The following day I am headed back to work. I will have the next two days off. It's been a couple of weeks since I have been on my old shift. At the next stop after the one where I get on is a woman with no teeth and a cigarette. She shows the driver her pass from last month, which expired a couple of days ago. At the train station, I watch a young guy who appears as if he left his home right after waking up. Hair a mess, needs a shave. He's in cut-offs, a Guns 'n' Roses T-shirt, and he's holding his left forearm out, which is covered in what appears to be a green hand towel. The day after the next is the 4th. I go across the street for breakfast. Coming from a gas station on the other corner, I see a panhandler who lives down the street in a little house with blue siding. It has a fenced back yard in which I can see a wheelbarrow, as I pass to and fro on the way to the swimming pool. His favorite place is on the side of a building, opposite the gas station. This morning, I see him with two bags of something from the gas station. Along with him, for the first time in five years, I see an older woman in a motorized wheelchair. She is missing the bottom of her left leg. Six days later, I am walking past this guy's house as I always do on the way to the pool. Standing on the landing to his front door is a tall teenaged kid who looks nothing like this derelict guy. What this kid's relationship could possibly be to any of the handful of characters who I have seen exit this delightful looking home is one of the mysteriums tremendum.
...the city is pushing a relatively new program called the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver, or GRID. "Miss, I got a question for you Are you a cop?" The pudgy ten-year-old last week told the class that he knew where to get a gun. Sanchez is one of two Denver juvenile probation officers who work for GRID as prevention coordinators. There are lots of ways to be initiated into a gang, she says... If you date a gang member, Sanchez warns, he might offer you up to the rest of the gang. That catches the attention of a thin girl in short shorts and a sparkly zip-up sweatshirt... "Miss, can I talk to you?" she asks timidly after the class is over. Sanchez pulls up a plastic chair. "You're going to tell me you have a boyfriend who's a gang member, aren't you?" Sanchez asks. The girl nods. ...she's only eleven, and her boyfriend is twelve. Sanchez asks if he's violent. The girl hesitates. He's beaten people up, she says, including another boy who slapped her butt on the light rail. The Mental health canter of Denver is also part of GRID's intervention strategy. MHCD has developed a trauma treatment program which teaches kids how to handle stress. This makes "them even more at risk for joining gangs," explains Lynn Garst, MHCD's associate director. - Westword, 7/5-11/12
How do you bridge the cultural, social, and religious gap between the counselor (especially one raised in a middle class Christian atmosphere) and the client? Bill Milliken in Tough Love says, "We strip off the first layer of the onion, and then we don't want to smell any more..." The psychiatrist or counselor becomes a substitute god or savior... ...our liberal friends have forsaken the Gospel to "wait on tables," so to speak... Coffeehouses These are points of contact with hippies, runaways, tourists, students, and anyone who wants to talk. The Gospel is presented to ghetto children who will become the addicts, alcoholics and muggers of the future...amid the slums, garbage, vices, and poverty... ...Gregory was a Negro who had come to us... It was unfortunate that...there happened to be several boys at the Center from the deep South, one of whom made things rather difficult for Gregory. "I listen to jazz music all the time and go to dirty movies." He had had several homosexual encounters in the past... Chapter 5 The Addicted Generation Tripping out with LSD It's a groovy experience. No one can psych you out once you reach this utopia. You're immortal. You think you are God and can judge, or fly, or float, or condemn or all four. You're in a purple have where red stars and blue moons cover your feet. The drug addict...must learn how to function without anti-social behavior, without anger, hostility, immaturity, or in whatever may he previously reacted to reality. ...in a setting that...is patterned after a home. It must resemble a normal situation. - The Untapped Generation, by D. and D. Wilkerson, 1971
I ride in a convertible with a group of teens I teach metaphysical philosophy to on Sundays. ...we children of the '60s and ''70s had our own journey during the Civil Rights and woman's liberation movements. I arrive at a place in my life in which everything has a spiritual undertone;...my connection to the gay community... - Out Front Colorado, 7/4/12
I'm at the train station around 5:30 AM. This is the first time I have been here when I have been watching a guy running and doing some exercises. The following morning, I cross the street to my usual bus stop in front of a small car full of teens. The driver honks a couple of times. I wave and they wave back. I have no idea who they are. They are listening to techno-rap with no bottom end. What are they doing here of all neighborhoods? Where's the guy who drove by and said, "Fuck you, bitch"? I got off the bus, from a short ride up the street, with a white girl who swings her ass as she walks. The morning after, I stop into the gas station for something to eat before heading off to work. It's been a little while since I've been in this early. I see a new guy behind the counter. I grab a breakfast burrito out of the heated case. The new guy takes it and holds it with both hands. He looks at me without saying anything. I ask if it's cold. He tells me that the case isn't working properly. He's middle aged, and strikes me as having had a former life before coming here.
I'm waiting for the bus to take me grocery shopping on another Sunday. A couple of guys come walking up, one of whom is talking about Slayer being in town tonight. He realizes he has no change for the bus, when he says, "Oh fuck, I need more money. All I got here are 50s and 100s." Managing to get on the bus, he's telling the other guy about a friend of his who hangs out under a bridge. "He's a big motherfucker. He'll" (put a bullet in you) "if you ask him to. He don't fuck around." Hmm, good thing he stays under a bridge. I'm curious about the white faces I see, both on the bus and in the street, in my neighborhood. A guy in a T-shirt for a Kentucky high school reunion during the early 1990s, and a fishing hat. A skinny guy with greasy hair. A couple of guys in dress slacks, one in a sport coat over a Hawaiian shirt. These guys don't look anything like the other folk I meet in my neighborhood. Such as a guy who calls himself Richard Spotted Bird, who appears to live in what may be Section 8 housing, who is talking to another street guy I see around at the shelter where I am waiting for the bus on a day off. I'm on my way to meet the fam for a lunch to celebrate the birthday of one of my brothers. This is why I am sitting next to a shelter listening to a guy who effectively uses beer for mouthwash, and speaks (as well as does everything else) as though he is drunk every minute of every day. He comes out to ask me for a cigarette. He does not appear to recognize me, though it was dark a little while ago (last year?), the morning he wandered up to introduce himself and tell me a little about his relationship with his lady. I answer him that I don't smoke. He moves on to a guy sitting on the bench. He stands in front of him until the guy notices him, before he asks him also for a cigarette. The guy also replies that he doesn't smoke. Richard looked back at his buddy in the shelter and said something about the both of us not smoking, making the remark that, "E'r'body smokes. E'r'body smokes."
It's a Thursday morning before sun up. I get off of a bus with a giant advertisement on the side. It has a photo of a young mom with her child. It reads, "This is your moment." It's an ad for condos, "Starting in the 240s." As in $240,000. Two mornings later, someone is blazing some "sacrament" at the bus stop while he coughs. In front of the stop, an SUV comes to a stop in the street, right in front of a maroon Caddy. As the Caddy goes around the SUV and down a side street, the Caddy's trunk comes open. On my way here, I saw a group of five drunks in the bus shelter across the street from where I live. This was ten to five in the morning. None of them got on the bus. After I got off, I went to a deathburger, which had a couple of interesting customers inside. One guy in a button down shirt and jeans had on bedroom slippers and no teeth. Another guy with a briefcase has his grey hair in a faux hawk. The afternoon before, I don't take my usual bus home. This one is standing room only. I'm standing next to a guy who tells me not to stand too close to him. A guy gets on that he appears to know. He tells him he's a cook, and that he has had five operations. At the next stop, someone sitting on the other side of me gets up and loudly begins saying, "Coming through, excuse me!" At the beginning of another week, and I am sitting on the bus, across from a sleeping middle aged woman. She's in a Subway T-shirt which reads, "It's sandwich night."
The Colorado Black Arts Festival...has been described as a "family reunion," where our diverse community comes together. The "Watu Sokoni" People's Marketplace is the heart of village gathering. This is a nice festival. I went on a mad cap Sunday, leaving right after grocery shopping, making three bus connections in jig time, and grabbing lunch to go at a downtown deathburger. There are two deathburgers on the pedestrian mall downtown. Both are meeting places for those who line out on the brick and concrete of the mall. This particular establishment has a collection of small flat screen TVs. These TVs display rotating scenes of the mountains. Soothing music is piped through the place. With the addition of the destitute, it makes for a creepy scene. It's as if the homeless come in here to mourn, or to wait for their own deaths. 'Deathburger' indeed. The Fest is in City Park, a huge place with a paved path on which white residents come to stroll. I eat half my lunch at a bus stop, and the other half under a tree in the park. When I finish, I look up to see myself surrounded by green in all directions, in different tones. I never find myself in a place like this, and all of the sudden, here I am. I examine the paintings and sculpture, clothing and adornments. I am careful to navigate the signature solicitors, who are everywhere. All this color and connection to traditional Africa is like an island, surrounded by a sea of marketing dynamics and production format, and an urban political infatuation. After the fest, I was able to change a $50 to get the dollar I needed for a quick swim, before I had to water some flowers and then get some film developed. As I waited for my film, I waited at another deathburger with a guy who was talking to himself, after remaining silent for a while. He had been sitting in his seat with an old transistor radio, complete with antenna, in his hand.
On my day off, I find myself on a corner with a brand new Jack In The Box. It's across the street (as I am so fond of referring to it) from the high school where the president spoke at the very beginning of last autumn. I stop in for lunch. When I open the door, a blast of air from a fan goes off. The staff appears to be all white. A family comes in with a lot of kids. One of the only two teenagers is a kid I recognize. I first saw him at my usual bus stop at 5 AM. He sat down and told me he worked construction, but couldn't go to work because he was "fucked up" because he fight with his girlfriend, who does as she pleases but he earns the money. So, he told me, he deserves to get fucked up. I later saw him drinking under a tree by a liquor store, with other kids and older drunks. I also saw him hanging out at a bus transfer station up the street. Here he is with this big bi-racial blended family. His dad is getting him a chicken sandwich. He and a sister appear to be his dad's kids. A lady who appears to be his stepmom has I don't know how many kids. 4, 5, 6? After my late lunch, I am off to get a few miscellaneous groceries from a nearby supermarket. My main goal was more green tea. Focusing on the extraneous, the tea slips my mind, and I stay on the bus home a little further to Walgreens, which also has tea. Along the way, I see a man standing next to a parked police car. What appears to be his bicycle is on the ground, and both his hands are behind his back as if he is in handcuffs. I don't turn to see if they are. This month, I have seen a police presence in my neighborhood as I usually do not, except during Cinco de Mayo. There's one particular homeless guy I see on my street, once in a while, in a sleeping bag. I never see him panhandling or drinking, just asleep in his bag or in the shade. I saw him being rousted from his bag and arrested. It's the first time I have seen any homeless arrested, much less noticed by police. Was it the next day or another, he was back out on my street in his bag. After that, one afternoon I watched (literally, if they ever were noticed by anyone else before) the usual suspects standing in the usual spot behind a corner of the Chinese dollar scoop place. This time, there was a police car parked there, and an officer was talking to them. When he left, the drunk panhandlers were still here. So, yesterday, the last time I was out in front of my parking lot, the panhandler who lives half a block from me (in a house with flowers out front, fenced yard, completely normal-looking strapping teenaged guy in front of the front door, etc.) passed me with a 40 oz. bottle of Magnum in his hand.
The following morning, I sit and watch the deathburger next to my usual bus stop. They are supposed to open at 5 AM. Employee after employee walks up to the door, only to find it locked. As I watch this, I hear footsteps to my left. Along comes one Richard Spotted Bird, Mr. "e'r'body smokes" himself, strolling down the sidewalk and on into the dark neighborhood without saying a word. The week moves on. I'm at a train station to catch a connecting bus. A young couple is trying to navigate the transit system, looking for their route. They get on my bus, and it's a ways down the road before I hear some guy behind me telling someone to "Quit! Quit! Quit staring at me, now quit!" The only guy I think it could be is one who was otherwise asleep in his seat. He's wearing a winter jacket in the morning of another day which will eventually reach triple digits. I don't know who he was talking to, but at the next stop, a guy gets on who seems to know the angry guy. They make small talk and the angry guy sounds completely calm. At the following stop, the young couple get off...quickly. At the stop after that, the angry guy's friend gets off. At my own stop, the angry guy is sound asleep once again.
At the weekend, I am off to the pool as usual. My walk takes me past the home of a local panhandler. Today, he's standing at the end of his driveway, in sunglasses. "Hey..." (He always starts with 'hey'.) "...have you got a cigarette?" Yes, he's panhandling from his own driveway. Is he zoned for a business?
AURORA}} Parents flung open the bedroom doors of their teenagers in the middle of the night. Relatives drove by to see if a certain truck was in the driveway. Boyfriends searched frantically for girlfriends lost in a crowd stampede. Parents...woke others for help and called across town. A cousin of a victim stood behind police tape at the southeast corner of the Town Center mall Friday afternoon, waiting to see if bodies would be removed... She had been told her cousin would be among the bodies. ...Rita was hit in the shoulder, elbow and left side. Son Patrick was struck in the back, and the bullet had lodged in his stomach... ...the Aurora Central students had more to look for. Duran had been shot in the chest with a shotgun. - The Denver Post, 7/21/12
A passport is lost. You come down with a sudden illness. A lawyer is needed. From pre-trip planning to finding an English-speaking doctor... From sports, fashion, and fine dining to the visual and performing arts, you can treat clients and employees to extraordinary experiences...access to exclusive events that are typically not available to the general public. - American Express Business Platinum Card advertisement
...in lieu of tofu and tempeh. ...the ghosts of so many artistically brilliant guests. It's been perfection since the prime time '80s...stashing the car for the night in favor of cabs and cocktails. ...your overly chatty plane-mate... In-between stories about his failed business ventures...all local brews priced by their popularity on that given evening. You dart in and out of several seedy bars...some cute people and no exes in sight. Sweet bliss. ...making a mental note of all the cute shops you'll return to tomorrow for pre-flight shopping. Your server gave you a run down of legitimate local secrets for live jazz. - Out Front Colorado, 7/18/12
I just got on a bus home from work. This bus stops at a hospital just before it gets to my stop. I sit down next to a guy who smells like urine. He may be my age, and is wearing a black knit tank top, jeans, reading glasses around his neck, long blonde wispy hair, and some kind of rock and roll skull tattoo on the withered skin of his emaciated right arm. He asks me, "You don't have a scissors, do you?" I reply in the negative. "A knife...?" "No...no...," I say. He's trying to remove a couple of hospital wrist bands, which he does with his own strength. For most of the trip, his head hangs down as he clutches a bus transfer with both hands. We both get on a train. He sits across from someone who acts homeless. The other guy gives him something I can't see. The next thing I know, transit security is standing next to him, having a conversation I can't hear. At my stop, the security guy helps him off the train and on to a bench. Shortly thereafter, a fire truck pulls up with paramedics. When I get off my connecting bus, I go to another bus stop where I wait with a guy dressed as a woman and another guy. They both get on my bus when it comes. The friend of the guy dressed as a woman knowns one of the passengers, a guy without a shirt on.
On Saturday morning, I'm on a bus pulling into the station. A guy on his cell has been discussing nothing out of the ordinary, before I hear him tell the person on the end that he doesn't know where his cell phone is. "My girlfriend fucking took it and smashed it against the wall. Look outside for it." The next day, I arrive at the bus stop to go grocery shopping. There are three middle aged guys at the bench. Two are bald. The one with hair is responding to the conversation between them with "Yep..." He has a constipated voice. When the bus shows up, all the other passengers appear to be middle aged men with buzz cuts. The one sitting across from me is wearing a T shirt which reads, "There's room for all God's creatures, next to the gravy and mashed potatoes." The following morning, across the street from where I live, is a regular drunk. It's ten to five in the AM. I will see him there later in the afternoon. A guy in a button down shirt is talking to him. The guy then goes out to the middle of the crosswalk, turns back to the drunk and yells, "Viva la rasa! Que pasa! What's hapening!"
