STAY OUT OF MY HOUSE

The night has moved in on another Memorial Day in the Motor City. The helicopter seeds drop from the maples in untended yards. The druggies and soccer moms have been swept from Hart Plaza after another successful Movement Festival. The heat rises with the damp while the citizens of our city go about their days knowing the winter has left us unscathed but the summer, just beyond the horizon, waits to melt us to our car seats.

Burglary, like the unending scourge of pedal pubs, is the hottest trend in Detroit this spring. My house was broken into and rifled three times last week. I’d like to say it’s the price you pay for living on the edge in Murdertown, or however else I could fancily describe the reality of living here for my more European readers. The truth is that the Casey house has been under our ownership for 60 years, and this has never happened before. Sure, I have had numerous car break-ins, a mugging, multiple friends shot for nothing. Detroit implants a fear in you at an early age, and from that point onward it is merely a countdown of the empty hours until those fears manifest. But hey, that’s the price you pay for living on the edge in Murdertown!