Louisville Magazine

MAR 2013

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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what it���s like living in poverty. ���Seeing people with stuf you want,��� Jayjuan says. ���If you want it, you���re gonna have to take it.��� Jayjuan would like to have an iPhone, iPod, Beatsbrand headphones, Nike Air Max Speed Turfs. Eric raises a hand. I tell him to go ahead. ���When I���m by myself and it���s dark, I run home,��� he says. Te sun has set since I arrived almost two hours ago, and 2X walks me to my car on 12th, though I don���t ask him to do so. He stops at the end of the walkway that leads to Cosby���s door. In April 2011, 2X tells me, he was driving on Jeferson near 12th when he heard gunshots. ���Found him right here,��� 2X says, pointing to the pavement beneath his feet. ���I���m seeing all the blood pool out of his head.��� Te man���s name was Pete Powell Jr., and 2X is planning an event for the twoyear anniversary of his death. It will be the frst time Powell���s family has returned to the crime scene. 2X calls Powell���s mother. ���Was he 23?��� he asks. ���Nah,��� she says, ���22.��� Django Unchained, Zero Dark Tirty and Mama, all three of which are in the theater as I write this story. (My favorite exchange: ���I got that Mama.��� ���What���s that?��� ���Tat���s that scary one.��� ���Yeah, I���ll take that Mama.���) Te CD Man gives me a copy of Gangster Squad. Te quality is great, though I���m not sure which Asian language is displayed in subtitled characters. While working on this piece, people keep mentioning two spots: Cole���s Place and Big Momma���s. (I also hear about a third spot, a restaurant called Franco���s, but it���s actually in Shively. Oh, and I���m dying to try meat from the smoker on Broadway in the lot of what I���m pretty sure is an auto body shop. I think it���s near 15th Street.) Cole���s Place is a bar on Kentucky Street near 29th, right around the corner from where, last May 17, a shooting spree left three dead. A mound of discolored and soggy stufed animals serves as a memorial. Mark Weaver, a contractor, sees me taking notes. ���Tis one been here longer than A two-year-old stands, wobbles, runs toward another kid and throws a right hook. ���C���mon, punk,��� the two-year-old says. rests on the box it came in. A man whom 2X refers to as Herb says, ���All of Beecher been locked up, except for the kids.��� A twoyear-old sits on the hard foor and sucks on a cookie, chocolate smudging his chubby cheeks. He stands, wobbles, runs toward another kid and throws a right hook. ���C���mon, punk,��� the two-year-old says. 2X, who���s wearing a black suit and tie and an Under Armour beanie, lifts the kid onto his knee, kisses the boy���s braids. ���We���ve even got tough babies in this environment,��� he says. A few of these children participated in a WLKY story about violence in Beecher Terrace. We watch the segment ��� that evening, the next part of the series includes interviews with prisoners ��� and 2X opens the foor for discussion. Kemone ���Chewie��� Tribble,11, and his 13-year-old brother Khalil, who goes by ���Tank,��� were both on TV. Tank tells me he���s used to living in Beecher Terrace. Chewie, talking about violence in general, says, ���You just stay inside and worry about your family. But it won���t go on for too long. Tey gonna get tired of the violence and quit.��� Eric Sanders, also 11, says, ���I worry about people getting shot and stuf. I wish people would stop shooting each other over stupid stuf like dice.��� 2X asks Jayjuan Taylor, a 13-year-old who was also on TV, about After 2X says goodbye and walks away from my car, he turns around and has me roll down my window. ���It just struck me,��� he says. ���We���re holding our meeting where they got bullet holes in the door. We���re numb, man. Numb.��� I hear the exact same nine-word sentence so many times that I don���t have to check my notebook to see if the quote is correct: ���Tere are no sit-down restaurants in west Louisville.��� However, I do learn that a woman named Lisa Goodloe plans to open one this month on Muhammad Ali and 18th, right near the barbershop. It���s going to be called Le-Bossier, after her hometown of Bossier City, La. ���Same atmosphere as in the East End. People will be impressed,��� she says. ���Real silverware. No Styrofoam or paper plates.��� Another thing I learn: It���s easy to fnd bootleg DVDs in the West End. I���ve now met three separate men selling them out of those cases with individual disc slots. I have a business card from a guy who goes by ���the CD Man.��� Te front is an advertisement for CDs, DVDs and a pressure-washing car service; the back asks if you���ve been injured in an accident or fall. Te CD Man sells three DVDs for $10, and one customer buys May 17. Memorials like this all over the West End,��� he says. ���People feel despair, no hope.��� If Weaver had the money, he says, he���d buy boarded-up properties and teach kids how to renovate them. Another idea comes from 71-year-old Rudy Davidson, a Shawnee resident who remembers how white folks started putting up for-sale signs not long after he became the second black man to move to the neighborhood almost 40 years ago. ���Tink a whole lot of kids ought to get drafted nowadays. Clean up the streets,��� he says. I hear so many suggested solutions to the West End���s problems, from condoms to clean-energy jobs. It makes me realize I���ve been spending far too much time reading about the tribulations of NuLu���s Taco Punk. Te front of Cole���s Place is a colorful painted scene of jazz musicians. When I go inside on a Friday afternoon, Raymond Duncan, 62, is with his wife Grace. Duncan says he���s been coming here for about 10 years. He���s having a ���Raymond���: Absolut vodka, V8 Splash Tropical Blend and a touch of cranberry juice. He���s a glasscutter. ���A real good one,��� he says. ���In the West End there are no more manufacturing jobs.��� When I mention Ninth Street, he says, ���Separation like that? Of course we have a race problem.��� John Cole, the owner, is a large man who 3.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 4 3

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