With mud and green goo spattered all over his body, 11 year-old Liam flashed a big smile. "I had a good time bonding with my good friend, mud," he says. ...the Fruit Shoot Mini Mudder... Gooey Shoes: A...pool they must walk over quickly trying not to slip, sink or get stuck in the goo. Secret Agent Squeeze: A maze of "laser ropes... Mount Mud... "At one point someone came up to Liam and his friend and told them where to find a bunch of body paint, and the boys went nuts covering themselves...
...turn right where you'd normally turn left for alpine skiing. Grab an organic iced tea... "The outdoor world does something to people." If you're used to busy urban living, it'll feel like you've travelled further... Resident cowboys and gals...help you craft the perfect day. ...paddle boarding...cooking classes...wine tastings. There's even a...cattle drive... Massage is offered year-round... Start the day by watching the morning horse roundup as you sip your organic, locally roasted coffee. Rooms comes with spa robes, humidifiers, green tea bath products and complementary snacks. - Colorado Parent, August 2015
Now that the summer is here, it seems everyone wants to be...on the courts, or on the course - or on a horse! We want to help you feel like a local, and we have the stories that offer an insider's look into the pulse of the city... ...fashion-forward is the word of the day, but friendly is the mantra. "New American means sourcing what you can locally, but then applying techniques and flavors from all over the world." ...the salads are dressed to Western standards...smoky, caramelized seasonal vegetables served on a mound of fregola (a pasta similar to couscous)...with...romesco... I am a Denver native...about 20 years ago...I...peered eastward into the darkness... Head that way today and it's...hip, happening, thriving... "We're attracting the most innovative ideas and best and brightest employees. And we consistently rank as Number One or Number Two at attracting the millennial generation" To spend time in Downtown Denver is to spend time where the locals are found... "When visitors go to the city, they want to experience the authenticity of the people who live there and the environment they live in. ...you really can create a magnificent, urban environment." "You're not going to get the vibe of 'any mall' USA... ...the great wall marquee featuring the word 'Denver,'...is one of the most photographed signs in the state and sets the tone for a special experience." ...you'll see people working in the great hall on their laptops, holding meetings, playing shuffleboard, sipping a cocktail... "The city's living room"...a place that "redefines the metropolitan Denver area and this particular neighborhood," known as LoDo (Lower Downtown). ...the Highlands 20 years ago..."it was still very much an ethnic, working-class neighborhood with an emphasis on Latino culture..." ...there has been an explosion of high-end restaurants... "We've seen a rapid deployment of developers tearing down the old... We've seen an influx of people who want an inner-city experience in a livable neighborhood. It's a mix of the hip oldsters and the hip youngsters!" - Denver Hotel Magazine, summer 2015
It was a nostalgia evoked by images of the harsh beauty and sweeping vistas of desert and plains, of dazzling sunsets, of pine-clad high country and snowy peaks, of the ever-changing moods of a land repulsive yet also strangely inviting... ...nomadic warrior-huntsman were to be transformed into sedentary agriculturalists and inculcated with Anglo-Saxon values. Conquest by kindness... Though wise and benevolent administration the Indian would not only be removed from the paths of expansion but also taught how to live like his white brothers, and ultimately...lifted to...U.S. citizenship. ...the thorny transfer question neatly disposed of ...by advocating a separate, cabinet-level Department of Indian Affairs. ...large numbers of Southern Brules and Oglalas and Northern Cheyennes and Arapahoes...fueled......propensities of the southerners...that the whites might...give up the Smoky Hill by the same means that had brought them to abandon the Bozeman Trail. From August through October...1868...raiders from these bands struck repeatedly at farms, ranches, way stations, and travellers...almost to Denver and Fort Lyon. ...they killed seventy-nine settlers... - Utley
Retirees don't need to live in expensive cities that are close to their jobs or in high-cost suburbs with good school districts. You are finally free to live anywhere in the world that has the entertainment options and amenities you desire. You might choose to live near the beach or in a place where you can play golf every day or...in a sleepy college town with a low cost of living. - Mortgage Insights, Summer Newsletter 2015
...sophisticated appointments will make it...desirable... ...the tower includes a west-facing, 7,000 sq. ft. outdoor amenity deck...including an infinity edge swimming pool. ...plus bike and ski storage and a dog grooming station. A Matrix equipped fitness club, golf simulator, conference room with videoconferencing capabilities. ..high-end finishes...granite and quartz countertops, soft- close [sic] cabinetry, solar window shades...exotic millwork, glass backsplashes... ...bringing design guidance and an understanding of the neighborhood... ...a saltwater, resort-style swimming pool. A dog spa... - Life on Capitol Hill, 8/2015
Not only did the Caucasians not relinquish the Smokey Hill Trail, one hundred and fifty years later, Smokey Hill Road used to take me by bus to work and home again. The old trail continues to blaze through a county on another side of town with modern "hostiles." It's 2015, Saturday. 5:45 AM. I'm up this early to satisfy the powers that be at work, that the store will be open on time, even if I have no choice but to be dropped off an hour early. Last nigh I saw a young couple at the train station. The guy had tattoos everywhere, including two matching one in back of each calf. I watched a harvest moon rising. This morning, I watch it setting high over the Rockies. I watch the same couple get on the bus. At a train station, I watch a family come strolling up with breakfast in hand. Mom, dad, and boy each have matching T-shirts with "harvest" on the front. When I do get to work, I realize that I forgot breakfast and lunch at home. I need something which approximates my diet. A coffee shop saves my butt. At an outdoor table is a decrepit-looking guy on his phone. He is complaining about being unemployed. In the meantime, he says that he is praying for his friends. When I get home from work, I read on my neighbor's Facebook page that someone was shot and killed last night, just a few streets south of where I live. No motive yet established. There's not much at that corner except a chicken place and a drug store where the homeless congregate. Sunday. After a wonderful birthday swim, I am home where I stay up until 11:30 PM. With both the TV and the fan turned off, outside on the boulevard I can hear the endless street racing. The intervals of passing big block truck and SUV engines has reached the season's zenith this evening. They collectively sound like the locusts of the Apocalypse. One right after another, accelerate and decelerate and accelerate and decelerate. Tomorrow I turn fifty years old. I will celebrate it away from the plague.
Two days later, I pass by an old telephone building directly across the street from where I live, being renovated into urban renewal apartments. It's been well over a year since the 24/7 construction began. This morning, there are noticed on the ground floor windows. Beware of guard dogs inside. Can you say, homeless squatters? I hear barking coming from inside. This morning, shortly after 10 AM, I'm on a bus back to my dentist before work. Sitting across from me is a guy with fading gang tattoos, who is listening to a middle-aged blonde. She says to someone else, "I think everyone should smoke pot. I think everyone in the world should smoke pot." The entire back of the bus is filled with grade school aged kids, all in matching T-shirts. A handful of adults have matching T-shirts which read "bridge project." The bus whisks past three parked police cars. On a bus bench is a young dad with his two small boys. He's showing an officer his ID. Eleven hours later, I myself am sitting at a bus stop in front of a police cars with its lights on.
Tuesday. I'm at my new usual bus stop around a quarter to noon. I hear sirens and, instead of an ambulance, I watch a high speed funeral go past, complete with police motorcade. One black hearse, one black stretch limo, and some other vehicles. It's as if J-Lo is chasing a deceased person. The direction it's headed, the nearest cemetery I know of is thirty miles away. Some nine hours later, I am at another bus stop, just up the street. Across the boulevard is a drug store parking lot. An ambulance has arrived, along with a couple of police cars. I wonder who passed out dead drunk inside? The bus comes, and for the short ride down the street, I listen to three middle-aged guys in back. They are talking about someone they knew who got shot in the back of the head "He had a great crib. He used to barbecue..."
...a fiery six-vehicle crash some fifty blocks north of where I live Monday morning. ...about 6:30 a.m....spread over roughly a city block... Police...have arrested a man in connection with the wreck... ...a white Dodge Durango...was travelling about 100 mph. ...the wreck and a loud explosion. "I saw maybe a three-story (column of flames from) a gas tank blowing up." ...a passenger in the Jeep engulfed in flames rolling on the ground. ...the Jeep's driver was stuck inside. ...the driver of the Jeep died Monday. Paramedics pulled the driver out and were using extinguishers to knock down the blaze... ...the Durango was moving in and out of traffic and running red lights... "His tires were even spinning out from how fast he was going." - The Denver Post, 8/4/2015
A seventeen-year-old teenager dies a violent death, in a busy part of Denver - and the incident makes hardly a ripple in the press. The victim...had no social media presence that any journalist has been able to uncover...no witnesses to the shooting have been found, and the police have no suspects. - Westword.com, 8/4/2015
One person was shot and killed on my street Saturday morning...at about 10:40 a.m.... - thedenverchannel.com, 8/15/2015
These people are getting way too comfortable in our neighborhood... I don't really feel safe any more... Last winter some guy was in my back yard... ...I...chased after him. ...he got away. Just last week, someone got into my home and the cop didn't even get someone here to take fingerprints... - Nextdoor Westwood, 8/16/2015
...four men were arrested last week...on reports of a kidnapping victim...forced into a car that took her to a garage within walking distance from where I live. The victim had been stripped to her underwear, bound, forced to take meth, and threatened with a gun before she passed out. Police found the garage and one other victim inside with the same story, along with two other woman there who had rounds fired into the floor next to them. - FOX31 KDVR.com, 8/19/2015
Will pay someone $15 to sit on a bus bench near my yard sale sign from 8 AM to 2 PM... The actual sale is 7 AM to 3 PM... All you have to do is watch my signs and say to anyone trying to take them down, "Don't take down our signs." If they take them anyway, don't say anything else...just walk back to my house for new signs... - Nextdoor Westwood, 8/21/2015
Wednesday. A quarter to noon. My new usual bus stop, Across the street, on the corner, is a guy with a cart. It contains "paletas," or Mexican ice cream. It's a familiar sight from here all the way toward downtown. What's not familiar is the guy pushing the cart. His grey hair is slicked back, and he's in a black pair of Capri pants. He also has on a gold vest over what appears to be a woman's knit tube top. Nine hours later, I'm at a bus stop up the street. When the bus comes, the last guy to get on is drunk and moving slow. He reaches into his pocket, perhaps because he's seen others find their bus fare there. Or he remembers at one time having change there. He never pulls any money out, and the driver just hands him a transfer to let him sit down.
Thursday. A quarter to one PM. I am at a train station on the campus of a private university. Waiting for my bus are a pair of coeds. I watch as one appears to be doing the other's makeup. Before I know it, they are making out. How cosmopolitan. The bus comes, and the pair continue their amorous interlude in a seat. It's obvious that these two young women are very much in love. Someone sitting behind me begins relating to someone else his personal observations of the smoking habits of hip hop stars. His name, it turns out, is James. James is impaired somewhere in the membrane. The one he is speaking to is...his mom? It turns out to be a caretaker, who James refers to as Cherine. The bus goes past something which both of them refer to as the "dolphin house." "I always think of you, James, when we see it." When he asks her why, she replies, "Because you love dolphins." The lovers continue snuggling. One of them is adorable. She has long corn rows and a shell anklet, and she's in black shorts and a white tank top. The other has a tattoo on one forearm which reads, "trust, honesty, respect," and another on her bicep of Marilyn Monroe. Breaking a silence, James chimes in, "So, Cherine, what's your favorite Spongebob episode? So, Cherine, you want to hear something funny?" It turns out, someone at a 7-Eleven saw him cross the street. "Oh, today's the Beach Bash. It isn't supposed to rain, is it Cherine?" She tells him that the forecast is for rain on Saturday. "It's (today) not Saturday so we're good though." Cherine is taking James back to his mom, who is playing tennis. They plan on waiting for her at a Dollar Store. He says that he loves "the pattern on these seats." How cosmopolitan. I get up as we approach my stop. I catch sight of James. In his pink Polo shirt, he's a handsome young man, perhaps a high school junior or senior. There is no visible sing of any mental impairment at all. I get out with the lovers.
America would no longer be, in our eyes, an imperialistic nation that seeks to impose "her" policy and "her" government upon us, but a great nation for whom we would no longer have anything to fear. Unfortunately, we are not there yet. What the NLF wants...is...to kill off all that still believes in the United States - all that still sticks with the United States and...the United States supporters, believers, followers will be wiped out... ...resolutely denounce the piratacal actions of American imperialism... ...international solidarity and many-sided assistance...make an important contribution... The fraternal support of...Socialist countries strengthens...people's faith... - Raskin and Fall
...the chiefs...could claim to represent no more than a few friendly bands...a fact the peace commissioners concealed, if indeed they even knew. ...many Indians...had succumbed to the lure of the treasure...through barter or theft along the white man's roads. In truth, the Teton Sioux not only had no intention of withdrawing from the Bozeman Trail in Montana, they had no intention of allowing the whites to use it at all... At the frontier posts attitudes hardened into undiscriminating hostility toward all Indians. Westerners...went still further... Their newspapers called for the extermination of the Indians... The principal leaders of the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Comanches wanted to avoid trouble wit the whites, even if it meant abandoning some of their historic haunts. Now the postwar sport of travel and the advance of the railroad added deeply felt grievances to the natural raiding impulse... "If it results in the utter annihilation of these Indians...they have been warned again and again. ...I will say...and do nothing to restrain our troops...and will allow no mere vague charges of cruelty and inhumanity to tie their hands... These Indians, the enemies of our race and of our civilization... ...we will not accept their peace or cease our efforts till all the past acts are both punished and avenged." The operations of 1868-69 went far toward...clearing the belt...between the Arkansas and the Platte of Indians. ...locked in institutions of control and acculturation... ...U.S. commander in the southwest, James Henry...Carleton's California and New Mexico Volunteers...crushed the powerful Navajo, scourge of the Southwest for generations... They fought Kiowas and Comanches... They campaigned diligently against Apaches and Yauapaas...provoked to bitter hostility by a sudden influx of gold seekers... ...Carleton's...well-publicized campaigning stirred...up...the Apaches...and the Southwest continued to rock with Indian warfare into the postwar years. - Utley
We stepped off the Metro... Decked out in our Pride finest...with rainbows...on our faces, we marched up the...stairs... ...the sun disappeared. A tear gas canister was launched into the Metro station. Screaming. Running. ...I channelled the Prophet Tupac. "I don't give a f*ck [sic]," I said. ...our motley crew of Turkish and expat queers and allies and I ran...to the square. Thousands of people were just standing around waiting for the police to attack. There were TOMAs (water cannon vehicles) everywhere. The entrance to Istikal Caddesi, Istanbul's busiest street...was blocked by men in...gas masks, AKs... We retreated to a line of dozens of buses used to transport the police to the square. There were...Pride flags flying everywhere... The cops left. Pride could begin. ...I've only been living in Istanbul for six months. On May Day, International Workers Day, the police invaded my quiet neighborhood... The LGBT population is massive, but mostly invisible. ...Turks and Kurds and Syrians and Persians and Libyans and Algerians... - Out Front, 8/5/2015
As soon as the industry moved in...artists...started selling their ides to companies that would then make them into mass-market products. Gentrification is a way of making everything look the same and marketable ... They do not want to do things that do not speak to thousands of potential buyers... ...most larger cities are feeling the same challenges. It is a global phenomenon that industry is flattening the culture everywhere and turning the world into Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in order to make the highest profit possible. It is interesting how humans become if they are anonymous - either completely powerless or sadistic beasts. ...large groups of lower-income people, political refugees or third-world nations have seemingly become faceless... - Westword, 8/13-19/2015
Friday. Closing in on 8 PM. I leave work. It's an absolutely beautiful August evening, and tomorrow is going to be a long day. All right here in this Camelot-like neighborhood. I look out at the sea of lush, dark, beautiful trees and imagine life behind the fences, shortly after the sun has disappeared. After ten years floating from store to store, between working in production, in customer service, as a driver, or doing training; with the sale of the company this past November, all of those years become history. After spending a month each at three other stores, one of which is now closed, I am for some months an employee of a single store. A few years ago, a good friend and manager of this store passed away. A Guatemalan native named Lilliana. In a couple of months after showing symptoms of lupus, she was taken off life support on my birthday. She lived in one of these homes, with a husband and a six-year-old son. She became friends with the woman who was in charge of our three contract post offices when they worked together in the same store. The woman's name is Inge. Inge was, when I was in diapers, the general manager of the largest drycleaning company in the city. Which means that she was the go-to person for any and all questions about spots. In my business, that's a big if unspoken deal. It's how you get to be general manager. I may, after 24 years in the business, call myself a spotter. As a frequent tool of our trade is the steam gun, we sometimes refer to ourselves as gunslingers. I wouldn't draw against her on her worst day. Inge was a considerable amount of help when Lilliana was having issues with her step daughter, speaking to her teenager about her relationship with her step mom. Just one of many stories of people who are already, in less than a year, long since departed. Lilliana is gone, Inge is retired, and many of my coworkers, both friends and not, have been swept away. Here at the end of the summer, at the end of this day, it feels like a century has gone by. Stranger than watching my former company collapse is watching it replaced as if the people I worked with were never here. Now that's something I never expected. One of the few who are left, like the furniture, is me. The new ownership doesn't feel new at all. A former gunslinging floater, now a goddamned shopkeeper. Do the ghosts still admire me?
On the way to the bus stop, I have to step around a gaggle of groovy-looking local hippie kids. No doubt they are college freshman or sophomores. When I began at the company for which I work, they were perhaps in the fifth grade. Now, they have surely left behind establishment conventions. One guy has hair down to his collar. Around these parts it stands out. One of the young women has on a broomstick skirt. Fresh from Plato's Cave? Perhaps they all wait for the police to step out of a French novel from the late 17th or early 18 centuries. They are standing in front of a math tutoring place or a Roosters Men's "grooming center" not yet open. Caucasian dropouts. You guessed it. How cosmopolitan. In the evening shadows are calling me, and the dew settles in my mind. I remember friends in the yesterday, when my plans were giggled in rhyme.
It's Monday at 7 AM. No sooner am I finished complaining about no longer floating then I get called into work at a different store, Little do I realize it, but it's time for...the smokin' goth girl! I grab a bus across the street from where I live, and a couple of stops later, a young woman gets on. I've been living here for eight years, and I don't remember ever seeing anyone like her here before. She;s a vision with her white skin surrounded head to toe in black. A loose crop top and spandex pants, surrounded by some kind of cloak. A silver medallion hangs from a chain around her neck. Her head is framed by a pink-dyed bob haircut and she had wire-rimmed glasses. Off to work? Out for a stroll? My guess is she's headed for campus somewhere. The Wicked Wiccan of Westwood strolls down the isle with confidence among the cleaning women and ex-felons. Oh the things I miss by no longer working early in the morning.
Wednesday. Noon. I'm at the train station where I spot a couple of young women in summer dresses, each holding I pads, greeting individual passengers. They are both standing by the newspaper stands. I decide to avoid them. I sit down on a bench, where a clean cut young guy with sunglasses moseys up to me, with an I pad. After greeting me with a "Hi," he tells me that he wants me to "sign up" for a "free" phone. He wants to know if I have health care, if I get government assistance. This appears to be a requirement. Clean cut young adults are wandering this train station asking passengers if they get government assistance. Okay. I inform this clean cut young adult that I am employed. He informs me that he has "a job, and I still have government assistance." I tell him that I have no dependent children either. He shakes my hand as moseys on his way. The first person to ever shake my hand on my way to work. Now that's what I call assistance. I hop on a train for a short ride to another station. I wait on a shady bench where a young, thin guy comes along. He has long hair which looks permed, and he strikes me as familiar. When he gets to my bench, he says out loud, "It's far too hot," as he takes off a sweatshirt. He's right. So what is he doing in a sweatshirt. He sits down, pull out a laptop, and begins watching a movie. I hear him talking to himself. When my bus comes, we both get on. He sits in back and mentions to a passenger that he notices his gloves, "even though they aren't Nikes." (?) "They remind me of boxing gloves. That's because, right now, I'm watching a street fighting movie." His voice sounds hoarse. Six hours later, I get on a bus on the same route headed back to the station. There's the same guy. He's asking the driver for some paper towels. At the station, my train car has two seats of jabbering Caucasian young adults, the entire train seemingly propelled by the noise.
Thursday. 11:30 AM. My new usual bus stop. A woman in a motorized wheelchair. drops by the shelter. A car comes to a stop at the light in front of us. The driver, cigarette in hand, honks her horn. Both she and the woman in the chair wave at each other. I'm at the shopping center where I work at 1 PM. I watch a minivan go past. Both sliding doors are open all the way. A child sits in back, reading. I go to a health food grocery where a woman has dropped a glass beverage bottle on the floor. The clerk cleaning up the glass seeks to assuage her embarrassment with levity. He tells her that she was "just pouring some out for her homies." The following day, I grab some lunch for my mom at a Chinese place next door. In the parking lot is a brand new Mustang with an air scoop on the hood. Hanging from the rearview is a handicapped parking card. Both yesterday and today, the mornings turn warm quickly, into the upper nineties degrees F. They were both just beautiful days for swimming. With the exception of quickly growing thunder storms on the horizon, there is not a cloud in the rest of the sky. If I wasn't headed for work, that's where I would be. Yet, regardless of my overtime this week, I don't have these particular days off. This is the last week the pools will be open. I'm at the train station by noon. There are plenty of benches i the shade. However, sitting upon one in the hot sun are a middle-aged couple with their luggage. I hear the guy snap at the lady with some kind of voice from a Saturday Night Live sketch. "'Cause I just told you, that's why!" He has the largest duffel bag which I have ever seen. It's camouflaged and standing up on end. He unzips the upturned end and takes out a backpack. Out of this he pulls what appear to be random garments, with which he covers the baking cement in front of him. The pair begin arguing when my train shows up. I see through the window that he has his finger in her face.
Eight hours later, I am out of work and at the train station around 8:20 PM, I hop on a train where a tall guy in overalls and a grey ponytail sits in a seat. He's talking to another guy, who asks him if he tries "to stay away from downtown." He tells the guy that, downtown, he "knocked out seven pedicabbers." The other guy asks him if he was "on a rampage, man?" The guy says something about dating a 24-year-old while he was living under a bridge. (?) I get out and sit down at the stop for my bus, around 8:30 PM. I watch green and orange lightning flashing low over downtown. Down the avenue, we pick up a guy with salt and pepper hair and a marijuana shirt. Apart from a cane, he looks like anyone you would see at any classic rock concert. We get out on my street and we head across the street to the stop for my last bus. I am fulling expecting that he somehow knows the guy in a wheelchair who is always here at this bus stop, every night. He sits down on the bench next to him, and asks, "Hey you old coot? Let's go blow something up!" The following morning, I am at a train station at sunrise. The benches on the platform are empty, save for a lone elderly lady. She sits with her toothpick-thin legs crossed. Her feet have green socks but no shoes.
Sunday. 10:30 AM. I am across the street from where I live, at a bus stop. Along comes a little middle-aged guy in a marijuana T-shirt and untied shoes. He acts as if he just made it there in the nick of time, and he takes off his shirt, revealing a marijuana tattoo on his bicep. On his belt are a couple of knives, one is a jackknife. He's wearing a back support around his waist. He pulls out a small glass pipe and thrusts it out to me. He says, "Here you go." I decline his offer, to which he responds, "Haaa-ha-ha." He takes out some marijuana and loads his pipe, lights it up, and begins coughing. A small, thin woman walks past, and waits for her moment to walk through traffic in the middle of the boulevard. It appears as if she is long gone, when he lets out a loud cat call. Some eighteen and a half house later, I am back at the same bus stop. 5 AM. On the bench in the shelter, one guy is asleep with his head on a roll of toilet paper. Another is asleep with his head on his skateboard.
...to enter a different state, one in which "surface fuss", as she called it, faded away... Her name for this was "attention deconcentration": an ancient discipline, close to meditation, practised by samurai warriors... ...the eye ceased to focus on particular objects... She was careful almost all of the time... Her personality could not get her back to the surface, she wrote; only her spirit could. Possibly, on that last dive, it felt no particular wish to. - The Economist, 8?15/2015
The following morning, at 10 AM, I am at an outside table at a coffee place in the shopping center where I work. A couple of middle-aged guys are at the table next to me. One is telling the other about his mom, who is a house mother at a fraternity house at the University of Texas in Austin. She was laid off from her previous job as a book purchaser in NYC. It sounds as if it's all good somehow. She's a football fan. She asked him if he wanted to come down to see a game. He can't stay in the frat house, though. He said that, at his age, staying there might tempt him to get in trouble. She asked him if he's met the quarterback of our city's football team. "Yeah, I met him at a golf thing," he replied. The pair get up to go inside the coffee place, and a couple of their female counterparts come out to sit at a table on the other side of me. One of them mentions shopping for IKEA furniture online. She has a son who attends an art institute in Santa Fe, where the students are required to do speed dating. I suppose that it's no more odd than a middle-aged guy tempted by whatever perils could possibly await a country club swinger inside the walls of a Texas fraternity house. I don't exactly see this guy helping to carry a couch into the street to set it on fire, so his mom should rest easy. At least of course until we see footage of her standing on top of an overturned car. Texas all the way... During the speed date, the woman's son took the opportunity to recount a journey he took from Argentina to Spain to India. He's either a conscientious young man off to see the world, or he's trained with ISIS. She also mentions that she wants to have the decorative band of her watch made shorter. Another middle-aged guy drops by, this one in a neon sleeveless shirt. One of the women says to him, "Hi! This is my friend Annie, I grew up with." To Annie, she says, "This is my friend fireman Dave." To Dave, "Where were you when I was cleaning my gutters? I have five stitches. You know, I was a junior fireman." (When she was young.) "I walked down the ladder, very calmly. I'm having my yard dug up, completely redone. I'm having a big, boozy party when I'm done." The next time I glance over, the ladies have vanished. A couple of elderly guys come out. One says to the other that he is "tired of screaming kids. This is the craziest shopping center. It's full of people running around and screaming kids." So it is. Families on bikes all in bike helmets. Hippie-type moms with ornate portrait tattoos on their biceps. Trim grey-haired businessmen in workout gear. It's the shit all right. And have you met fireman Dave? Or King Friday? How about Mr. Hooper? If this shopping center was built for anyone, fella, it was made for screaming kids. We're a nation founded on screaming kids. You're spending your twilight years in a consumer utopia.
Eight hours later, I am standing in a bus shelter, in the dark, in the rain. Standing next to me, hidden inside her black coat with its large hood, is she. The same. It's the Wicked Wiccan of Westwood. Whenever I see her, it's as if she steps fresh from the same thirty-year-old music video. Same hair. Same color. Black stockings full of runs. Instead of a broom, she rides a bike. He coat is open, revealing the same outfit and medallion around her neck. She carries a black bag with pins all over it. If I had never seen MTV during its early years, I would still need to invent this woman, if only for myself. She loads her bike on the front bus rack and gets on. She sits in a seat, absorbed by her I pod. She is followed by some two-dollar punk who tells the driver that he and his girlfriend lost their transfers shopping at a dollar store. He may as well have said to the driver, "Shut up and get going." He has a collection of tattoos beneath his undershirt. Some guy he knows comes on and sits next to the dark duchess. Is this a dagger I see before me? He asks the dollar store kid, "What's up." "Just got out of jail," he replies, with the same insight as, 'Just got out of the library.' His girlfriend launches into some shopping story. The bus rattles toward my street in the rain. His friend asks him if he's on probation. "Yeah," he says, with hardly a discernible discord at which to wink. No joy which has not already been killed. Welcome to utopia. We're back on my street around 9 PM. The lady in black gets out where I do. The Wicked Wiccan of Westwood rides tonight across a hillock of a thousand empty liquor bottles. I watch her sweep along the moor where I live, out of sight, into the glistening wet night. Safe journey, my mysterious lady. No one else here now at the stop for my last bus, save for the regular in a wheelchair holds court as he does night after night after night. My bus comes to a stop, and out comes a couple who looked drunk before they ever rose from their seat. The woman is on crutches, and recognizes the guy in the wheelchair much faster than she recognizes that this is not their stop. She mentions this fact to the man before they re-board the nocturnal rain chariot. We proceed to my stop, where the couple re-exits. A middle-aged guy hurriedly approaches across a wet parking lot, carrying a sleeping bag in his arms. The woman appears to know this guy as well.
The following morning, I am coming back from running around twenty to seven AM. Behind me I hear, "Hey, bro?" The morning is chilly, and I turn around to see a young guy dressed like Mr. Douglass' farm hand on Green Acres. He wants to know if he can use my bathroom. He's the first person to ask me that since I was in grade school. Monday, 6:30 AM. I am walking again through my lot after running. Slowly walking toward me is a tall Vietnamese neighbor. He's in a track suit and having a smoke. Before 9:30 AM, I am across the street at the bus stop. A young guy on the bench, with bright yellow shoes and tattoos all over his arms, gets up to go to the gas station for an energy drink. When he comes back, he asks me if I "shmoke shigarettesh?" He does not get on the bus when it comes. After work, around 7:30 PM, I am at a table outside a bakery where I hang out. It's a beautiful late summer evening. The occasional white-haired senior, of which there can only be an endless supply 'round these parts, shuffles past. A middle-aged dad and his two daughters are all on bikes. A tall kid in the bakery gives me a free bag of chips. Reminds me of a kid I worked with ten years ago. If this place is where I end up spending my retirement years, I could do a lot worse. In my own neighborhood, meth users are kidnapping, drugging and raping women a garage. Far from this place of milk and fat free yogurt. Speaking of my neighborhood, it's not until I get back there, shortly before 9 PM, when I realize that the great endless swarm of street racers appear to no longer take up nearly the room they did here on this boulevard during this summer of infestation. Another school year has just begun. Interesting. The next morning, around 10 AM, I am on a bus downtown with a young dude in sunglasses and a young lady. He tells her about getting both his kids and ex something from Las Vegas. She tells him about doing nanny work. She gets out and a young couple get on. The dude strikes up a conversation with the other guy, who mentions that he "bought an eighth ounce last night. It was the finest weed ever." A couple of seats behind him, a computer guy is on his phone, talking someone through a computer problem. As the bus pulls up to a big family services building, the dude turns to someone behind him. "This is the building you want, right here brother," he says. I get out at a train station. In the bus shelter, is a mom with a child in a stroller with a bumper sticker in Spanish on it. Over her shoulder is a bag with the image of a witch from a Disney cartoon on the side. She is pulling tickets from a coupon book and selling them to surrounding passengers waiting for the bus. The coupons are worth a fare. It appears that she is selling them for less than half the bus fare. I assume that she is still charging more than what they cost her. Eleven hours later, I am across the street from a big corner drug store, where a drunk guy is scratching his bald head as he converses with a couple of women seated against an outside wall. In his tank top and long shorts, He looks around. He appears to pontificate and posture. He walks out to the middle of the parking lot, scratching her head, before approaching the driver of an SUV.
The next day, it's going on noon at a major train and bus hub. By himself on the platform is a young guy with shoulder length hair and a black beard. In his pants and sandals, he looks almost like a former mental patient. Or a current one. He laughs with a swashbuckler's laugh into the empty space around himself. Out of a pack, he pulls out a plastic case, with what appears to contain folded maps. He removes a map, and says to no one, "What the hell is this?" More swashbuckling laughter. "Ha! Ha-ha-haah!" Some nine hours later, I am at my last bus stop home. Seven drunks stand together at the corner of a restaurant wall, behind the bus stop. They disperse. Three of them sit together on a bench and a fourth sits by himself. He has a drawstring bag around his shoulders and wobbles back and forth as he sits. A fifth ran through traffic to a fast food place across the street. As he returns, he is in the middle of the boulevard when a Mustang makes a turn, and he is right in front of it. When the bus comes, the wobbling guy is barely able to hold himself up as he gets on board.
Thursday. I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live. It's 5 AM. In the shelter is a big round grey-haired guy in a white T-shirt. A guy in a fishing hat comes along, clip-on sunglasses on his brim. The first says to the second, "Hey brother, have you got a lighter or light?" He speaks with articulation out here in the dead quiet dark. The second lights up a smoke for the first, who tells him, "God bless." He asks the second, "You goin' to work?" "Yeah," he replies. "I don't have to work no more," the first tells the second. "Must be nice," he answers. He doesn't have to work, and he's out here at 5 in the morning, on a bus bench, waiting for a light. The next day finds me back at my old bus stop at 12:15 PM. The corner of Nowhere and Trouble. On the bench are three middle-aged guys smoking a bong made out of a flattened beer can. The one holding the 'bong' tells the others, "I'm a river rat. Ernie brought me up here. I'm a river rat. I live down by the river. But I come up here 'cause I got friends up here."
The following Monday is the last day of the month. Where do the months go, besides being written down here? I'm at my new usual bus stop. This is how my life is catalogued, into the usual and unusual. Between 11:40 AM and noon every day, I usually have this stop pretty much to myself. This morning, both benches in the shelter are occupied. One one is a middle-aged woman with bad teeth and a purple cane. She notices me looking at the schedule posted in the shelter. "It'll be here in about ten minutes," she says of the bus. "If it's on time." She smiles. I wish she wouldn't. The other bench has a young couple on it. The lady has on spandex camouflaged pants, and the guy has hair down to his waist and a black T-shirt with a big red skull on the front. Across the street, a skinny guy with red skin very slowly sits down on the cement just before the light changes. He gets up and ever so slowly, with arms out a little for balance, crosses the street. From the other direction comes someone with a cane walking their dog. Is everyone out today because they just got next month's benefits check? Some seven hours later, I am out from work and at an outdoor table in the shopping center. Two grade school girls are at a table behind me, talking loud and yelling. A woman in an apron comes out to tell them that she's getting complaints and is worried someone will call the police. In this neighborhood? I almost choke on my snack. Two parents are at another table with their kids, who are blowing off some after dinner steam. "Okay, everybody in the car please," mom says. A pair of older kids jump the curb on their bicycles. I'm in a TV commercial now. I will shortly be back on the late night horror movie which is my own street.
The bus takes me to the 8:20 PM train. Seated in front of me are three guys, one of who is in a tank top with a tattoo across his shoulder blades. They speak to each other in Spanish. Behind me is a middle-aged guy with a face full of black stubble and a camouflaged hat which reads, "#1 dad." I hop off at my station. When my bus comes, the driver gets out to tell me that he has seen me smoking before. (?) He asks for a cigarette. I tell him that I don't smoke. He gets one a few minutes later from someone who is talking to him about working for the "Department of Corrections halfway house mental health facility." I grey-haired guy gets on, who mentions to a friend that he went to the bank to draw out $26 for a trip to the airport. (?) Down the way, someone in a transit system supervisor's uniform gets on. I feel safer already. I get out at mt street with a guy in some kind of Australian bush hat. As we cross the avenue he asks me if he can have my transfer. I tell him I have a buss pass and don't need a transfer...and therefore don't have one. He sits down on the bench, and a guy with a bicycle comes by. he asks him, "Hey brother you want to buy a ring?" A car goes past, and he yells at it to pick him up. The bus shows up and he asks me for change, "please?." He gets on and tells the driver that he lost his transfer. The driver gives him one.
