Slaughter on 12th Avenue

[ FOR BETTER RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE ] We were tipped off by Bellascribe about graffiti scrawled upon a wall in her neighborhood. We made for the scene post haste. Just for good luck we drove past the Charleston Police Department which is right on the way. We saw several officers moving toward their vehicles, but none appeared to have a canister of paint remover on their gun belts.

Upon arrival at the crime scene we observed a small concrete block structure which had been nearly slaughtered by a farm tractor. The final indignity had been delivered by a devotee of the redoubtable Gloria Anzaldua in red paint more readable in the photo below. We remember the giants of graffiti: " Behold God Army ", " (Obey) Andre the Giant " and some recent ruddy renditions of the Jolly Roger. We don't have Ms. Anzaldua's thoughts in our menu of public defacements, but we have it on good account that she speaks to a sense of "outsiderhood ." This is a nice neighborhood which is rapidly growing in real estate value as the County Tax Assessor can easily confirm. We presume that Bellascribe would prefer that quotations from Her Outsidership be rendered outside of her hood.

We regret that the Charleston Police have not made this a blue light special, but they've been otherwise detained. We've had a few thousand folks in town who required considerable wet nursing in addition to the usual police protection. The shooting season has opened a bit early this year with a promising run that's likely to exceed that of " CATS ". CPD also rounded up five alleged humans for a string of robberies, kidnapping and sexual humiliation upon several local businesses and their employees. In today's POST & COURIER, a tear stained letter from some hotel character demands that they become tour guides as well. The list, as they say, goes on and on.

We took our header from "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue ," a book and play about actual murders by union thugs on Grove Street in New York, but they decided that Tenth Avenue sounded better. The location of this site specific art is the corner of Twelfth and Grove Streets, a lovely neighborhood which surely deserves better. While removal of graffiti has sadly become yet another chore of the Charleston Police, we don't think that they would mind a civilian taking over that part of police work in this case. Up against the wall, you all.