Monday. I stop into a branch of my bank, where a teller is an African national. I can't remember which country she's from, but it's where Ebo is spoken. This is but the second time I've sen her. The first was last week. I walked in wearing my balaclava, and she asked me if I was an astronaut. Today, I mention that I found another job on a website called Indeed.com. She knows of it. Tuesday. I'm on my first bus home from work. This evening, we have the driver who had a low coolant light go on last week, and then had his bus shut down. Signs of the end abound. On this evening, he's complaining about passengers in dark attire, waiting at stops with absolute no light. The only lights around are Christmas lights. We roll up upon one pair of black-clad passengers. "Perfect night camouflage," he quietly says out loud. "We had that in the Marine Corps. Help us out (to see you easier)," he pleads. "Do something. We're already on the losing team." He speaks, I think, of the transit system. I have but five more working days dependent on the system. We arrive at the transit hub. He's having trouble with a sensor or something letting him put the bus into gear. It's the third mishap I've witnessed in the past couple of months with this driver. It appears as if the computer finally allows him to put his bus into gear. He's perturbed. "This shit has been happening all shift, and it's going to continue happening all night," he admonishes. "Give me a working bus." During a season of joy, I feel as though I am avoiding heading off some kind of impending cliff. Things are falling apart at work as well. Another employee is quitting. The owner has threatened the manager of the store I am leaving, which he's never done before.
...the area around the Bears Ears Buttes have been described as a Native American version of Eden - their birthplace of humanity. Native people perform prayers and sacred ceremonies. ...in these deep maze-like canyons and remote mesas that many Navajos sought shelter from both Kit Carson's brutal occupation of Navajo lands and the U.S. Army's forced relocation to...the New Mexico and Oklahoma borders. "You're talking about the heart of the Navajo people in terms of the spiritual , psychological, physiological, social... We are trying to tell [the state and federal government], yes. this Bears Ears region is still our church." ...the effects of seeing artifacts like ceremonial drums in exhibits... "Just like mass shootings...you think: Why? Why? That type of question is never answered." - Boulder Weekly, 11/29/2018
...Southeast Asia began the slow, snakelike process of shedding its colonialism. New forms of violence...have swept the subcontinent and have vitiated the normal growth and development of these countries. ...the mood of Southeast Asia was one of hesitation...trepidation, and....caution... ...the failure of the non-Communist Asian revolution... Any nationalist revolution...is as much concerned with a search for identity as with a search for freedom. ...elements...bound up in the larger search for identity, a...more spiritually painful quest. ...the many social and religious influences to which they have been subjected over the last thousand or so years, including...a...complex cultural and class structure...the product of...historical pressures; and...political and psychological factors [of] the long struggle for independence and...a united and viable republic. ...the gigantic task of extending [new national] authority and control over [a] whole chain of islands, with their widely varying power structure, social and religious differences, and class distinctions. - Time out of Hand, by R. Shaplen, 1969
Wednesday. I'm on my first bus up the street to work. At the stop after the one where I step on, another monk enters the bus. He may be the last monk I see on a bus. Both he and I listen to a passenger across from us who is on his phone, speaking to his boss. "Don't give me that bullshit. You pulled me off that job yesterday. Don't say it like that." His boss must have asked him, 'Which job?' "The one I'm going to today." The monk and I disembark at the same corner. I head to the to for my connecting bus. I hear a familiar voice from across the street. It says, "Nice bike." I heard the same voice, say the same thing, from the same side of the street a few weeks ago. It's a drunk guy. He comes over and takes a seat on the bench. As he shuffles across the street, he asks me the same think he did last time, "Have you crashed yet?" He's like a broken, drunk record. He gives me the same story this morning, that the bus driver would not let him go a few blocks without bus fare. "He says to me, 'Why did God give you legs?'" He mentions to me that he has 5 DUIs, and he does what I have heard other drunks do. He mentions parts of his body which are "fucked up. I can't drive drunk, I get into accidents. I'm tired. I've been up since 5, staring at the fuckin' wall." Interesting. That's what drunk do at home? At least he has a place to live. "I got to walk all this way, just for a goddamned lousy beer." At 10 in the morning? "I got tired of asking for money. Some people say yes. Some say 'fuck off.' It doesn't matter to me." He gets up and tells me to have a good Christmas. I tell him to do the same. He waves his hand in the air and tells me, "It's just another fucking day to me." He shuffles down the bike lane in the street, going the wrong way. A jogger, clad in black Lycra, turns his head toward him as they pass each other. I won't be here the next time he makes his beer pilgrimage. The bus arrives shortly thereafter. The driver, rather than asking my legs' relationship with God, remembers that I have a monthly pass and waves me inside.
Some hours later, I catch my first bus home. The driver is the one with the bad mechanical luck. He tells me that he was down at the transfer hub when someone came along with another bus to swap out for his. He tells the guy that there is nothing wrong with his bus, but he saw another broken down on his way here. He's told to change buses anyway. Let's here it for the losing team. We get to the transfer hub. A passenger outside, yet another one, asks the driver where his bus goes. The driver tells him and asks him to make up his mind because he's late. The passenger mentions my street and the driver tells him the he goes past it. He steps aboard and has a seat., appears to be in his sixties. He spots a woman with birds on her cloth bag and mentions a certain bird. He tells her he likes birds. After this, he asks the driver if we have passed his street, my street. I know we haven't. I don't feel like being a volunteer information service this evening. This driver is one of several who don't know the streets of northwest Denver. I know not why. He believes that we have past it and send the passenger out to catch the same bus going the other way. After this, the driver realizes that we haven't passed it yet.
Thursday. I'm putting my bike on the rack of my first bus home when I see a guy running for the bus. He makes it. We just get going when we suddenly come to a halt. The guy wants to get out because he "left something back there. When's the next bus?" he asks the driver. "Probably a half hour." he replies. Another guy who has no idea where the bus goes. A bus for a different route will be here in a half hour. The next bus for this route won't be here for a full hour. I wonder if either of these guys realizes this? I'm sitting behind a forlorn-looking women who is silent until we approach the transfer hub. She exclaims, "I'm goin' the wrong way!" She says she wants to go to...THE CORNER WHERE SHE WAS JUST PICKED UP! The driver doesn't tell her that he picked her up from there. She doesn't realize that she wanted to get out at the end of the line before the bus turned back the other way. Jesus. Is this a shuttle service for outpatients? She disembarks at the transfer hub, and a thin guy with long hair steps on. He asks the driver...guess what? Where does this bus go? The driver tells him generally where his bus goes. The guy doesn't know which direction this is, but says the driver of this route going the other way told him he wants this bus. He mentions one boulevard. Just like last night, this driver tells him that he goes past it. Then he asks the driver if he goes past the next boulevard past the one he just mentioned, the one wanted by he other lost passenger last night, my boulevard. I have only two more working days up here...
Friday, I stop by my investment broker's office to say goodbye. She's in meetings and won't be there, but the office manager will pass my message along. I get a last yogurt at the yogurt shop and a last salad at the sandwich place, both on the way to work. Saturday, I spend a few hours with my mom while she is in the hospital. Sunday. The power goes off at home and I discover that the front tire of the bike I ride on the weekend is flat. I take it on the bus to the bike shop while I argue on the phone with 5 operators and a supervisor that I need a number to call because the customer service department of my energy company is closed on Sundays. At the bike shop, a technician tells me all the parts which are cheap plastic on my department store bike, and that the pitted bearings were probably installed by a "sixteen-year-old who is in trouble with" the department store, and he tells me how he is against cars politically. An older, grey-haired tech is talking about how he can't sit in some kind of chair because it's uncomfortable, and how the movie Bohemian Rhapsody "was great. Was Great!"
Monday. This is my last time standing at the bus stop across the street during the week. All is quiet but the traffic. The fire truck is in the driveway of the station. Yesterday, this fire department made an aborted attempt to take my mom to the hospital. They never made if past the kitchen. And there was no emergency in my kitchen. The bus takes me to the corner for my connecting bus, and I run into the Sinclair station fr the last time. Then I'm at the stop for the connecting bus for the last time, which picks me up for the last time. A passenger in back opens a window. The driver immediately responds with, "Close the window, gringo." Gringo? "If it's too hot in here, ask me to turn the heat off." I've never heard a driver say this. I'm departing the transit system just in time. "I'm just trying to clear the air in here," the passenger responds. "It stinks in here...like crap." I don't smell anything. I wonder if that means that it's me who smells so bad. We pull into the transfer station and a passenger steps on with a tap card, which he scans in front of a scanner. It turns out to be invalid. We leave him behind. I make one more trip to this gym. One more trip to the deathburger next to work. On bar stools are a couple of guys in suits and with laptops. On the other side is a guy in a "buck knives" cap. I take one more look at the foothills. It's a beautiful afternoon in the 50's. One last day at work and one more ride to the bus stop. One more bus to my boulevard. Driving my last bus home is the ten-year-old. Her original bus had brake trouble and she smelled something burning. I already said I'm leaving the transit system none too soon. She tells me that fare are going up next year because of all the passengers who never pay their fares. We say our goodbyes. And I put one adventure to bed.
End of A Year and Three Month-Adventure, and Start of A New One
Tuesday. I decide that the safest way to go into downtown is over a bike trail along the river. It's the same one I took to work between the end of 2015 and the end of August of 2017. Only, instead of south and east, I'm going north and east. From the trail I turn off onto a big bridge over the train tracks. It drops me onto a bike lane which takes me past the new gym and directly to work. This morning, I stop at a deathburger up the street from the gym. I lock my bike at a coffee place next door. A guy comes over from the deathburger, selling a "sound system". I tell him that I don't care. "Are you sure you want to be all negative?" he asks me. He's with a guy in a long wool coat. The guy is talking to himself and has a shopping cart full of crap. After my snack, I return to the coffee place, where a clerk asks me if I'm having a good day. I tell him that a guy next to another guy talking to himself next to a shopping cart in front of this coffee place tried to sell me stolen merchandise, and then suggested that I was "negative". The clerk tells me, "That's...oxymoronic." From there, I head over to my new place of employment, on my first day, where a homeless guy threatens me, and tells me to leave. Wednesday.. I'm way early at the gym. The gym in in a small park in a housing complex. On a bench in the park are some teenagers smoking marijuana. I hang out at the entrance to the gym. Some mentally challenged teenagers and their mentors come along. One of the teens is making nonsensical knock knock jokes. One of the adults gets a call from his girlfriend.
...an art installation...on [my] Boulevard. The project is meant to help calm traffic...recognized as a high injury network. ...where...50 percent of pedestrian fatalities in Denver [occur]... "Community members along [my] Boulevard have long expressed anxiety about the safety of the thoroughfare through their neighborhoods [including mine]. Our project elevates this voice...to drivers to slow down for the people who call this place home. This is the most dangerous stretch of road in Denver..." - Washington Park Profile, 12/2018
The Broncos tight end and his wife...have immersed themselves into the Colorado lifestyle. ...they have two active dogs... [Their home is close to an enormous mall.] "we've been to Vail, Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, Red Rocks, Estes Park, and Idaho Springs. [They] "met on Tinder. ...he was wearing his hat backwards and looked so cute. So I swiped right! My 92-year-old grandmother still doesn't get the whole meeting people on the internet thing." [They live] close to so many restaurants... "We both like to cook." A lot of people already ask us when we are going to start having kids, so we put together a 'B.K.' list. It's a 'before kids' list..." - Mile High Sports, 12/2018
"We are very proud that Aurora is the only city in Colorado and one of 10 cities in the U>S>, with a comprehensive immigrant integration plan." - Out Front Magazine, 12/19/2018
"Mixing incomes and bringing in the private-sector investment is how we do stabilization in these neighborhoods." But...the DHA [Denver Housing Authority] land sales...selling such prime parcels for more expensive housing pushes people who have lived in the city center for decades to the fringes. "The DHA, which could actually be a backstop to prevent that...is actually accelerating the problem. They're the firewall for gentrification...leveraging existing public holdings." ...the DHA is...selling premium parcels so that it can develop more affordable units in other parts of Denver than it could in the city's high-priced central core. ...most of the DHA apartments are studio and one-bedrooms, too small for most families. "While they take five to seven years to build, people... They've already been priced out." City officials explained that the executive order merely requires the city to evaluate the property for development of affordable housing, not follow through on awarding it to developer who will. - Westword, 12/20-26/2016
...Denver relies on the tech industry for much of its economic growth. ...having 15 major businesses either relocate or open ...in the city, compared to building...housing units. Increased demand for business space requires municipalities to reconfigure their zoning codes to accommodate the influx of employees... ...mixed-use development...stacks new residents in apartments above shopping centers. ...great for the young, white and educated demographic...but distressing for growing families...here for generations. ...most mixed-use developments are cropping up along the city's main arterial roads...seeing increasing numbers of homeless. - Denver Voice, 12/2018
...and my 'stretch of road in Denver ain't for the faint of heart! I wonder if this art installation will end up getting run over, like a scene out of the movie Cannonball Run. On my very own corner, a mother was a passenger in the family car when it was struck and she was killed. She was 38, and so beautiful that she appeared 10 years younger. On Sunday, it's a beautiful day. The afternoon gets up to what feels like the sixties. I'm at a diner not far from home. The corner is popular with panhandlers, such as a couple of middle-aged women outside. Joining them is a skinny guy dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt, black gloves, and a black cap. On his face is a mask usually reserved for subzero temperatures. It's camouflaged. He's struggling with putting a rear fender on a mountain bike which is hooked up to a child carrier. Bound to the handlebars is a big white skull. After I am finished with lunch, it appears as if he has taken more individual parts off of the bike.
This week is the one before Christmas. I'm not thinking about it at all. I'm focused on learning the details of a new job. Rather than plying a couple of routes on the bus with bike in tow, I am back on the bike. I'm riding a bike trail along a concrete wall which separates me from oncoming traffic on the interstate, and I'm traversing a bike lane among downtown traffic. I work a handful of blocks from the city center, next to a huge high rise downtown condo, on the major artery straight into the heart of the big city. Gone are the open spaces and lawn and trees and views of foothills and mesas so close, you could almost reach out and touch them. Bums sleep or wander or threaten employees in the alley behind where I work. Police cruise through to check on them. One evening, I'm crossing the intersection of my corner to my house. I have to step aside as a Caucasian dressed in Lycra comes jogging past with his dog on a leash. In my neighborhood, it's like a Martian just landed. This is the second week I've been sick with a cold. My new job has been a blur of days, full of many more hours than my previous job. Saturdays I don't take my bike so I can grocery shop downtown on the way home from work. In the morning, I'm back at the bus stop across the street from where I live for the first time in 12 days. It doesn't feel like Christmas. It's more a procession of sleepless activities. The last working day before the holiday, I have instructions to mop the entire store. I guess this counts as the tour of my new place of employment on my 11th day of work. After three years of working a closing shift by myself, I'm part of a crew again. Instead of listening to Terry Gross at work, I'm listening to Drake all day. "Pussy...fuck...niggas..." Drake is on when a couple of professional-looking Caucasian customers in their thirties come in. I get the impression that they feel as if they receive some street cred because they know they guy I close with, and he likes Drake. After work, I make the short hike to a downtown supermarket at twilight, past the art museum and a collection of small thin barren trees full of white lights. I hike with groceries on a tiny dolly a couple of blocks to catch a bus back to my boulevard. A day after the equinox, the football stadium is lit up in red and green. The team is out of the playoffs this season, which means we will have a winter of peace and quiet this year. I get home and have dinner across the street at the Mexican place. They have a new dish, and it's odd. It's chicken wings, carrots and celery with ranch dressing, and a small basket of french fries. It's a random collection of Caucasian snacks.
It's the Thursday after Christmas. In the alley behind work is a building with a metal staircase leading to a back door. Underneath is a guy who appears to be 20 years my junior, laying inside a sleeping bag. He's surrounded by a bicycle and other bedding. Just around the corner is another side of the building, this one next to the street. Laying on the sidewalk is a kid who looks as if he's in his twenties. On a cold day with a wind chill, he's trying to hide under what appears to be an afghan. He's only in a white T-shirt. I already have a new gas station next to where I work. It's a spot where I drunks, homeless, and the mentally ill (or any combination thereof) pass through as they wander downtown. During the week of Christmas, an angry-sounding homeless-looking guy steps through the parking lot. He's shouting something about "job cuts!" It's an odd subject in the middle of establishments with so many "help wanted" signs in their windows. The following day, there are a couple of homeless-looking guys each with a backpack stuffed with who knows what. And each has a bike. One has a maroon woman's bike which appears to be an old single-gear model which brakes when you backpedal. The other has a turquoise bike with raised handlebars, which appears as if it's a child's bike. The pair appear to be repairing...the bell on his handlebars. On the Saturday before New Year's, inside the gas station is a guy with a 40 ounce bottle inside of a plastic grocery bag. He's asking me how the tamales are. After work, I'm in the supermarket downtown. In the checkout line is a young woman who is attempting to pay her bill with a gift card on her phone. She doesn't have a physical card. She calls the customer service department of the card, and she has the rep speak to the cashier on her speaker phone. The rep is in the process of authorizing her gift card when her phone dies. Without the rep's help, she's out of luck. It appears as if she is attempting to purchase three appliances.
New Years Eve. I'm headed for a workout and a reckoning with the place from which I purchased my bike. I never got my free tuneup after a month, which is long since past. And this place decided to close on Sundays. And now, my relatively new bike is having issues shifting into the lowest gear. It's snowing the last day of the year, with six inches expected. I wonder how busy the place will be on such a day. I am back at the bus stop up the street, where for some years I caught the bus to work before 6 AM, five days a week. I can't remember how early exactly. I'm inside the bus shelter when a guy comes along who also waits for the bus. He's only in a hoodie out in the snow and wind. He asks me when a bus comes. I tell him that the schedule mounted outside the shelter suggests that one will be here in about five minutes. He thanks me. When it arrives, we step on board and I hear him say he's going to work. Earlier, I heard him mention Sam's Club. The bus rakes myself and my bike to a late breakfast at a diner, and I ride to the train which takes me a block from the rec center. I head inside and attempt to purchase an annual pass. My card is declined for the first time since I can remember. After a call to the service center, I am told that my card has several "suspicious" charges which resulted in a hold having been placed on the card. These charges appeared when I used my card the day before at the Mexican place across the street from where I live, when I had breakfast this morning, and when I just attempted to purchase an annual pass to the rec center. I was told that this established a break in my usual pattern of spending behavior. The hold is lifted, I secure an annual pass, I work out, and I am off to the bike shop. Once there, my worries are assuaged as I am told that the shop will combine my one-month-tune-up with both a "warranty tune-up" and the shop's winter tune-up special offer. The total bill will be more than 50% off. It will be ready this week. It appears as if this shop will be doing something for me after all. As long as I don't attempt to pick up my bike on a Sunday. I hop on another bus and then a mall shuttle and grab lunch. From there I get back on a bus to a hardware store, which takes me to the hardware store. I grab a screw and nut with which I hope to secure a loose bike rack on my other bike. Which I will need until my other bike is ready. From there I head to the train station to catch a bus home. From the bus stop, what sounds as if it's around the corner of a building, I think I hear children's voices. I can't tell exactly because the sound could be bouncing between walls. I take steps toward the corner to peek around it when I realize that the sound is coming from just across the drive. A car is parked at the curb. Outside of the open passenger door is a guy without a shirt. he's making high pitched noises as if he's attempting to communicate with the driver. I think that I hear the female driver acknowledge that he has no shirt on, and may be asking him to put one on. He spends a lot of time making the high pitched noises as if he is attempting to communicate his own assessment of not wearing a shirt. The driver eventually leaves him without a shirt. He walks off into the blowing snow. I always wonder how a month will end. This one has ended reassuringly. At least I'm not shirtless.
