In the corner, Officer Steve Revor listened patiently as we vented our anger and frustration over the apparent crime spree at Calvin and Geneva’s. One former neighbor tearfully revealed how constant drug dealing at the house had finally driven her family away from the neighborhood they loved. Someone else talked about condemning the house and forcing them out. Others spoke of Geneva’s notorious family and Calvin’s drinking and their combined indifference to neighborhood concerns.

We were, I recall, working up quite a froth of indignation when Officer Revor finally spoke up: 'Why don’t we ask them what’s going on?'

Silence.

'I’ll just go down and get ’em, and we’ll have a talk,' he said, smiling.

The air left the room, and people who a moment ago were so clear in their resolve, so certain of the bad guys, gasped at the thought of confronting the enemy. But it was too late for debate, because Steve was already out of his chair and halfway down the front steps.

He soon returned with a very sober Calvin and Geneva in tow, and, when it was clear that nobody in the group was going to say anything, asked them what was up.

We listened as Calvin, eyes downcast, told of how Geneva’s nephews and their friends had gradually taken over the house and turned it into one of the city’s busiest crack dealerships. He described how he’d been beaten up a couple of times in his attempts to evict these hoodlums from his home and how he wouldn’t dare call the cops on them, for fear of his life. He’d been out of work now for a long time, he said, and felt useless, powerless.

Geneva didn’t say much. She seemed a little chagrined at having her home life displayed so openly to neighbors she’d known for so many years, but her attitude, if not quite contrite, was respectful. It seemed she felt some loyalty to her disruptive relatives and viewed the chaos as an unfortunate but unavoidable part of life in the big city. Her obvious embarrassment, her fear of judgment, the way she appeared slightly ticked off about the whole scene, combined to create, for me at least, a portrait of a real person. It was easy to see that Calvin was a victim in all this; Geneva’s role was more complicated—yet no less human.