If you live in our neighborhood watch out. The supposed Kirby guys are out knocking on doors today. I told them I was calling the police because they could not provide any legitimate credentials. - Nextdoor Westwood, 8/2/13
They seem to skipping houses with alarm signs and large dogs. ...Burglaries happen after these people come around.
I have said no to two different guys. Nice looking kid comes to the door while another waits in the car. - 8/3/13
It's another Saturday. 5 am. The day after my birthday. I'm at the deathburger. It has a flat screen monitor advertising their iced coffees. There is a fly crawling on the screen, and more buzzing around it. The following week is the beginning of a two-week stretch of my rising at 2 am. On Wednesday, my alarm does not come on. I wake up with just enough time to rush out of the door. Outside, across the street from where I live, are two pairs of teenagers coming down the sidewalk. I hear one say, "Yeah definitely a girl." The other replies, "Did she have titties?" After work, I go downtown to the bank. This afternoon, everywhere on the pedestrian mall are a couple of seemingly unrelated social groups. One are homeless, the other are all young twenty-somethings all with big skateboards. I spot two different homeless, each with a single feather in their hair.
"Notes from Commander's Community Meeting" 8/7/13
Complaint was made about panhandler...hitting crossing button and holding up traffic...to get people to stop. - Nextdoor Westwood
Another Saturday at 5 am. Across the street from where I live is a gas station, where two middle aged guys are coming out. They both are dressed almost exactly the same, as if they may be hunters. With them is a 13-year-old kid in a camouflaged hoodie. When I get to the bus stop next to the gas station, a guy comes along who asks me, "What time do you see the bus?" Just then, the bus comes along. Up the street at my usual stop is a guy in a hoodie with images of four wanted posters on the back, for Che, Marcos, Zapata and Villa. He is carrying a stop sign to his construction job.
The day turns into a ten-hour shift. After, I am in a quiet Italian place for a sandwich to go. On the wall is a poster for the establishment's "Magic Wednesdays", when a magic-performing comedian brings his act. In a back room is a reunion party. The afternoon shift employees are coming in, greeting each other. I watch them head into the kitchen in a line. In the room with the reunion are laughing, grey-haired adults. On the bus home, sitting behind me, is a guy with plastic silver-framed sunglasses, a lime T-shirt, and a cap which reads, "National Guard". Just before we turn into the train station, he asks me where the train station is.
The following Monday, I am sitting on the step of a fellow employee who I expect to get a ride with. I have been here before, at twenty after three am, in the dark. He yard is always strewn with children's and cousins' toys; a wagon, a tractor, a monster truck, a tricycle. There is a small mountain of them stored under a tree. I sometimes think of my dad when he was the age which I am now. If he ever sat on a stoop in front of a yard full of toys, I imagine that it was not at twenty after three am. Tuesday I was at a pizza buffet place which I like. It has flat screen TVs. One is tuned to the golf channel. A guy on camera is dressed like Mel Gibson from The Maverick. My waitress comes by; she speaks Spanish. There are a couple of middle-aged white guys at the salad bar, talking about a friend's second divorce. At my table, my fork is bent to the side. A waiter grabs a menu from a shelf on the wall, and the shelf falls off. I'm watching the 2013 Solheim Cup is on the tube, from a metro Denver township called Parker. The golf crowd lives north of the town proper, along the long highway north where troopers wait for morning speeders, among the new condo spreads. The town is a place where the supermarket plays country music.
The following morning is the middle of August. The transit system seems more empty of passengers. I don't see so many regular riders. Gone is the guy with the walker and the five inch goatee. The remaining stalwarts include the lady of far eastern descent who wears her sunglasses before the sun comes up, and a clean cut guy. This morning, he's in a T-shirt which has on the front a skull in a native headdress, with lightning behind it. It's Friday. 5 am. I am getting off of a bus which took me up the street. Getting on is a thin guy with a grey ponytail. He's wearing a brand new fire department T-shirt. This is why I have the impression that everyone in my neighborhood is some kind of full of shit hustler. I don't believe that he ever was a fireman in this lifetime. I head over to the deathburger, where in the parking lot is a beautiful Siberian Husky off the leash. When I come out, it's gone. When I get to the stop, a guy comes by and lays down on the bench. When the bus comes, I get on with a grey-haired guy with sleeve tattoos on both arms, down to his elbows. He's wearing a red Nazi SS T-shirt. He gets off after only a stop or two. We get to the train station, and on the train is a guy in a plaid shirt under a paisley vest. He's carrying a worn out paperback. When I get off work, I'm back on the train to do some grocery shopping. Where I get off, i glance at the train going the other way, which is also at the same station. I notice that, sitting in a seat is the Nazi SS T-shirt guy. I get home from work. On the national news is a story that, at 10:40 am local time today, a few blocks from my grocery store, a guy had a couple of homemade propane bombs in front of his estranged wife's home. Two women were shot, one of them killed, by him before the police shot and arrested him. Poor guy is a PTSD victim. It happened right next to a high school where the President of the United States spoke in the past couple of years. The school was put on lockdown.
Our relatively new police chief writes his own blog:
Code 6
Selfless
8/17/2013
It was a rough week in Denver.
I want to thank the officers...to stop the deadly criminal behavior they were called to meet. ...who took statements, assisted witnesses, and consoled those shaken...
...British cars and dogs...Celtic Rock. 11th WWW Old-Fashioned Cake Contest ...categories: decoration and tasting Cakes can only be submitted for one category. - THE 85th Annual Western Welcome Week brochure
I'm on my way home from work, changing buses at a bus stop where sits a woman with long grey hair, missing teeth, and huge sunglasses. She is eating French bread. As she begins telling me why the next bus will be late, I pull out my camera to snap a shot of her. She first tells me that this must be her lucky day, as everyone wants to take her picture. She quickly becomes freaked out, holding her bread in front of her face. She tells me that tomorrow, she will dye her hair black and begin speaking Spanish. As she leaves, she tells me, "Have a nice day working for the government, sir." Halfway to the next block, she is still berating me, standing and pointing at me.
"Notes from recent Commander's Meeting"
Due to the work of the gang unit a neighborhood home was vacated. ...when the SWAT team arrived... The neighbors were cheering... - Nextdoor Westwood, 8/20/13
I am moving between stores during work on a train. In a seat is a guy who hands a photocopied bus pass to a transit security person. When he writes him a citation, he tells the officer, "I would have been better off not showing you anything." The following morning, I grab a bus up the street at 5 am. Where I get off, there is a drunk standing in a corner of the bus shelter, next to an empty beer bottle on the ledge. He is just staring ahead, as if he has been standing there through the entire rainy night. The following morning is another Saturday at 5 am. At the bus stpo across the street from where I live are three young white guys. Two are in tie-dyed T-shirts, shorts, socks and shoes. One has a braided ponytail. The third is in a hoodie and no socks. When the bus shows up they get on. One of them asks the driver if he goes to a park and ride, which in fact closed last April, when the new lightrail line opened across the street. The guy then tells one of the others, "Hey Leo, we're getting off. This isn't my bus." Take it easy fellas. When I get up the street to my usual bus stop, someone sneezes. A guy with a US Marine haircut says "Bless you." When the bus shows up, the Marine guy does not get on.
It's the last week of August. At my usual bus stop is somebody yet again who I have never seen before. This guy is wearing what appears to be a green chef's coat. When the bus comes, we get on. Already on the bus is another guy in a green T-shirt and green knit cap. He has the cap pulled down over his eyes. The following day , I am on my way to the home of someone who will give me a ride to work. Walking down one side of a residential street, which make a large oval, I have to step into the street to go around piles of discarded furnature. It has been neatly stacked for trash pick-up. In front of one home, a pile of couches. In front of another, a high-backed desk chair on castors. A third has a mattress set. The moon is out, watching over them all at 3 am. My ride takes me within walking distance of a train station. In the elevator is a young guy sitting on the floor, reading his phone. "Mornin'" says he.
It's the next morning and already the middle of the week. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live. At five am, there are yet more people are here who I have never seen before. A young woman is siting and smoking in the shelter. She's dressed in what appears to be a restaurant uniform. I am perplexed as I watch her get up and walk across the street. She goes to the entrance to a little eatery and waits. I realize that she is waiting for them to open so that she can go to work. From across the same street come a guy who I have never seen before. We get on the bus, where a different handicapped guy has replaced the last regular handicapped rider. He has with him a collapsible shopping cart. I get off up the street and head for the deathburger. Waiting for it to open is a middle-aged guy with a backpack and three plastic grocery bags full of stuff. When the door is unlocked, he heads straight for the men's room before coming out and sitting at a table, where he unloads his change. He's in work boots and a T-shirt which reads "Got 30? That's all it takes for the world's best workout." When I get back to the bus stop, both the guy from across the street from the other stop, and the handicapped guy with the cart, are there talking to each other. The guy with the cart appears familiar. On the connecting bus is a guy wearing sunglasses before sunrise, a silver chain, and his own T-shirt which reads, "Colorado State Capital, breathtaking for over 100 years" When we pass the next to last stop for the train, he stands up immediately and waits by the door until we stop. He works...where? A tourist shop? On the train, I sit across from a guy in a UCLA Bruins hoodie and a British cap. He has with him a burlap bag with what appears at first glance to be a couple of potatoes at the bottom. When he gets up, I can see that it is actually an enormous watermelon, along with two relatively smaller melons. He walks bowlegged to the door. Across the isle is a skinny guy with a big beard who is cleaning his nails with a yellow butterfly knife. Where I get off, a young woman is on the platform with a white tube dress, revealing a couple of tattoos on her shoulder. She has a fountain drink and a big iced tea bottle. A guy asks her what he needs to get on the train, and she tells him to keep his transfer, "Because they have these police on the train." She heads to a coffee shop, where she asks someone seated outside if she can share their table. She begins to relate her life story. Someone dropped her off there, blah blah...
The following day is my day off. This weekend is Labor Day. Here at the end of August, the summer has finally decided to turn hot. Across the street, a small shopping center has their in-ground sprinkler system going. A couple of drunks are taking an upside down shower, washing themselves in it. I'm headed to the bus stop across the street from where I live. In the shelter are three drunks. One is sitting down. He usually hangs out in front of the entrance to the gas station and panhandles. He looks like a truck driver with a swollen red face. One of the other two is a skinny little young woman in a red summer dress. She is squatting over a plastic grocery bag, reorganizing what appears to be covered take out tins from a restaurant. She acts as though she is pissed off; berating an imaginary forth person as she angrily points at them. A third drunk tells her to knock it off, putting his arm around her as she stands up. The alarm bell rings at a fire station next door, and all traffic lights on the corner go red. Traffic comes to a halt in all directions, and the skinny woman caries her bag of leftovers on top of a cardboard box in her arms across the middle of the street through stopped traffic, followed by the standing guy. They meet some others across the street. The first guy sits there, just able to shake his head as he stares at them. On the bench with him, he has a packaged fruit cup and a couple other pieces of crap.
Some hours later, after returning home and stepping out across the street again, I see the truck driver/panhandler in his usual spot next to the entrance to the gas station. Some steps from where a pair of drunks were bathing in sprinkler water, three drunks are sitting in a parking lot. The skinny little woman is standing at the bus stop, in a different colored summer dress. She has a couple of toddlers with her. The guy she crossed the street with, earlier in the afternoon, is sitting on a bench in the bus shelter. He is surrounded by four firemen from the fire station next door. An ambulance pulls up, followed by a bus. The woman and the toddlers get on the bus, and leave the guy behind.
The Thursday before Labor Day is my day off. I spend the late afternoon at the salon across the street from where I live. I am waiting for an hour and a half at least to get my hair cut. There are four people ahead of me, a kid, his abuelo, a teen girl, and a teen guy. A span of generations of contemporary Mexican-Americans. ...and then there is me. There is one empleada here. She is good looking with a big permed bob. As she works on hair she's listening to the local broadcast hip hop station. When she gets around to me, she tells me that she learned English in Mexico from hip hop songs.
