Avard stepped out of the car, closed the door and gave his driver a nod. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette as the Tin Lizzie pulled off, leaving him outside his apartment. 

“I am getting up, John. I am not receiving visitors in my bedroom like the consumptive heroine of a Victorian romance novel.” Cried a shrill voice to nobody in particular. Avard sighed and kept walking. He fished out his cigarette and went in search of his light. This guy again, still churning out this shit all by himself.

"We have to gather The Flash, Silver-Flash, Gateway, every Meta, every Kryptonian on this earth. We will not be surviving on our own if this Crisis is what you say it is, we will all be meeting our ends." Yelled a voice from the opposite end of the street. 

"Oh for fuck sake," Avard muttered, looking to his right. "Not another one." 

Of course there was another one, evidently this was contagious. One the corner stood an associate in his crew, totally oblivious to the world around him. He was deeply engaged in whatever it was, it just seemed like whatever it was had absolutely no business being broadcast in public.

"Any chance you two could take that shit elsewhere?" 

Both men continued as if Avard wasn't there. In fact, as he stopped in the street terrified this was going to be another sleepless night with all of the racket, it seemed as if they didn't actually give two shits if anyone was there at all. They just vomited noise into the public unperturbed, as unaware of him as they were of each other. 

"The Cold Case Unit – that’s me and three other detectives – we review old cases, re-contact witnesses. We rerun old results, looking for new hits, that sort of thing." The first man continued without missing a beat, not even registering Avard's question.

"Are there any people on this earth that would want to defend it? This earth, it cannot be allowed to end here! We need to band together, every one of us." The second speaker persisted entirely to himself. 

Avard rubbed a hand across his face, wishing, not for the first time, that someone would do something about this. You would think that people with these kind of mental health issues, where they just spewed nonsense at the open air, would be easy enough to run out of town or even to a hospital, maybe, but that was the most baffling thing. These people weren't just bums with mania issues, these were connected guys, some with real sway in big outfits across the country. Even his own back yard. It blew his mind. 

"This is a story about Daniel. He actually came to Babylon with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego," Called a new voice behind Avard, startling him.

"You've gotta be fucking shitting me!" He snarled, dropping his cigarette and whirling to face the guy. He recognised him, a wise guy from his old stomping ground in Philly, went by the name of Lion? LionsDen? LionHead?.... something like that.

"...and each king that came and went liked these men because they were honest and hard workers." 

"Nuh-uh, motherfucker, take that shit outta here-" Avard snapped, advancing on him. "I already got two of you on my doorstep, shout that crap somewhere else!"

LionHead had a faraway look in his eye, almost like he didn't see the angry mobster coming toward him. Avard was less than two feet away from him, cursing, when another voice joined the bullshit-cacophony deafening the stars.  

"To Be Continued" He screamed, causing Avard to cover his ears at the roar, but the other singers in this shithouse opera didn't even miss a beat. If anything they just got louder and more obnoxious, speaking quicker and quicker, Baker Street, Kyptonians and god knows what else reverberating around the night. Avard shouted for them, begged for them to stop.

They didn't care. 

"Fuck it!" He spat, stomping towards his door, his quiet cigarette all but forgotten. "Something has got to change."  

Avard came out in to the streets, still pissed off from the night before, with eye bags big enough to need their own bodyguards. The men were still there, of course, shouting their heads off for all they were worth. His clenched his jaw.

"Our bosses have established organised crime across this nation to the point where we have no opposition. The cops and the judges are in our pockets, the other gangs are in check and with the exception of the odd assault on a district, we are in total control of things."

Lack of sleep and the noise of multiple monologues happening simultaneously made it hard to keep track of his thoughts. 

"Whilst this makes it a wonderful time to be a gangster, this shit," he said gesturing to the crowd around him, "has got to change. I am concerned with the state of our streets. I am concerned that when I walk around the corner, I find a guy standing there shouting his mouth off about a murder mystery in London; I find a guy talking about superheroes and another talking about events in Babylon! Doesn't it bother you?" 

He hoped someone would listen.

"We have people petitioning the City Hall for a change to be made about this issue and we already have prior edicts from them which are just being ignored. Despite this, nothing has changed. Can the Dons step in and stop this nonsense before it gets any worse? Can you tell your people that they shouldn't just shout to themselves about any old shit in public?"

Avard sighed.

"Am I wrong or do you care too?"

Blueface was beat after a day of hustling to fill the family's (and his own) coffers. Considering he still had adrenaline pumping through his system, he opted to check The Streets for a while to listen to any speeches, discussions, and the like among mobsters he might have any interest in.

After wading through crowds of people listening to everything from the latest batch of arguments about the current criminal establishment's decisions to some well-established picciotti yakking on about these elaborate made-up stories which might look good on a published book but not as stories read aloud in the Streets, he finally found a familiar face among the orators. It was one of his fellow crew members and one of the Don's trusted men, AvardT. He sat down on a bench as he listened to Avard talk on and on about his grievances about the aforementioned 'stories' one could here in the streets.

"C'mon, sir. These fellow gangsters might've given up their dreams of being the next Mark Twain for our life of crime. Go easy on them and their dashed dreams a lil' bit," Blueface said out loud as a small chuckle escaped his mouth. As he composed himself and stood up from his seat, he noticed a large amount of eyes staring at him. 

​​​​​​"Nah, I'm just playin', just playin'. From my short stay in this world of ours so far and what I've read from my experienced relatives' records, I share a bit of this sentiment. Although leaders do encourage their subordinates to participate in the Streets in as creative ways as they can, I do agree that these ways should be kept to the standard we gangsters are supposed to be on. I do disagree with having to involve our world's leaders on this one, though. It would be more appropriate for everyone in the Streets, regardless of rank, power, or money, to be able to remind our fellow gangsters on how we should act. We all do have to go through the Streets every once in a while and therefore, we all should have the right to educate and remind our friends what belongs in the Streets and what does not," Blueface added as he shrugged.

​​​​​He saw many of the crowd nod their heads in approval as he sat back down to let anyone else from the crowd give their own opinions about the issue.

Grimaces.

Guess this didn’t pick up any traction. Nevertheless, thank you, Blueface, for your thoughts.

For me, I think the leaders should step in and put a stop to this. Thankfully one of our shouters has managed to earn himself the reward of a lightning bolt to the face by not even being original with his unrelated detective tales, but I still see plenty of other people mining the rewards and worse, hurting my ears with their nonsense.

Do you think it is ok? The calls for City Hall to step in suggest not, but still nothing is being done.

If this is going to fall on deaf/unconcerned ears, then to all the shouters out there, please have a think about how you look. You come to the streets and just yak, yak, yak without any context as to why you, as a member of an organised crime family, are saying the things you are saying. Should someone in your position be saying what you are, doing what you are and acting how you are? 

In a lot of cases, the answer to those questions is no, which begs the questions of why are you doing it, and, more concerning, why is it being tolerated?