Free Devil's Night by Ze'ev Chafets

explained.
    â€œYeah,” said the policewoman empathetically. “Those shots make me feverish, too.” She gently undid the baby’s diaper, looking for hidden drugs.
    The police stacked the carbine and the cocaine on a counter, next to a box of Oh So Nice Baby Wipes, and began to make a list of the seized material. By this time the young woman had calmed down and was watching the search without apparent emotion. Her composure irked the policewoman. “If we bust you again, we’ll take your baby and get it a good home,” she threatened. “Not no crack house.” The mother nodded, but said nothing. Now that she knewshe was not going to be arrested, she was simply waiting for the police to complete their business and leave.
    As they carried out the search, I could hear people scurrying through the halls. The building is a maze of crack houses, and many of the tenants were quietly leaving with their inventory. Francisco, who had no warrant for any other apartment, seemed unconcerned. This wasn’t his first visit to the building, and it wouldn’t be his last.
    The task force gathered up the drugs and weapons, put them in bags, and trooped down the stairs. Francisco, pistol in hand, potbelly drooping over his jeans, Crimson Tide baseball cap set back on his head, swaggered down the hallway, just to make sure the neighbors knew who had been there. In the stairwell he met a tall, thin black man with a heavily bandaged hand and the look of someone caught in the act.
    â€œExcuse me sir,” said Francisco, his mouth working on a large wad of gum. “I can’t help but notice that you have been wounded.” The man nodded in guarded affirmation. Francisco waited. “I got shot,” the man finally said.
    â€œMay I ask you a personal question?” said Francisco in an intimate tone. “Was the shooting by any chance, ah, drug related?”
    â€œNaw, man, it was a family situation,” said the thin man.
    â€œI’m glad to hear that, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet a family man in a place like this,” said Francisco of Morality, and walked down the stairs, pistol in hand, whistling the theme song to
Rawhide
.
    It was around this time that I decided to move into the city. I had been living in West Bloomfield, commuting every day across the Eight Mile border, then retreating behind it every night. But this was an inconvenient arrangement and, more to the point, I found myself increasingly comfortable in Detroit.
    The time I spent on the city streets, my evenings with the cops or hanging around the Tailwind and various other neighborhood spots, had convinced me that Detroit’s reputation as a violent city was well deserved. It was possible, I knew, to get caught in cross fire, likeJacqueline Wilson, or stabbed or mugged. But strangely, I didn’t feel any real sense of personal danger, certainly nothing that justified the dire warnings of my suburban friends. Years in the Middle East had given me good antennae for hostility, and the truth is, I didn’t feel any. When I went into a bar or a club where there were no other whites, which was pretty often, I got some wondering looks. If I was taking notes, people sometimes clammed up. But that was all.
    My decision to move into the city was made easier by the fact that, during the course of interviewing people, I had become friendly with a number of black Detroiters. They rarely admonished me for living in the suburbs—to them it seemed natural—but the time I spent with them made Detroit seem a less alien place.
    Many of my new acquaintances had little experience with books and authors; most of the younger ones had known very few whites. But they surprised me with their willingness to speak openly about their lives and their city. Clearly they enjoyed the chance to educate an interested foreigner. “I know you’ve never eaten any of this,” a woman would say, handing me a plate of