The detective flashes a big grin, starts in on his beloved Cowboys, then stomps on the gas. "Don't mind that riot gear in the backseat," he says matter-of-factly. "Ya just never know."
He's made this drive a hundred times, but somewhere in between the small talk about Michael Irvin's past and his own children's future, Mike Day admits he still gets scared when he cruises The Grove. As a young cop in '89, he was summoned here to quell a two-day riot. A few years later, he took a brick off the head while responding to a call. The key, he says, is not to look scared, though that ain't easy when you're rolling through the nastiest neighborhood in a backwater city that once ranked among the nation's worst in homicides per capita.
In recent years, Shreveport has cleaned up pretty good, but the Cedar Grove section still could pass for Compton if it had a little more sunshine. Credit the casinos for some of the city's rebirth. Here in The Grove, though, real gambling is making eye contact with someone at a stoplight. Cars full of gangbangers parade through streets lined with boarded-up homes and rubble-strewn lots with addresses that once housed crackheads. Day's silver Taurus might as well be a squad car; his white skin might as well be neon. You try to stay cool by playing mind games, counting gun shops and liquor stores. But that only makes it worse. Liquor leads 5-3 when Day informs you it's about to get nasty.
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