South Omaha was theoretically its own ghetto apart from North Omaha. Most didn’t call it the ghetto, though - it was Little Mexico. Maybe Kyle was just friends with too many white people, but in all his ventures south of Dodge he hadn’t seen a single Mexican market, piñata, taco joint, or remotely Catholic-looking church. The taco place around the corner from where he lived was more Mexican than any place he’d seen in South Omaha.
The alleged Little Mexico didn’t have the same desperate air that North Omaha carried. Its streets had the same bizarre grey overtones that Council Bluffs carried, and some of the houses could do with a new paint job, but Kyle didn’t feel nearly as suffocated there. Sure, the houses were crammed a little closer together, and the different families - most of whom were admittedly Mexican - did seem to spill from one property onto another, but their lawns were neater and Kyle did feel so uneasy as he drove the streets, searching for Drew’s new place. His lady had put the kaibash on a West Omaha mansion pretty quickly.
Children clustered around a new toy on the driveway of one of the houses and barely glanced Kyle’s car as he passed. One of them even smiled and waved. That was different - in North Omaha he’d get flipped off for making eye contact. The children’s mother came out and rounded them up, speaking in rapid Spanish, and she cast a wary look Kyle’s car, but he didn’t mind.
Drew lived in a strange white pocket of Little Mexico in a whitewashed townhome crammed into the middle of a series of identical townhomes. They had less color than the crowded-together houses across the streets, and after a moment Kyle realized it was because no one’s children were playing outside. He parked behind a beat-up black pick-up truck and reached for his cell phone. He still wasn’t going to stand around alone.
(327 words)
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