...upholding pillars of faith for a community that has been traumatized by police brutality, economic inequity, and spiritual warfare. ...at a mental health facility...patients...simply had no anchor... "I didn't know if psychology could fix that..." ...exploring the historical and social realities of liberation theology... ...people of color were being pushed out of the community by the prohibited cost of living, and...redefined the church's role... In 2014, Montbello was ranked as one of Denver's most dangerous neighborhoods...inaccurately...and significantly limited its growth. ...its only high school closed its doors... "In today's climate, I feel like I have a responsibility to be proactive in helping people see the issues of race, inclusion, diversity, and equity are not fringe issues that we deal with aside from religion, but they are core values of...God's people." ...to discuss issues of race and progressive resistance to solve social and political problems within the community. "The church should be actively working to change the community and the world, as well as training people to respond to the hate...permeating our society." - Denver Urban Spectrum, 12/2019
"Overturning...convictions is part of Denver's multi-pronged approach to correct the social injustices caused by the war on drugs." Advocates have criticized...the onus on people with convictions...either by filling out an online form or attending an event. The [attorney's office will ask the court to eliminate convictions and have state agencies update records for background checks.] Advocacy groups...work with people hamstrung by old marijuana convictions. A past conviction "is a jacket that you wear the rest of your life," said...executive director of Servicos de la Raza. The nonprofit group focuses o Denver's immigrant and refugee communities... ...even minor drug convictions keep people from working in well-paying industries, improving their credit and finding housing. T Marijuana Industry Group...is helping cover court fees. - Denver Herald, 1/17/2019
...the Denver City Council took a massive step towards making Denver...the first U.S. city to open a supervised injection site. ...for people to legally inject drugs such as opioids. ...at the annual Homeless Persons Memorial on the steps of the City and County Building...the reading of 233 names of [homeless] who died in 2018. Of them, 27 were due to drug overdoses... ...there is a strong correlation between addiction and homelessness. ...resources for those [homeless battling addiction] below the poverty line...continue to dwindle. Denver is a city of innovation, of growth and progress. Supervised injection sites are our opportunity to continue that reputation...
...the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the life expectancy of persons experiencing homelessness to be just in the 40s. ...chronic illness, infections, violence, poor mental health, and substance abuse. Arapahoe House, the largest drug and alcohol treatment center in the metro region, closed its doors in January 2018. Nearly 90 percent of its patients received little to no income. [Of those homeless who died in 2018,] physical trauma accounted for 23 deaths, heart disease for 13, and the rest of the 91 confirmed deaths were...due to alcohol, hypothermia, pneumonia, or other diseases. ...a memoriam to those who had died [reads,] "We're people who have contributed the utmost with our sweat, our tears, our lives." - Denver Voice, 1/2019
...somewhere between...Lincoln Park and Sun Valley...south of Mile High Stadium. ...the area had been frequented by homeless campers since the...camping ban in 2012, forcing people to sleep in more hidden areas, and I do start seeing shopping carts... ...under I-25; up and to our left is an elevated ledge shielded from the sky by an expanse of...concrete. [The transit system] recently built a chain-link fence around the ledge to deter campers, but we notice a rope hanging from the fence, perhaps fifteen feet in length, with knots spaced out every few feet. ...underneath the Sixth Avenue viaduct, next to [a] climbing gym... This is where Lewis lived in a homeless encampment for the better part of seven years. "I mean, you were like the mayor down here." Lewis...saved...people from overdoses. "People used to literally drive up and drop people off by my tent here. Other times they'd carry people to the edge of the camp and yell, 'Vernon!' One time we were in this building here...and someone literally threw this chick who was OD-ing through the window so I could help her." - Westword, 1/24-30/2019
...the tendency towards paternalistic authoritarianism, the inclination to...the civil service...the unquestioning obedience of authority...exclusive concentration of politics in the capital... The perfect state and the perfect society... The failure on [the] part [of the Dutch colonial power to establish] a national bourgeoisie...to think and act for itself [resulted in] the elite [drifting] away from the masses...and were unable to cope with independence...nationalism [grew] without cohesion... - Shaplen
That 71 percent of African Americans distrusted the 2004 [presidential election] results was perhaps not a surprise...victims of organized disenfranchisement... But 28 percent of NASCAR fans? Twenty-five percent of born-again Christians? Twenty-two percent of currently serving members of the armed forces? ...shutting the blinds on the loathsome old common landscape to tinker with their own self-tailored...highly paranoid recipe for salvation and for revolution. - Insane Clown President, M. Taibbi, 2017
New Year's Day. A diner down the street is open. I head out in the snow to the bus stop. It stopped snowing and the sun is trying to come out. At the bus stop is a cross eyed guy with a snow shovel. I ask him several time to repeat himself before I understand him. He's telling me that the transit system is free all day today. It's a city tradition. Coming through a crosswalk at a snail's pace is a skinny guy. He's in a hat with ear flaps, an unzipped winter coat, and insulated pants which are falling down. I think I hear him yell, "Fuck!"
It's Thursday after New Year's. I'm on my way to pick up my bike before work, which is ready. When I dropped it off, the tech thought I had spilled blood on the frame. I told him it's hot chocolate. I hit the transit depot for some ride coupons, grab breakfast at the homeless central deathburger, a brownie at a convenience store, and a sugar free hot chocolate at a coffee place, all on the pedestrian mall. It's a short walk to the stop for the bus to the bike shop. A middle aged guy in a hoodie step in front of me in the line for the bus. When it arrives, we step onboard. He pays his fare but doesn't realize that it's gone up. He put the rest in before he puts down a seat in the handicapped area. Another passenger alerts him that a wheelchair is coming onboard, and he will have to move. "Well, the driver shut the door," he tells her. "I didn't know. Don't yell at me." I'm out of the bus at at the bike shop, where my bike is less than quoted. A guy who can hardly walk holds the door as I take my bike away. He gets a head start down the sidewalk but I make it around him. The following day, I'm out back of where I work. I like to have a snack outside rather than inside before I start my shift. A young, soft spoken guy approaches me from the alley. he carries an air pump, which he refers to as an "air compressor." He must have noticed my bike. I assume that it's stolen. I decline his offer.
I prefer to have a snack behind where I work, rather than eat inside. This is where I am late in the morning on Friday. A young, soft-spoken man approaches me from the alley. He carries an air pump which he refers as an "air compressor." He wants to know if i "would be interested in it." He must have noticed my bike. An air pump I already have. An air compressor would turn my bike tubes into bombs. Saturday. I step out of a connecting bus to work. I'm at the edge of the park between the capitol and the state house. The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has a sculpture installation around a fountain. As I am snapping a photo when a guy comes along. He asks me if I have a clean pair of spare socks. They're...in my sock drawer. It's a short walk from there to the deathburger homeless central. Out front are a couple of police cars and an ambulance. After work, which has been nuts lately, I get to the supermarket downtown and to the stop for my first bus home some time after 8 PM. A guy in a fleece-lined hat with ear flaps, and shorts, stands playing hip hop on a sound system. A friend of his ride up on a bike to ask him if the guy has seen his phone. The bus arrives and he asks the driver if he can use a transfer which expired 20 minutes ago. She mentions that the transit system provides transfers which are valid for a full 3 hours, and then asks the guy, "That's still not enough time?"
Sunday. It's been quite a morning. A quick breakfast, and a stop at the only supermarket with one kind of low fat cheese. I come out to find yet another flat on my bike. It's not far to the bike shop open on Sunday. When I get there, I discover the shop opens at noon. I trek to the train, which takes me to a bus, which drops me a few blocks from another grocery. This one is the only place which has a second kind of low fat cheese. As I approach the entrance, I can't miss a couple who is dressed in matching lime T-shirts. The pair stand against a wall. The guy has a beard, a cap, and an i-pad. He asks if he "can borrow me for a minute?" He introduces himself, shakes my hand, and asks me what I know about the Nature Conservancy. I thank him and turn to get some cheese. He tells me he's not done. I suggest that we are. Cheese procured, I leave nature boy and take my flat back to a bus stop. A guy approaches me. Another guy sits at the stop. The first guy tells me he's going to take a knife from the other, and do i "have" his "back?" He then tells me he's kidding, and then greets the other guy who he knows. Back on the bus. Back on the train. back to the bike shop which has just opened. In no time, I have a new tube, a better tire, and an adjusted bike rack. A woman comes inside with a bike, which she says belongs to her boss. It needs a different part according to her boss, who hasn't been on it in four months. Her boss is out of town. It appears that her boss did not take the bike along.
Worked on pedestrian/cyclist safety on [my] Blvd. Sponsored traffic-calming community art [where I haul groceries from one bus to another Saturday evenings]. - Happy New Year from Councilwoman Debbie Ortega
After three accidents... The Hornet [restaurant] hosted community meetings...for speeding enforcement... "You can sit here and watch cars, and half of them are going 55, 65 miles an hour. It's a 30-mile-an-hour street."
While critics have said [the city's new school superintendent] shoulders some of the blame for...test score gaps between students of color and white students, [she] "didn't avoid the controversy, but she leaned into it. We all knew that [she] was a deep listener." "...truly interested in soliciting community voice." ...to be creating equity... Her husband...is a banker who helps charter schools get financing for construction projects. - Washington Park Profile, 1/2019
...little electric scooters owned by venture capitalists and giant car companies... Lawmakers charmingly dubbed the transport option "electric mobility scooters." People on scooters can use bike lanes. ...can use sidewalks...if the street's speed limit exceeds 30 [mph], and if no bike lane is available. ...can park anywhere on the sidewalk...as long as they don't impede pedestrian and wheelchair traffic. The companies...must redistribute the vehicles to bus and train stops every morning.
"It's more than just responding to the culture here..." ...the market for food and market halls in suburban communities...depends on population density. "...built-up demand exists." "There are...market efficiencies if you create the right spot in the right neighborhood. The real opportunities are in the outskirts, and it makes sense from all of the various stakeholders. I don't think this is a trend going away anytime soon.". - Denver Herald, 1/17/2019
Front Range Ride Guides curates fat biking tours for families...and provides bikes, helmets, backpacks, and snacks. After reviewing technique and safety tips, your guide will get you and your family on a trail... "We'll pause to make snow angels and have hot cocoa." Fat biking is "conditions limited," meaning...a short window of opportunity... - Colorado Parent, 2/2019
...you get to that spot where you leave your everyday life behind. Could what you're experiencing only happen here, and right now? Is it a singular...sometimes transformative experience? There is not a business sector that is not getting involved. It is simply the new way of design. ...and they all think they're the Lone Ranger. It's a commodity, then a good, then a serve, then an experience... - Westword, 1/10-16/2019
...social art as a way of simultaneously helping to create and enter into a sacred space where each person...holds the wholeness for themselves and all. The anti-social aspects of consciousness, antipathy, and critical intelligence, are held back... ...it is about holding a space for the spirit where there is an awareness of more than the physical realm... Our biographies provide the content for the process of social art. - Lilipoh, Fall 2018
...the outdoor community, a collection of varied, sometimes odd, always brave individuals who find common ground both individually and collectively out beyond the constraints of human society and limits. It encompasses everything from Sunday night crit racers to bristly curmudgeons who think the term curmudgeon cramps their style. - Elevation Outdoors, 1/2019
Tuesday. I'm on my way to work, just across my boulevard and to the north. I spot another Caucasian, a young woman walking a pair of dogs. To my left on the bike trail this morning is an informational sign about the "early peoples" who inhabited this river area. Approaching me on the trail is, at first I think, a Muslim woman in chador. In fact, it's a guy pulling a shopping cart, which is not unusual out here on the trail. But along with the bright red stolen shopping cart from Target, he's in a black hoodie and black pants, and has a trench coat which is off his shoulders and dragging along the concrete. A short ride from here is the other end of the 8th Avenue bridge. After work, around 7:30 PM, I am approaching that end of the bridge headed back the other way. I'm across the street from the bridge entrance, from where I can see a guy some fifty feet above the train tracks, He's shadow boxing in a camouflaged jacket. New Year's resolution: shadowbox fifty feet in the air on a pedestrian bridge after 7 PM in Winter, check. Shortly thereafter, over the bridge and on the trail, I pass a huge full plastic trash bag. The next morning, I pass the same bag going the other way. It's being carried by one of two Parks and Recreation employees in a truck. Thursday. A guy comes into work off the street . He's selling items stolen from a nearby supermarket. In the evening, I am riding home through the neighborhood across the street from where I live. I see yet someone else walking a couple of dogs. It's dark, but my money says Caucasian.
Friday. It's wet snow this morning. Along the way to the bike trail I'm getting soaked. Once I turn north onto the trail, it's hitting me in the face. I'm off the trail, over the bridge, and within the block of a deathburger up the street. I begin to run into homeless out in force. I assume that they are prevented from either sitting or lying anywhere as it's wet on the ground. At the deathburger, it's filling up with homeless. A couple of bikes are parked outside, along with my own. One bike is covered n talismans; laminated Virgin Marys, windcatchers. Inside I dry out as I grab breakfast. Several hours later, I step out back of work. Riding through the alley on a mountain bike is a homeless guy in a winter coat. He appears drenched and carries a burlap bag in his arms full of I know not what. On the way home, once again I am approaching my neighborhood. I see someone else yet again walking a pair of dogs. Another Caucasian?
The following day is the first Saturday which I have off at my new job. In the evening, I am at the corner outside of my home. There is a little guy here with a 10-speed bike and a grey beard. In one of his hands is a handful of plastic black rosarys. We both cross the street and head over to the Mexican place, where he attempts to make whatever he can by selling these instruments of faith. One guy at the register declines his offer. Another tells him in English, "No, man." Be has a rest before rejoining his sojourn. The following day, I spend my afternoon at the International Sportsmen's Expo. Lots of shiny new off road ATVs with hard covered interiors. Electric hunting bicycles. Lots of camouflage and beards. There are guns, knives, and bows. Animal call devices. Hunting tours are for sale. A $4,700 package to Africa or a $450 Texas hog hunt. At one fur and leather booths, customers are tossing around items with hundreds of dollars. A couple of kinds almost knock over a display while chasing each other. Next to a tactical firearms training booth is an insurance booth. There are (tank tread) track mounted wheelchairs for hunting. I see my first "Make America Great Again" hats. After the show, I ride to an old bus transfer station and pick up a bus home. Along the way, a young guy with a tattoo on his face step onboard. He sits in the back with another guy who is telling him that he just got out of prison but has to go back.
Monday. There's a bridge over the bike trail which I usually ride under on the way to work. It's an avenue which leads to the train station. Today, I turn off the trail onto the bridge, as I am pressed for time this morning. Up on the bridge is a guy who has a push broom. He's using the opposite end of the handle to scrape clean a joint between two concrete sections of the pedestrian part of the bridge. I don't believe that he's with Public Works. I arrive at the train, which takes me to the rec center. It's in a park where teenagers like to gather and smoke marijuana. There's one kid with a group of perhaps ten others. He mentions that he has a picture of his parents smoking marijuana. The following morning before work, I'm downtown at a Starbuck's. I don't have it locked up but rather on the patio. Inside, I'm waiting for my sugar-free hot chocolate. More "blood" to spill on my bike frame. I'm approached by a young guy in a ball cap. He introduces himself as the manager, Jeremy. He also has a trimmed beard. At first he compliments my bike, telling me that it "looks fast," before asking me if I could take it off the patio. If one person begins keeping a bike there, the domino theory will become reality. As I step outside to move it, I see a couple of homeless guys coming inside. They don't appear dirty, more creepy. When I'm back inside, I'm in time to see Jeremy offering the pair an opportunity to not hang around inside. They retreat to the patio, where they are free of bikes. I wonder about the homeless I've seen in here on Saturday mornings and wonder about their fate under Jeremy. I collect my beverage and take my own seat on the patio. Jeremy exits and bids them farewell. One is in a lather jacket and watch cap. He asks Jeremy twice, "You want me to follow you?" Jeremy does not reply with any rejoinder. He disappears breezily down the pedestrian mall. I head down the opposite way, passing a young guy with blue lipstick and on a skateboard.
Wednesday. I'm travelling to work through the neighborhood across the boulevard from where I live. I spot yet another Caucasian walking yet another pair of dogs. I join up with the trail, to the bridge to downtown. At the other end of the bridge, I wait with traffic for a couple of drunks to make their way across the street. The slower one isn't stumbling or weaving, he's just extremely slow. I turn north for a couple of blocks. Sitting on a curb is a guy with a red and white scarf wrapped around his head. He says, "fuck," he lays down and repeats a sound over and over again. A woman walks past and keeps an eye on him. An SUV pulls up to the stop sign. He laughs and points at the vehicle, asking an occupant to 'suck his dick.' A couple blocks further and I run into a gas station. There is a line and the place has nothing for me to eat. When I come out, I run into a kid asking everyone in sight for money. He wants to eat at the deathburger across the parking lot. I head over there myself. The woman behind the register is kind enough to break a $100 bill for me. In comes the kid, with a girl. I guess he got his money. I hear the woman tell him not to grab a cup from the stack but to wait until she gives him one. He collects his order, hands it to the girl, and they are on their way. At a table is a guy with piercings and skinny jeans. Sitting across from him is a grey-haired guy in a black suit, paper napkin on his thigh. I wonder if he's the first guy's dad, or perhaps his lawyer. I run over to the coffee place. When I come out, a guy in a blanket asks me for a dollar. I head over to the rec center, which is in a park. At the curb is a minivan with its flashers on. A middle-aged couple stands next to their vehicle. The woman calls to a group of ten teenagers gathered around a picnic table, one who stands on top of the table. She's asking them to help her break into the van. Some nine hours later, I am headed crosstown, into an area of homes squeezed between the river and a renovated area of downtown. I find myself behind the guy riding the bike covered in both Native and Catholic iconography.
So, what is it like working around the corner from downtown? The place where I now am employed just happens to be on a major artery into the heart of the fair city. The sister picks me up for breakfast before work one day this week. We drive past the place. Next door, she points out a halfway house. It has a big sign out front which reads, "space available." I wonder if you can squat in a former halfway house and if that's like transitioning back to homelessness? Those who file past the front windows where I work will alternate between a group of guys in suits, to a group of homeless, to another group of guys in buttoned down shirts. One regular appears to be a woman who is pushed in what appears to be a broken motorized wheelchair. A nearby gas station has a steady procession of weird urban bohemian wannabes, truck drivers, homeless, and the occasional grandfather. One Caucasian guy in a powder blue nylon fleece jacket came inside, distraught that the store had no coffee lids. Thursday. I'm at the downtown supermarket before work. A female shopper pushing a cart is going up to displays and touching individual items for sale, without even looking at them. In the afternoon, during my shift at work, I step into a Greek grill next door for a slice of tiramisu. The girl behind the counter takes her time ever so carefully placing it in the to go box. "Do you want it heated? Do you need plastic silverware? Anything else?" Magazine? Shoe shine?
Friday. A homeless guy comes into work. "How much to clean a shirt?" he wants to know. Can we give him an express bag? Ah, he wants something to carry his stuff in, possibly something waterproof. It's snowing outside Bags are for customers who do a certain amount of business. Can he shovel snow for us? It's wet snow, and it's melting when it hits the ground. No. Do we need a delivery driver? No. He grabs our business cards and claims that he will hand them out. He runs out. And then it's Saturday. I'm on a shuttle headed down the pedestrian mall downtown. It's perhaps 8:30 AM. In front of me is a kid with a sign stating that 'girls can do anything.' It has streamers. There are young women everywhere up and down the mall today. It's the annual Women's March. Behind me is a young homeless-looking guy who smells faintly but literally like shit. He's including "fuck" in his monologue, which includes what sounds as if it's a parody of a female somewhere in the sojourn of his life. When he impersonates this female, known only to him on this shuttle, his voice twists into an inhuman squeak. I step out of the shuttle and into the deathburger homeless central. I stand in line next to a pair of middle-aged women sitting in a booth. One mentions "the five behaviors" to the other. They sound as if they study education. Behind me is one homeless woman in an airline company winter coat. She tells the pair in the booth that they both sound as if they are "egecated." The woman asks them about taking a test for her high school diploma online. A couple of women wait for their food. They each have signs with statements about the struggles of women and appear to feel surrounded by the vibe of the literal unwashed. After breakfast I run into a doughnut place. A pair of teenage girls exit with neon pink signs as big as they are. I then go next door to a coffee place, for a sugar-free beverage. More women, more signs. No "sign" of the manager Jeremy. Work Saturdays? Him? Hah!
From there, I hike to toward the bus stop. The mall shuttle comes to a stop and a couple of guys step out. One is chiding someone inside; the driver? "That's why your life is so petty," he proclaims. "That's why your life is so petty. 'Oh, I'm calling the police.'" At the bus stop is a notice in a sheet of paper taped to a pole. The bus is detoured past the march. It looks as if I will be making my own march to work this morning. Actually, it's how I usually get there from here. It's only 6 blocks, past a park between the state house and the capitol. It's nothing if not a biweekly civic experience, at least from the viewpoint of the homeless who fill the park. Democracy deferred. Our elected representatives should stop into the deathburger which is standing room only with those without a roof over their heads. It's about half the distance of my walk from here to work. I remember when the Occupy movement was camped out on the capitol lawn several years ago.. I also remember my visit to this park during the Democratic National Convention a good decade ago. The "Don't feed the liberals" sign. The Falun Gong, to whom I bowed. The Communist booth, the only vendor which recognized Pat Paulsen on my handmade shirt. I wasn't on the pedestrian mall for the protest march of Hillary's convention delegates. This morning, vendors with T-shirts and buttons line the sidewalk. Six days after I see my first Make America Great Again Hats in person, today I see my first "Fuck Trump shirts and pins." In case hate isn't trumped, if you can't beat 'em... The street is closed a block and a half from where I work. Women park at the meters out front. Some head to the park. Other women, their signs, and their dogs return from there.
It's a long and a busy Saturday, as usual. It's just me and another guy, who refers to us as the varsity team. Almost an hour after we close, he gives me a ride back to my boulevard. It will be nice not to have to walk from work to the supermarket downtown, from which I would otherwise have another hike (with groceries) to a bus stop, and a wait for a bus to another wait for a bus before finally landing home at last. Instead, around 7:30 PM, I step into a deathburger for a quick dinner shortly before I do my grocery shopping a short walk away. At a table are a couple who are both drunk. The table is piled with assorted trash and a loaf of bread. They also have some food which they ordered from here. The woman is discussing someone she knows who is in jail. She's in a camouflaged jacket and has a perm which looks like it's long overdue for a shampoo. I order and eat, and return to the counter for a quick dessert. In front of me is the female. She is holding a single slice of bread in one hand. Sh'es absolutely motionless for lack of energy. The manager asks her what she can do for her. She asks the manager to butter the bread for her. Instead, the manager gives her some butter. The female says, "I was going to get a drink...but I don't think so." She wanders back to her table. The manager says something to me about the vice of alcoholism. I tell her that I hope this pair is ready to leave when the place closes. She makes a face as if she intends to say a prayer.
Monday. I'm on my way home after dark, across the boulevard from my side of the street. I spot a couple of young Caucasian guys next to a metal fence, in front of an embankment leading down to a shopping center parking lot. Even in the virtual absence of light, their race precedes themselves. Both are in shirts and ties, one in an overcoat and blow-dried hair and the other in a down vest and knit cap. Jehovah's Witnesses? No se. A couple of days ago, I noticed a big metal staple buried in my front tire. Seconds after I run into the guys, my tube decides to go flat. I don't even have to look, I can feel its performance immediately go sluggish.
...on HUD's fair Market Rent (FMR) calculations...for Denver county were...over $200 short of the average one-bedroom rental price... ...average rent in the city is $1,535... "We simply can't place veterans in housing that they can't afford." - Denver Voice, 1/2019
...the neighbors were fed up with what had become an overly rambunctious spot... ...which had really earned its spot on our Best Dive Bar list [but] was closed by the city as a public nuisance. Now the space [will reopen under] a stipulated agreement worked out with city officials. They'll be adding plenty of TVs, as well as purse hooks and plugs for phone chargers... ...and the outdoor murals covered over, per the agreement with the city. "We're really excited about the changes we see coming to East Colfax..." - Westword, 1/24-30/2019
Wednesday. I'm at the post office on the way to work, to grab some stamps. Two people wait at windows and another is boxing a package at a table. I'm the only other customer there. I'm the line. Until three others come inside at once, file past me, and form another line. When one customer is finished, I step up to that window. The clerk asks me if I "cut the line." I ask her if she saw me standing there. She says she didn't. I'm in a hurry during the morning when i didn't used to be, because I start work earlier at my new job. I have half hour to get to ride to the rec center, which somehow I do with a couple of minutes to spare. A coach and her basketball team waits for the place to open so they can practice. During the wait, she is telling someone about the public school teachers voting on a possible strike. "If the [new] governor says we can't strike, he's done." I get to work, and a couple of hours later, I next door at a Greek short order place on my break. When I'm leaving, I hold the door for a woman who I think is coming inside. She is instead going to mingle with others out on the patio. Just then, a crazy walks past yelling profanity. "I'm goin' home! Fuck it!" Someone says, "Poor guy..." Later on, on my lunch, I'm leaving through the back. In the alley is a guy with a shopping cart piled high with I know not what. Next to the cart is the bottom half of a coat rack with red and silver streamers wound around it. A homeless guy is sweeping the area around them with a broom. I saw him out front earlier. Later on, I see him out front again. Instead of the shopping cart, I see him pulling a bundle of stuff, topped off by an overturned table with its legs sticking up in the air. It sounds as if there are castors underneath some kind of dolly which he pulls with a lone cord. From his camouflaged skinny pants to his bright purple winter hat, he appears as some kind of homeless technicolor dream coat.
Thursday. Light snow, but it's accumulating. And it's slick. I'm fucking sliding all over the place. Last week, i was soaked from wet snow. This morning, I may end up breaking my neck. I do go down next to a parked minivan. Weather aside, I was coming through this same stretch of neighborhood across my boulevard from where I live. I was coming from somewhere or going somewhere. Along a residential street full of bungalows and detached single family homes is something which almost appears as if it's dropped in the middle of the neighborhood direct from outer space. It's a brand spanking new two-story duplex, complete with wrought-iron bars on the upper floor windows. And now that I work downtown, I'm beginning to see the emerging bones of a city's aging skeleton. On Friday I spot old tenement buildings and restaurants from the 1930's. These structures stand alone now, surrounded by condominiums not even finished. They appear almost as museum pieces, vestiges of a previous market and an entire previous kind of reality as much as examples of architecture. If you are a college student, or new to this country, or simply poor. Where do you live? Where do you shop? What do you do? My own neighborhood is home to a lower-class economy. It serves its residents. It makes me wonder if all the residents, including the Caucasian ones, interact with this economy. The Caucasians are running or walking their pairs of dogs. Apart from hipster weirdos both young and old congregating at the Vietnamese restaurant behind my home, they are the ones whom I know not what they do. It's the opposite of downtown, from where, according to what I read, they are coming.
Saturday. I'm off work today. I'm on the bus for a short ride to the supermarket. I hear a Caucasian voice asking for directions. Someone asks him for money. I have a late start to the day and breakfast late. After shopping, I'm off to another used book sale, this one all the way on the other side of town. It will be the beginning of a six-and-a-half-hour round trip odyssey. I get on a crosstown train with a middle-aged passenger. He has long thick sideburns. He asks me, slowly, if this train goes "to Pine Bluff?" I tell him twice I don't know where that is. The only Pine Bluff I've heard of is Pine Bluff, Illinois from the TV production of The Martian Chronicles. He asks someone else before he has a seat. He says that he thinks the train does go there. Be both disembark at the furthest point east. After the book sale, I return to the train, which takes me to some where for "lunch" after five PM. I'm seated before I get up to ask the hostess if I can move to a table which isn't in the dark. I don't have anyone to make out with me. I stand in front of the hostess after she seats one party and is in the process of seating another one. A waitress arrives with no menu to get my drink order. She returns with my drink, as well as two waters. She says she doesn't know if I'm waiting for someone else. I moved to a much larger table, with a light. She still has no menu. I get back to my neighborhood to eat dinner after 7 PM.
The following afternoon, I am coming back from another late (but considerably earlier than yesterday) lunch. I am across the street from where I live, looking at the corner upon which I have lived for what will be 12 years this coming April. It's been long enough that I am aware I never will see everything, so I shouldn't think that I ever will. This afternoon is one of those days. I see a trio of police cruisers parked at that very corner. In the middle of several police officers is a lanky-looking white-haired 70-year-old Caucasian. He sure doesn't appear homeless, just the opposite. His hair is trimmed and neat. He's in a mustard-colored zippered sweater. He looks as if he could be the father of a college student or an HOA president. 'Is he having trouble standing?' I ask myself. Nope. They put him in handcuffs and into one of the cruisers, and with that he is off on the short ride to the district police station, just across the street from my supermarket. He didn't appear to have anything with him, no bags. I don't see any car he drove there, giving me the impression that he could be a local resident. Not even the local Caucasian retirees can be trusted in my neighborhood anymore.
Monday. It's snowing and blowing this morning worse than last week. As soon as I take a seat on my bike, I decide also that it'even more slippery than last week. I step onto a bus up the street to my old stop. I sit in front of a passenger who is giving a passenger a phone number for work shoveling snow. In any other universe beyond this boulevard, this would perhaps be absolutely the most mundane of momentary tasks. But this is not another universe. The guy with the phone number happens to be drunk, and he asks the other to come over where he is sitting. "He'll pay you $22.50 an hour to shovel snow!" the drunk yells. The other passenger, who appears to be sober stands up and comes over. I don't know what to say about a sober guy who seeks work from one who is drunk. As a passenger is standing up in a bus crawling along a street upon which it is dangerous to travel, the driver asks the sober passenger to take his seat. A third passenger sitting up front then asks the driver, "We can't stand up?" It would otherwise be the stuff of which revolutions are made, perhaps in that elusive other universe, if instead most of us did not have jobs to go to. What is it the late Jim Morrison wrote? "Trading you hours for a handful of dimes." I often think of this, just never actually at work where I am usually too busy. "He'll work you every time it snows," the drunk professes. Maybe this is a problem...if you're drunk. In fact, he goes on to say that he's "supposed to be at work today," but he can't make it. He does not elaborate, but I suspect he's implying that the inclement weather makes it too difficult for him to go to work...shoveling snow. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that one. He then explains that today is his birthday, and he's taking the day off. It's my own layman's understanding that snow and alcohol don't mix. But I've never been a drunk prospective snow shoveling laborer "Ha ha. I'm gonna be hittin' the bars."
I change buses and none too soon. On the crosstown bus is a passenger who is talking to the driver non-stop. It's one endless collection of Christmas memories, of facts such as it's not snowing in Phoenix, of wonder at what downtown Denver must look like while it's snowing. A few minutes from now, I will be there, where I must say it looks like a shitty mess. Finally, another passenger tells him to calm down, stop talking to the driver, and let her drive. The chatty guy pauses before he actually asks, "Who said that?" The stuff of stillborn revolutions indeed. The other passenger pauses himself before answering, "I did." I know it's just a city bus. But, as I've heard it said, 'Check and mate.' The gabby guy's reply is, "She's goin' like two miles an hour." I can't help having the unaccustomed feeling as if I've learned something. The following morning, I'm late and I still don't trust that the streets are worth the risk of attempting to navigate. Again, I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live. There are a pair of twentysomething guys and a child in a stroller. I smell marijuana and one of the guys has a lighter in hand. When we board the bus, one of the guys has a transfer which expired yesterday. Hours later, I leave work a couple of hours early as we are slow. I get home earlier than I ever have for the past five years. I spot my neighbor, who I've seen recently, perhaps for the first time since last year. He's sitting on his familiar spot on the concrete berm in the parking lot, apparently on his phone. I don't know if he's out here this time each evening. As I continue along the sidewalk, I spot an SUV parked in front of my townhome complex. It has a bullet hole in the front windshield. Today is recycle day and I am pulling the residents' recycle bins from the curb back to the parking lot. One has a number "6" on it. I put it on the side of the even-numbered townhomes. He doesn't see me place it there, but he comes along and spots it, asking me who it belongs to. I tell him...number 6. He replies, "Six's is in front of number 6." He then asks me if I put it there.
The Teachings Of Jeremy
Wednesday. I'm on my way to the bank and the coffee place BEFORE I hit the gym. My only hope is the train, which drops me in a neighborhood of new condos under construction next to ancient row houses. This means that longtime characters of the previous neighborhood are hanging out at new benches in front of the new condos. It's a freezing cold morning. At one corner of a new condo are a couple of middle-aged guys who appear as if they have both seen better days. One asks the other, "How do you get four queers to sit on a bar stool?" I can't remember wither the last bar joke I heard, or the last time I heard the word 'queer'. "Turn it upside down." I wonder if he knows that the state just elected the first gay mayor in U.S. history? I haven't heard what he likes to sit on. Whatever he wants to, probably. I head into downtown upon whatever streets or sidewalks are clear of frozen amalgams of ice and compacted snow. I reach the coffee place and circle around back, where it's away from the patio and I can keep an eye on it through a window. I'm here at Jeremy's store. He's the manager who keeps bicycles out of the patio area. He will teach you this through an approach to conversation which I can only imagine he learned in some kind of management seminar. Or webinar. A guy comes from across the plaza to let me know that I can't have it back there either. This is not a coffee place issue, but a plaza issue. He's security for the plaza. He suggests the bike racks on the sidewalk across the street. I am familiar with these rack. And they are...across the street. "We've had a problem with bikes," he cryptically mentions. Even Jeremy gets to the point eventually. But then again, Jeremy isn't a security employee. I park the bike outside the patio. and head inside. On the patio, however, is another bike. I mention this to a barista, and I tell her what Jeremy told me. She tells me that the employees don't notice bikes on the patio if they are busy. Now, I am making fun of Jeremy. But I have the wrong audience for such a joke. I order a sugar-free hot chocolate, and no sooner do I turn around when the barista has somehow located the customer who owns the bike on the patio. He appears to be a guy perhaps in his sixties, who like to come in here a sit and read with a coffee. She imparts the teachings of Jeremy about the patio. He's taken aback. he tells her that's he's there almost every day. The next thing I see is the barista moving his bike outside of the patio. Did he refuse to move it? When I pick up my beverage, I mention to someone that Jeremy didn't move my bike for me. The employee has no idea what I am speaking of, and tells me that the store has nothing to do with the security guy who told me to move my own bike.
Perhaps I will have better luck at the bank. I get there and lock my bike where i did before, on a railing along some steps from the plaza in front of the bank. When I come out, someone has locked my bike to the railing with another cable. A note has a phone number on it. Before I can dial it, a grey-haired guy in a knit cap with "SECURITY" on the front comes along. He doesn't explain why he locked it, but unlocks it. Then I unlock it. I understand this is confusing, and perhaps I am the only one. I ask him where the bank's bike parking is. He gives me the identical answer as the other security guy. I have twenty minutes to make it to the gym. I manage to navigate the uneven ruts and patches of ice and snow. Somehow I make it. When I do get to work, I step out front after a while to grab a newspaper. A guy has just crossed the middle of the street to ask me for fifty cents. The following morning, I step off the bus at the train station. A guy in an orange reflective vest is asking everyone over and over, "Anyone have a cigarette to sell?"
