JEROME ROBINSON HAD A SMILE that could stop the stars, a wit that could melt hatred, and a love that made me believe he would live forever. He was an angel, I said, often before he was murdered, put on this earth to make us believe in God all over again.

I was wrong. He was human. Angels don't die under the el gutshot by a boy.

This isn't an obit for Jerry Robinson, or Wino, or the Wheels of Soul. This is information for what you are about to read in the column I wrote for today's Metro:

WE LIVE IN A PART OF TOWN where the sound of birdsong and gunshots are common in the lonely cool before dawn. So common, I'm afraid, that when I am awakened at three in the morning by the distinctive sound of pop-pop (pause) pop-pop-pop, I roll over and go back to sleep. I have heard this sound -- and weirdly or significantly -- it is usually in short bursts in groups of five. Either pop-pop or pop-pop-pop followed within a half second by three or two pops. It must be in a manual somewhere, the same manual where they teach you to shoot while while holding your hand sideways, same as how you wear your baseball cap. These shots in the night always sound like they are from the same gun. I consider that signature five pops as a sign of bad marksmanship.

Once I heard a full scale gun battle with different caliber weapons barking like dogs in the distance. Maybe 20 shots were fired in the course of 30 seconds, but it seemed like a lot and I had a hard time rolling over and going back to sleep. The sound afterward was too too silent to be real. It was like hearing the roar of the crowd and then the hush without knowing who had scored. I actually called the cops that time. Usually I don't. I almost feel foolish. "Hello, 911, I heard multiple gunshots in West Philadelphia. No, not on my block, on someone else's block." There's never anything in the newspapers in the following days about the dead or wounded within a five block radius. I find it hard to believe that all these bullets in the night haven't killed somebody. But frequently they don't, and because of that I am sad to say, bullets barely disturb my sleep.

Why? Because I know those bullets aren't aimed at me or mine. Not at 3 a.m. Nor are they aimed at some innocent merchant or cab driver or citizen waiting for the trolley. "Pop-pop -- pop-pop-pop" is the sound of playahs attempting to assassinate one another. I don't even know what a playah is, except a playah probably has a gun and a mother and at least one child. And he probably kills and dies for reasons he cannot possibly explain to his mother or his children. A playah killed my best friend, perhaps the finest man I've ever known, for no reason at all. Felt disrespected, returned to the scene and shot the first man he saw. Killed him with a single bullet. I sat through two trials, watched the playah convicted of first degree murder and saw him sentenced to life in prison for a crime he committed at the age of 19. I don't hate him but I do I wish him a long life. And every time I roll over, after being awakened by five pops fired by fatherless sons at one another in the middle of the night, I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.