to watershed.

“It fills up in a single rain, and we don’t have any use for the water,” Cymerman said.

Cymerman’s bright floral shirt pops against the dull, muddy yard. Plants, still in pots, scatter around the yard hanging on for life and waiting to be planted in healthy soil.

Boulevard has had a high loss of permeable surfaces due to development as well as an inadequate draining system, both of which contribute to watershed problems.

ACC plans to fix the draining system with the upcoming SPLOST project.

Cymerman said the project will install a new pipe throughout this area that can sustain through at least 100 years.

Cymerman is also on “stormwater welfare.” 

She refers to the assistance of ACC’s Stormwater program as such because although she could fix her watershed issues on her own, she chooses to endure the wait for assistance in order to have construction costs paid for by the program.  This program will landscape slopes into her yard, which will lead to a new drain that can flow into the small creek behind her house.

A blue, plastic rain barrel sits against a terraced wall, once covered with ivy.

Cymerman had to remove the ivy and pay $30,000 to reinforce this wall when she bought the house because of all the water damage.

Her home now has concrete flooring to avoid water damage after a number of floods occurred during previous homeowners’ stay there.

The rain barrel, advised by the ACC Stormwater program, hasn’t provided any relief of watershed problems.Still muddy from weeks-old rain

“I guess it is nice to have water during the drought, though,” Cymerman said of the silver lining.

***

Details: As part of the program, the 500 block of Boulevard will have stormwater drainage systems repaired for improvement in drainage and water quality.

Status: A preliminary design will be presented to a public forum on December 15 and then to the mayor and commission for approval in the January and February voting cycle, Jason Peek said, ACC engineering administrator of transportation and public works.

Estimated Cost: $375,000

Who’s Paying: SPLOST funds

Builder: Bids for the project will begin after the design plans have been approved and finalized.

Estimated Completion Date: The design phase should be complete in Spring 2009, and construction should begin in Summer 2009 when the contractor is assigned, Peek said.

Rocksprings Police Ridealong

 

Baxter Street Substation

Editor’s Note: Pseudonyms are used in this story
to protect the identities of officers and victims involved.

Never been arrested?

The metal divider in the back of the cop car jams your legs into your midsection.

The lock on the back door is removed, for obvious reasons.

There is a small gap between the headrests to talk through, like a teller at the bank.

And there is a distinct smell engrained into these fraying leather seats, which even the officer’s ever-present bottle of Oust! can’t reverse.

An Athens-Clarke County sergeant swings open the silver, blue and gold-lined Impala door. “Yeah, I guess the cop car could be seen as a deterrent,” he quips.

Unless you live in Rocksprings. Then it may signify progress.

***

Carl, an A-CC officer assigned to the Rocksprings neighborhood out of the West precinct, sits in the parking lot of the Omni Club on Broad Street and punches data into a heavy-duty Panasonic F-30 laptop, his personal GPS device, ordinance manual and e-mail provider.

With the recent rise of robberies in the area, Carl must patrol all gated communities to look for suspicious persons. At 4:12 p.m., 12 minutes into his shift, he finds two.

Two black youngsters, about 10 years old, are walking out of the shopping center toward the Beechwood apartment complex, where two or three burglaries have been reported in the past week.

Easing his squad car toward the curb, Carl asks the kids what they’re doing. Their grandmother is in the Laundromat, they tell him, and they’re going for a walk until she’s done drying the clothes. Unconvinced, Carl whips the car around and looks for an elderly woman with a load of laundry. There she is, in the back-right corner of the building.

“You’re out here swimming in a sea of lies,” Carl says. “The truth is work.”

A few minutes later, as Carl waits at a stop light, a gold Buick rolls through a red light.

Got her. He flips on his lights and guides the car into the Kinkos parking lot.

There’s a 5-year-old in the backseat who apparently wasn’t buckled, and the driver, a middle-aged black woman, begins to give Carl attitude, saying the light was still changing, her son was getting more comfortable and that her driving record was unblemished.

“Well, not anymore,” Carl tells her.

Another officer, Josh, pulls up in a separate squad car. The two casually chat while Carl writes the woman a citation for failure to obey a traffic signal.

The routine stop handled, they meet for dinner at Moe’s. They talk about their friends’ floundering relationships, Georgia football, hiking on the weekend and whether women should have breast reduction surgery. As with many of their conversations, the topic eventually shifts to who has orchestrated the largest bust recently.

Most are drug-related, which can be attributed to the transplants who come into neighborhoods — like Rocksprings — and sell illegal narcotics. When the product is readily available, it quickly accounts for a large percentage of the problems.

“The worst I’ve ever seen it,” says Josh, an eight-year veteran with the A-CC police department.

And here’s the scary part, he says: It will only get worse.

***

Carl receives a call on his radio. There’s been an alleged bike theft in Zone 2, which isn’t his designated patrol area. But with the other officers on break, he must respond to the call.

The sun is starting to set — the truest sign, he says, “that the day’s monotony is coming to a close.”

He slowly travels down Best Drive, a poorly-lit side street off Broad. Carl shines his spotlight on the houses, looking for the victim’s home. He pulls the car in front of the house, where Michelle, a 40-year-old single mother, answers the door in the dark, her porch light blown.

She says she gave her rickety old bike to a black male who occasionally comes around asking for money. The man said he needed the bike to get to work, where he would be for only a few hours, and that he would return it by mid afternoon. It was now 7:15, and Michelle was worried.

It’s a dinged-up mountain bike — valued generously at $75, she says — but it has a companion seat for her young daughter. They ride to school together.

Carl heads back to the car to grab an incident report and notepad.

“If it feels like something’s wrong,” he says, “you better trust those instincts.”

Michelle didn’t, despite the obvious warning signs.

The man always offered to cut her lawn in the summer, though no one on the 100-block had a lawnmower. He often wore ratty clothing, marked with mud and grass stains. She described the man as having no front teeth, or that he had filed them down so low they were barely visible.

“Well,” Carl started, “people who use crack cocaine often lose their teeth.”

Michelle shook her head, and moved the hair out of her young daughter’s eyes.

“Guess I’m a sucker for those in need and with a good story,” she says.

To keep future incidents like this from happening, Carl offers to replace the bulb on the front porch, which she couldn’t reach. He spent 10 minutes on the porch. Inside, Michelle fixed him hot chocolate.

After filling out the incident report, Michelle’s 7-year-old daughter, Leena, invites Carl into her room, showing off her grandmother’s salmon-colored quilt and the walls adorned with butterflies.

He tucks Leena into bed.

Michelle says the perpetrator gave her an address where he was staying with his aunt and two friends. It’s about two minutes up the road. There’s a stained-glass door and two plastic trash bags on the front step, she says.

It’s now 7:38 as Carl drives down Broad Street, pointing out a BP gas station where two weeks ago he arrested three men involved in an illegal gambling and drug distribution ring.

“That’s the drug money that supports terrorists to blow our country up,” Carl says, spitting out the driver-side window.

***

His squad car pulls up to the 200-block on N. Billups Street, the address Michelle gave. Carl walks up to the front door, noting the trash bags and door that matched the description.

Carl knocks twice, awakening four dogs in the house that begin to bark.

No answer.

He walks around the side of the house, shining his flashlight through the basement window, looking for the bike.

He finds one. It’s a metallic Diamondback mountain bike, with a plush white and black seat and rusting chain.

He calls Michelle to identify it.

Not hers.

Both she and Carl had been misled, increasing the likelihood they would never find the bike.

“You gotta have the right attitude at all times,” he says, driving away. “But it’s hard not to get jaded. When you’re dealing with the same things and the same people over and over again, it’s hard not to.

“You try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but a lot of people I know are not hanging out in the street at night. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they’re doing. You help where you can, but when you’re dealing with bad people all the time, you have to have a balance or you’re going to get stuck.”

***

Driving down Springdale Street, a popular residential area for UGA students and faculty, Carl sees a hooded biker who is riding without a reflector or bright clothing. He’s cruising down the right side of the street, listening to his iPod.

His name is Terrance.

The black male, about 25, tells Carl that he’s going to meet his fiancée once she gets off work. As Carl drives away, he asks dispatch for a background check.

Turns out they’ve met before — Terrance stole a vehicle two years ago.

While Terrance stands on the corner of Baxter and Rocksprings street to wait for his fiancée, his bike about 100 yards away in the bushes, Carl drives his squad car over the curb and hops out. They chat briefly, though Carl seems dissatisfied and unresolved.

“It’s hard, man,” he says a few minutes later, while fumbling for his cell phone charger. “People look at me doing that and say, ‘Ah, he’s a racist.’ I’m not a racist. I’m just doing my job.”

***

With the power in his radio fading, Carl pulls into the Baxter Street police substation, where he finishes filling out the incident report for the stolen bike.

He sits at one of the cops’ cubicles, thumbing through the pages of the Georgia Law Enforcement Handbook.

The charge is found on pg. 578: 16-8-4, Theft by Conversion.

He writes the narrative in all capital letters.

“It’s easier to read,” he says, scratching his bald scalp and rubbing his eyes.

Carl is exhausted. He got just four hours of sleep the previous night after running errands.

Deer season was just underway, and he needed a protective case for his new hunting pistol. He went out this morning in his backyard, looking for rub lines and patterns in the deer’s tracks, like he was surveying a crime scene.

Got close to one deer, about 10 or 15 yards away, but he couldn’t shoot through the tall, dense shrubbery. No matter.

“There’s some trophy bucks back there,” he says.

Carl is at ease now, sipping long and slow from his steaming black coffee. It’s been a slow night, he says, measuring the night’s worth in how many “bad guys” he locks up during his shift.

“I lock folks up like it’s going out of style,” he says, laughing.

The sergeant enters the substation to collect the incident report. He pores over the information, telling Carl to check this box, add that sentence. The sergeant, too, takes a long, deep breath.

“It’s the same mess every night,” he says.

An hour remaining in his shift, Carl must drive around the residential neighborhoods and businesses — a new procedure implemented after the recent string of burglaries in the area.

“People shooting each other, pointing guns at each other, stealing, robbing, the drugs,” Carl says. “You hear it over and over and you don’t forget it.”

***

 

Despite the 23-degree temperature outside, Carl rolls down the windows in the cop car, listening for the sounds of Rocksprings, the potential cries for help.

He turns onto Dallas Street, “a long-standing drug hole,” he says.

Anthony, an older black male with faded overalls and mud-spattered boots, emerges from a row of bushes beside a rundown shotgun house. Carl recognizes him.

Why you standing outside a crack house?  Carl asks.

Waiting for a friend, Anthony replies.

You on drugs?

No, sir.

You ever done drugs?

Yes, sir. A while back.

Carl leans closer to the passenger-side window.

What drugs did you do?

Just marijuana. A little ecstasy, too.

Where’d you get it?

And with that, Anthony nods his head in the direction of a small, two-bedroom apartment farther down the block. Carl scribbles the information in his notepad, like a reporter gathering facts for a story.

“You know your life is more valuable than that, right?” Carl reminds him.

“Yes, sir,” Anthony says. “Thanks for lookin’ out.”

***

There’s a new drug that “has the streets on fire,” Carl says. It’s called Water, a hallucinogenic cocktail of formaldehyde, PCP and GHB, a date-rape drug. The latter has directly affected Carl’s family.

His younger sister was drugged, raped and beaten. Therapy hasn’t much helped.

“A man proposes, but God disposes,” Carl says, quoting from the Bible. “I pray that every day.”

He tunes into a gospel radio station during every shift, keeping the volume just above a murmur. Tonight’s message is about life fulfillment.

Not coincidentally, the conversation shifts to the close calls Carl has encountered while serving on the thin blue line.

A gun has been put to his head when he intervened during a car robbery. He’s tasted the barrel of a shotgun. Buck knives have been drawn on him.

In Rocksprings, he’s gotten into physical altercations. Some have threatened to shoot him. Others promised they’d cut his head off.

It’s a risky line of work, particularly when many of his shifts are without a partner.

“Once they know you’re out there, they try to use intimidation,” Carl says. “Yeah, this job will keep you on your toes.”

And this job, he says, also exposes many social ills.

Like when Carl busted a white teenager on four counts of drug trafficking, but the charges were reduced in juvenile court. It still angers him several months later.

“So many problems with politics in this city,” Carl says. “One kid admits to a bunch of crimes, four counts, but it goes to juvenile court. Hell, my safety is jeopardized every night, and it went to court, four freakin’ charges, and he’s going to school the next day.

“The system is designed for treatment, and I’m not opposed to that. But we’re making them bold and brazen when they’re not punished. It makes me disgusted, and they say drugs are a victimless crime. If they want that next fix, they’re going to do whatever it takes to get it.”

And in Athens, that can mean plenty of burglaries.

***

Panic at 9:22. Another burglary.

Carl zips around a hospital parking lot, shooting out of a back street and driving 60 mph down Baxter Street, his lights flashing.

“Well, you’d rather have property crimes than person crimes,” he says, cutting off his lights and pulling into Athens Eye Associates, a business across the street from Clarke Central High School and adjacent to a college apartment complex.

Carl slinks out of the car and disappears behind the two-story building. After a few moments, he runs to the top balcony. Backup arrives three minutes later.

Twenty-six minutes later, Carl returns to the car, almost disappointed.

False alarm.

The windows and doors were all secure. Only two screens on the top floor were bent.

Carl flips open his laptop. Another message comes across the screen: an open-door burglary on Prince Avenue, at the Open MRI and Imagining of Athens.

“What else?” he mutters to himself.

He arrives on the scene in four minutes, parking in the circular driveway in front of the building. While stepping out of the car, a silver Chevy Cavalier with three passengers pulls up alongside.

Fearing the worst, Carl places his right hand on his gun. He quickly shoos them away from the area.

They needed directions.

“My life is on the line every call I get,” Carl says as he enters the building, “and some things like that, it just seems like common sense that you don’t do it.”

Apparently an MRI machine was taken from inside the building. The front door was open, but there appeared to be no further damage.

“Kind of weird,” Carl says, handing over the incident report to his supervisor, who is also at the scene at 9:50.

Carl’s shift is presumably over — justice served, reports submitted, his squad car en route to The Barn, or police station.

“It’ll open your eyes working in the police department,” Carl says, “because you live and breathe it. You get a full view.”

Asked if the city’s problems upset him, Carl says, “Sometimes it does. A mother came up to me about two months ago, screaming and yelling about the drug problem in the city, and asking how I could not do anything about it.

“Her 13- and 14-year-olds were hooked on drugs and had been raped. I tell her, ‘I’m doing everything in my power…’”

And he never finished the story.

***

At 10:18, a black station wagon curiously drives forward during a red light and stops in the middle of the intersection, horns honking, expletives flying.

The driver reverses to his original position.

“Damn it, we’re two minutes away! Now I have to pull over this idiot!” Carl yells.

Carl flips on his lights and the black Park Avenue pulls into the left turning lane.

Then he jets in front of oncoming traffic.

Startled by the driver’s indiscretions, Carl waits as the man speeds up in the shopping center plaza, darting right and out of view.

Carl races after him, and catches a glimpse of the vehicle ducking behind the Captain D’s on Atlanta Highway. He cuts him off around the drive-thru.

The man bolts out of the car and runs behind the dumpster. Carl screams for the man to get down, pinning him in the woods and waiting for backup. He can’t get the man’s hands behind his back. So he rubs his face in the pine needles, drawing blood above the right eye.

“Whatever it takes,” he says.

Within two minutes, six more patrol cars show up at the fast-food restaurant. A sergeant hauled off an observer in a separate squad car, arriving at the precinct at 10:26 p.m., six hours after the shift began.

Carl came back to the precinct 40 minutes later, after filling out some paperwork.

“It got interesting there at the end of the night, huh?” he says, squeezing a tube of sanitizer and rubbing his hands clean of the man’s blood and sweat, and of the day’s work.

He’ll be hunting with his new pistol in six hours. And then it’s back on the streets, patrolling the city on fire.

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