COLUMN: Hey! Lights on, phones working!

From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99 From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99Lately, I've found that pretending I exist in an alternate universe outside of West Philly -- which I've fondly named "Dackatron" -- is the only way I can walk down Locust Walk at night without envisioning the mugger, the rapist, the armed batterer whom I've sadly and fearfully come to accept as "the people in my neighborhood." Mr. Rogers never mentioned them living in the Land of Make Believe. There was a reason for that. There was a time last year when I read these things and gasped, choking on my sandwich as I realized that crime was not just around the corner, but up the block. The oatmeal raisin cookies on my plate had sacrificed their lives for naught. They would remain uneaten. This year, I sit and read the gray box as I read uninteresting articles. I'm distracted, distant and unaffected. Not because I don't care -- but because I want to force myself to care less. Like many Penn students with whom I've spoken, I assume an air of nonchalance, of immortality and, above all, of unsubstantiated security. When I'm on Dackatron, no one bothers me. But there are plenty of people at Penn who have Dackatrons of their own, and even their universes have been plundered and pillaged by outside forces. Take the student who was mugged on Locust Walk a few weeks ago. Or the person who was mugged outside the Inn at Penn. Each of these people probably wasn't that concerned about their safety on the nights of these incidents. After all, the Inn at Penn is in a well-lit area. And Locust Walk is one of the most populated places on campus, even at night. Blue-light phones lining Locust Walk are always working in case of emergency. Or are they? At least two of the phones on Locust Walk are out of service. I'll have to remember next time when I'm walking home alone at night not to get mugged at those locations. "I'm sorry, Mugger Sir, but would you mind horribly if we did this just a couple of yards up the Walk? I just want to be able to touch the blue-light phone. Thanks. Oh, you've been a real sport. Here, take my MAC card and my access code, too, for your troubles, ya big galoot!" And even Penn's well-lit campus isn't always so very well lit. As I walked home from the library last week, all the lights went out on College Green. It was Movie Night on College Green, a seemingly harmless and fun activity. Though darkness allows for perfect movie-viewing, it also allows for an easy getaway and anonymity. Kinda hard to enjoy the movie when you're worrying about who else is enjoying the darkness. If there's one thing any student learns while living in a city, it's that emergencies can and will happen at any time and students need to take personal precautions. But is there a way to make the gray box of crimes just a little bit smaller? Is there a way for Penn to do more to make us feel safer? Is there a way to make it so that students don't have to walk down the Walk in self-absorbed Dackatrons to avoid their anxieties? For every blue-light phone that has been covered with an "out of service" sign for the past two weeks, I would like to see a police officer standing in place of the phone. Just because a phone isn't there doesn't mean the area doesn't count anymore. And no matter how good the movie looks in the dark, there should be at least some light on the Walk. A new statue telling us to LOVE is nice, a new building to lock Wharton students in is better, EMS is just ducky. I love Xando. I love the new bookstore. I love trying on ridiculously clunky boots at Steve Madden that make me look like an Amazon. But I would love to stroll down a well-lit Locust Walk with functional, evenly spaced blue-light phones. Then, there would be no need to pretend I were on Dackatron. Then, Penn would be just as inviting as the Land of Make Believe.