"We're creating a sense of place," said...Marketing and Communications Manager of Downtown Denver Partnership. ...it is the lunch of your dreams. ...Thai cart owner Utumporn Killoran...usually sells out well before 1 pm, with long lines of customers... ...A Taste of the Philippines...receives a lot of traffic from conventioneers, families and suits... She discussed the frustration of dealing with "campers,"...the homeless population in downtown Denver. She hopes downtown Denver is addressing this issue. "They take over the street before the (kiosk) closes and camp under the shades of the kiosk from weather"... - Asian Avenue, 7/12
At my local deathburger is a display, which at first glance appears to be some kind of "drawing" (or wagering) for prizes on the 2012 Summer Olympics. If the U.S. wins, the players get a prize. I thought that one of the prizes was a trip to the Olympics, but the display remains up toward the close of the games. Upon closer inspection, the trip is simply to London... On the weekend, I am waiting for a bus to do my weekly grocery shopping. At the bench are three middle aged guys. Two are bald, and the third is responding to the conversation with the same "yup", in a constipated voice. We all get on a bus filled with other middle aged men with buzz cuts. I sit across from one in a T-shirt which reads, 'There's room for all God's creatures, next to the mashed potatoes and gravy.'
In the late afternoon, I must go and ask for a ride to work from someone i work with. She's not my usual ride. She lives next to a big park. It's full of kids playing in some kind of enormous football tournament. Families are everywhere. It's a beautiful summer early evening. My ride lives next to the family of someone else we work with. This one is in the yard with her mom, her cousins on the lawn. I speak with them in Spanish. I go next door to ask if I can et a ride. Her adorable daughters, and one of the nieces from next door, all look at me through the glass of the door. They both come out to play with a huge ball. I don't want to leave this extended gathering of family and friends. It reminds me of when i was but a child myself back in the early 1970s, in places such as Houston and Toronto. What a wonderful scene this is. A couple of mornings later, I am on a train with a guy in a Harley Davidson T-shirt and an unlit cigarette in his mouth for the entire ride.
Thursday is my birthday. After singing and a cake at work, I am waiting at a bus stop for a hop up to the next stop. A man and his little daughter sit next to be on the bench. He's a salesman for Herbalife, in a buttondown shirt and tie. Meandering from the other direction are a couple of middle aged drunks. The grey-haired one keeps going, taking wide steps to stay upright. It's odd to watch him, because it's almost as if I am watching some actor portray a drunk. The other one sits in the bus shelter. Suddenly, half a minute apart, the one in the shelter yells "shithole!" twice. We all get on the bus when it comes, and he remains silent for at least another stop. As the week goes on, I am on a bus from working a closing shift, at a store on the edge of a wealthy neighborhood. A little ways up the boulevard, an elderly guy gets on in an apron with a print of oranges all over it. I don't see the name of a juice company anywhere on it, but he's wearing it under a rawhide coat and leather hat. This month has begun still in the 90s. He has a walker with a cloth bag over each handle. One of the bags has a print of sock monkies.
The next morning I am across the street from my usual bus stop, the medical marijuana place, which has an insurance office in the right part of the building, has vacated the left part to a place with a sign which reads, "we buy gold." A cra pulls up to the light. Instead of rap music, I hear "Blue Eyes Cryin' In The Rain." At the local deathburger, at 5 AM, at two tables are seated four teenaged guys and a girl. A big girl in a dress and sandals is wandering drunk in and out, holding the handles of her purse in one hand. They all are laughing at her as she stops, stares at them, and wanders out again. It's been a summer of much posturing between here and downtown. By seventeen-year-olds in red shirts and caps. By middle aged guys in sunglasses and strutting young women with moused perms. By everybody and their grandmother with blue inked tattoos on their necks, arms, and calves. Are extras for a gang movie vacationing here? Sometime last month, I began to see other passengers instead of the regular riders on my usual morning bus. There's a guy with clean white leather running shoes. He looks as though he may be a cook. Yet the cuffs of his slacks are tucked into his untied shoes. There's a guy who works for the water department, a guy in a hunting cap, a guy who may be Chinese in blue tinted glasses every morning before the sun comes up, a guy with a foot long beard. Who the hell are these people? When I get off my connecting train, I can see down from the platform above a guy in a cowboy hat with no shirt down at one of the bus gates. A woman hands him a western shirt and he puts it on. On the train home is a middle-aged guy who has a lot of trouble speaking. It sounds as though he is trying to tell another guy about Jesus. I can't tell whether or not the other guy speaks English.
The beginning of the following week, I am back again at my usual bus stop. A young guy in shorts and a tank top sits down and asks me when the next bus comes. He's neither dirty nor skinny, with sizeable biceps. I tell him that the next one eastbound will be here shortly. He then asks how far is a certain boulevard south of there. And then he is off into the night. On the bus is a skinny young guy with a Whole Foods cap and a T-shirt with a cartoon of a unicorn in the forest meeting a horse with an orange traffic cone on its head. Sitting on the train platform after work, there is a middle-aged guy next to me spitting on the ground. I am downwind from his spray. He is wearing a T-shirt from Shape Magazine, celebrating a power walk. It reads, "Helping women make healthy choices." And then it's the end of yet another week. Friday morning. I go and watch to see whether the opening crew at the local deathburger has unlocked the doors on time. It's across the street from a Walgreens, with a sign in red light. In the dark it casts a red glow below, illuminating the corner in a bath of crimson. It may be hot in the day, but it's just 68 degrees F before sunrise.
When I board the bus, sitting in back is someone not merely other than a regular rider, but someone who must be from some exurb of the city. No visible blue ink tattoos. I listen to this conversation with her co-worker. "We have to check in with our callers every three minutes. Let's just say Katie is grateful to be my boss. She's cool as shit. Strict as a motherfucker. I need this job more than anything. Do you know Nate? He's the other tall white boy with the kind of funky hairdo." She just said "white boy" on a bus full of middle-aged restaurant and construction hispanic workers. "And they're fucking awesome. So you're gonna like my side. My side is a little bit crazy. Dylan is special." Her co-worker responds, "He's like that counselor from school who would steal you out of class once a week." We're off the bus and on the train platform. The girl is tapping her cigarette pack, packing the tobacco. "Yesterday I had the most fucked up call," she tells her co-worker, "and I don't know if y'all are talking about it. Those fucked up calls, man. I was not getting a break." I learn that her first name is Betty Jo. "I was trying to get two hot-seaters. The TLs are so busy, we're supposed to keep our calls under three minutes. She was like, 'Yeah, you guys need to do teams or whatever.'" TLs; 'team leaders'? Perhaps they are cold callers for sales leads.
Even the regulars are going wacky. A regular passenger on my connecting bus to work brought on a plastic grocery bag with sunglasses. He's an elderly guy, and he told another regular passenger, "I can't wear sunglasses anymore." The following morning, I am making a long walk to a train station long before any connecting bus begins running. I am walking behind and across the street from a guy who has a head which is a mass of grey hair and a grey beard. He is stumbling along ahead of me, at 3:30 AM, stopping everyone who comes by for a handout. He gets a cigarette and a light from a girl young enough to perhaps be his granddaughter. As he gets it to his lips, he stumbles backwards off the curb. The following morning, I am about to step onto train station property. It's across a street onto which an interstate ramp exits. A guy in a black shirt and pants, what i can only describe at 4 AM as a big black pirate hat over grey hair tied in a ponytail, and glasses comes around from the bridge over the interstate and walks away from the train station. When I get down to the train platform, he is there shortly after me. The morning after, I am in a 7-Eleven next to the train station. He comes in after me. Also inside are a clerk and a couple of police officers. He makes his purchase, fumbles with a coin and drops it, and gives a little laugh. I walk ahead of him to the train. Even though he has some trouble, he takes the stairs down.
After three days of not enough sleep and no time to go over to a co-worker's home to ask to get a ride in the morning, I'm waiting for a bus to take me to lunch at a little place up the street. There are three people in the shelter. A fourth comes by to hang out. One of the three jumps up to go into the liquor store next door. He comes back with a bottle in a plastic bag and the three pass it around. In the restaurant, at one table are a couple of teens. They are not eating or drinking anything. They appear to have a little of the gangsta style and attitude, just a bit. At another table are a middle-aged couple. The wife has a hairdo. After the couple finishes eating, they get up to leave. The husband has a T-shirt which reads, "Thank god I'm from 303." (As in our area code.) I've seen 303 tattooed on people with many other tattoos in simple blue ink, including all over their shaved heads. The teens jump up and follow the couple out. Bodyguards for an old 303 member?
The following day I have off. After spending lunch with the family to celebrate my mom's birthday, I am close to the cemetery where a friend is buried. After visiting her grave, I wait for a bus home. Stumbling along comes a drunk in black cowboy boots, jeans, a black Harley T and a camouflaged cap. On his cap is a little American flag on a toothpick. He joins me in the shade with the standard drunk greeting, "Hey bro." I've decided that these guys are frickin' everywhere. What the hell is he doing way out here? We are out front of an old air force base redeveloped into a vast housing community. He's looking for the White Horse Bar. He says he wants to hang out with his Native American friends, and that "all the Native Americans go there." I've heard of it, I can see the sign. I just can't remember where it is. He pulls out a small card on which is written the address. He's on the right street, he just doesn't know which direction to go. Also written down are three bus routes he is to take. The last one is the route for this street, so he's made it this far. Guessing from the bus routes on his card, he came from somewhere downtown. He opens his wallet to put away his card. I can see that it has no money in it, but does contain a second tiny American flag on a toothpick. He tells me that he lived here until he went to Arizona in 2004. During his absence he claims that he "spaced out" his knowledge of the streets of him old town. "You know how that goes," he tells me.
When our bus shows up, he asks the driver where his bar his. The driver tells him that, without a cross street he wouldn't know. One of the guy's two transfers is current. He sits and talks to a lady, then to a young mom and her daughter, holding the card in front of her and asking her if she knows where it is, then to another guy. To the last passenger he relates a story of being approached by a police officer, who he shortly thereafter refers to as "the sheriff." The officer asked him where he lives. He told him, "Right here under this tree." The officer asked him how much he had to drink. He claims he said to him, "Uh, a gallon of water, a forty ounce (bottle of beer), and a fifth of whisky. Why? What do you want me to do about it, pee in your face?" He then claims that he told the officer that he would "have his hide. He's lucky I didn't scalp him." The guy listening to this got off, and he was quiet after that. He didn't appear to be looking for the address during the whole trip, but after his tale just sat there texting on his cell phone.
A full week later, I am in the gas station across the street late in the morning. A guy comes in wearing a black leather vest, shorts, some kind of leggings and a chopper belt buckle. His pack is outside. He's with a younger police woman. He tells the clerk that he used to live with the officer's mother. She purchases something for him to eat and drink. They hug goodbye. She leaves in her police car, and he collects his pack and food. I stop back in during the late afternoon. Standing at the counter as a line of customers check out is a middle aged guy with a couple of hospital wristbands, 1970's hair, sunglasses and a mesh shirt. The next morning, I am crossing the street from where I live. Crossing a few yards away is a guy who is talking to himself, saying something about everything being fucked up. He has gone past a business with a fenced in lot. In the lot is a barking dog. He tells it to shut up.
The next day, I am at a bus stop after work. I have been at work since 5 AM, and I had to close another store. Everyone at work has been complaining how hot it is. It's been warm, but I think they exaggerate. It's a beautiful late summer evening, in an entirely different kind of neighbourhood than my own. I am surrounded by themed restaurants. A guy comes out of one place, texting on his phone. He goes back inside and comes out again, still texting before going back inside again. Lights are coming on under restaurant awnings. Behind one lit awning are the Rockies outlined in a pink glow. A different guy comes out of the same place. He also appears to be texting on his own phone. The first guy comes out and follows the new guy, who looks back and points as he says, "Fuck you Larson." This collection of restaurants strikes me as a gathering place for cruisers, where young guys stop to offer rides to waitresses off work. A couple of guys roll in on dirt bikes. I watch as middle aged women say goodbye in a parking lot. This is all very familiar to me. Though it's been some decades since I lived among these rituals, I grew up around such dynamics. A prematurely grey-haired guy with a perspiration stain down the center of his back, running shorts and maybe a black knee brace. These are my roots. No one here with tattoos on their necks, much less covering their forearms. In any one direction are mansion-like homes among forests of trees. Surely this is Mitt Romney country. To be submerged in a place such as this is to know the white race, as Hawthorne discovered the native American Rest easy Larson.
The following day I had off, and had a descent sleep. It's the next morning, and I step into a deathburger. In one corner is the first customer of the day at 5 AM. I've seen him in there before, in the afternoon with an old AM radio with an antenna. This morning, he has some coffee creamers and some napkins. He has his wristwatch in his had, and he is furiously cleaning it. He looks at me when I pass by. When the bus comes, a guy gets on and asks for a new bus transfer. Drivers don't hand out transfers without a paid fare. He tells the guy, "No, you need a good transfer." He begins digging in his pockets before telling the driver, "Wait, I'll find a good one, you'll see." He'll see? He then says he's only going three blocks and he'll walk. On the bus I see another "303" shirt. I don't think that this is a specific gang, but rather an attitude.
