Page 49 - The Jazzsipper Novel

48

THE JAZZ SIPPER

Sometimes Uncle Frank would go to the track and place their bets or Jimmy
the local neighborhood runner would go for them. His cut would be 10 percent
on all winnings. Plus people would tip him, that’s how he supported his
gambling habit.

After Aunt Jessie finished going through the sports section and making her
final picks, she noticed and article in the front section of The Times-
Picayune newspaper titled CYCLED OF DEATH, How New Orleans
Became the Nation’s Murder Capital, part 1 of a 7 part series, written by
Steve Ritea and Tara Young, Gwen Filosa, Michael Perlstein, Walt
Philbin and Leslie Williams, Staff writers. Photos taken by Alex Brandon,
Staff photographer. The article went on to say that drugs and their
abundance in the poorest neighborhoods was fueling the drug war
violence that the city had never seen before and that the violence was
being driven by the lack of jobs and the wealth of the drugs.

The killings had begun becoming a spectator sport for the onlookers,
and the children of those areas was becoming desensitized by the sheer
volume of violence in their neighborhoods, they were frequently
appearing at murder scenes to watch, and the city coroner’s office had
started bringing portable screens to block the onlooker’s view of the
murder victims. Even the schools could not be counted on as safe
havens from murder; they were going after each other in the schools.
Detectives often use the occasion of a funeral, when victims’ friends and
family gather, to look for witnesses or clues in murder cases. It even
talked about the faces of murder, some were drug addicts who owed
money, or stole to feed their habits. Some were drug dealers pushing