I looked into a couple of vape lounges, but unfortunately, those didn't stay in business. I...discovered the Coffee Joint, which is currently the only place in Denver to smoke legal cannabis. Lit on Lit started was started when the Suspect Press team paired up with Colorado Cannabis Tours and Puff, Pass & Paint. It got attention from..."Men's Journal", "Yahoo Finance", "High Times" and "Thrillist"... [Certain marijuana] strains age generally the most preferred for creativity. They help expand the imagination, enabling access to new thoughts, concepts and ideas. Lit on Lit tends to draw a lot of journalists and other professional and technical writers - writers write...rarely for themselves. - Westword, 9/5-11/2019
...I live through the moment. ...in a boxing ring...with the next adversary who's come to knock me dead. ...I get up and go out in the bloody mess again... God, I get tired. ...trying to find safe zones [to] relinquish my fear of people. ...another hidden agenda masquerading as safe. ...I keep breathing in the days... - V. Bryant, vendor, Denver Voice, 9/2019
Late last month, I was on my way to work. Mid-morning. I was just across some light rail tracks. Next to the side of a building, in front of an industrial yard and across the street from a residential downtown neighborhood, lay a woman asleep. She may have been homeless. But her entire back and lower back were exposed. And she is beautiful. Sunday is the 1st. I notice the sun just beginning to set a few minutes earlier. School is back in session last week. The sister and I make our annual pilgrimage to Boulder. This year, the natural cold spring pool at El Dorado, along the way, is closed for renovation. Yesterday, I worked my Saturday off until we closed early for the holiday. I attempted to navigate my way on foot, past downtown's annual Labor Day festival event, to track down a free pedestrian mall shuttle. I ride to one end of the mall to catch the last day of a contemporary art exhibition, after which I make my way back on a similar shuttle with middle-aged tourists making stupid jokes. The festival downtown is called the Taste of Colorado, which one guy onboard refers to as "Taste." It's a short hike back to work where I pick up my bike, and make it back home in time to grab dinner at a favorite place before grocery shopping. In Boulder, we hit a favorite place on Boulder's Pearl Street mall before going to see an exhibition by the same artist at a Boulder gallery. The young woman behind the desk is wearing the first US Army field jacket I've seen since a Tracy Ulman sketch decades ago. Underneath she has on a Standing Rock T-shirt. Boulder is home to the architecturally modern-looking University of Colorado, and the town has young women among the families which haunt the coffee shops and ice cream parlor. They stroll among a classic car show and a small outdoor festival in a park across the street from the gallery. We walk behind one which begins to dance to some music on a festival speaker. For the first time since I can remember, I wonder what it would be like to be twenty years old again today. One of the cars is a hot rod police car. A driver fires up the engine. The noise of the motor together with the sirens comes across as ridiculous. A real police officer stands watch over the car.
Labor Day. I make my way, on a hot day, to the waterpark. I can't believe it's the last day of the season to swim. On the way out, a bridge goes across a creek and follows a long open grass space on one side, and trees on the other. The waterpark is next to a kids' little farm. It has some small animals and a children's locomotive train which runs the length of the grassy space. The conductor waves at me as I pass him along the bike trail, on the way to swim. On the way out, I pass the train again, and he waves at me a second time. I must appear trustworthy. On a second bridge, someone is flying a small kite in a breeze. From there I pedal back to the train, which whips me downtown. I grab dinner before heading off to the festival I navigated two days, and technically a month, prior. I stop at the downtown deathburger homeless central. My chain slips off the gears on the back rim, referred in cycling jargon as the "cassette." This bike is perhaps a year old. It's at the lowest end of the quality scale as it's from a department store. It's beginning to feel as if it's coming apart. In slipping it back on, my fingers become black with dirt, grease, and perhaps ground graphite. I enter the eatery and ask to use the men's room to wash my hands. The first answer is that I must make a purchase first. I explain that I want to follow traditional norms and customs by fucking washing my hands. Not in so many words. Not that such language in this particular loony bin would so much as make an eye begin to think of blinking. I'm told to find the custodian. My search turns up no one. I return to the counter, where I am told the custodian has just returned to the custodial closet. Not is so many words. I find the custodian, who does not appear to speak English, and tells me in Spanish that I must show a receipt to get to wash my hands. I respond in Spanish with my desire to follow traditional norms and customs. Not in English words. She unlocks the door, with something like the button you push to unlock every door to your car. A guy follows me in, and confides to me that he just wants "to get some water." I don't tell him that I don't work there, and he isn't required to report to me. This particular deathburger is, as always, full of the usual rotating roster of graduates of the street. A woman in her sixties is quickly making her way around the circumference of the place, as I did a minute earlier searching for the gatekeeper to the soap and water. She's in a sequined disco blouse and throwing out statements as she traverses the square footage. In one sentence, she's telling no one in particular to fuck off. In the flowing sentence, she claims that she's "ten years off of drugs. That's everything." I know that some who have particular mental health afflictions often self-medicate. I can't tell if she is a casualty of narcotics or if she needs to return to them. At least she's getting exercise. My old deathburger, from the first half of this decade, I used to see the indie of at 5 AM. The homeless were few, and they were regulars. And they were QUIET.
For more than a decade, sensitivity has...supposed to [distinguish] an educated, middle-class male from...blue-collar...men...trapped in the "traditional" male role, "where interpersonal and emotional skills are relatively undeveloped." No one, of course, has measured sensitivity and plotted it as a function of social class. [In fact,] it is blue-collar men who express less "traditional" or "macho" values… ...the androgynous drift of the consumer culture. It is the marketplace that calls most clearly for men to be softer, more narcissistic... ...our collective values are shifting away from the liberal, unisex ideals of the seventies toward something more belligerent. ...the post détente militarism of the eighties... - Ehrenreich
Tuesday. Back to work. I stop at a gas station near work. It has its own roster of wandering derelicts. A guy in a yellow construction vest stands as he's entering the place. He's giving a lecture about the amount of work he does to a woman who has asked him for money. Her response to him is, "Blah ba blah ba Blah Ba BLAH! Asshole." The following morning. I'm out of the house as soon as I wake up. The previous day, much work was left behind. Along the way to work, I stop at the downtown supermarket. When I come out, I pass through a covered open space under a building. It's a popular shelter for homeless. This morning, it's host to a young guy bending over a shopping cart. The guy has what appear to be some kind of Pacific island tattoos on his ace. The cart is filled with stuff, including a skateboard. he appears to be working on a panhandling sign. From around the corner comes a woman perhaps in her sixties. She has long stringy hair, and she's using a collapsible shopping cart as a walker. The cart is empty except for a sing lining the bottom. It appears to be some kind of promotional sign which reads, "Elvis Presley."
Sunday. I trim down my list of potential activities on this, my one day off this weekend. I skip the biannual metaphysical fair, an audio tech convention, and an art festival. My single choice, a library used book sale across town, it turns out took me all day. That I had a good sleep the night before means I get a late start. I head out under clear blue sky, grab a late breakfast, swing by the pharmacy inside my neighborhood supermarket. It's almost never open when I do grocery shopping. Then I make the slog across the bridge over the interstate to the train station. The train whips me to the stop where, during this past summer, I would disembark for the water park. In fact, I pedal past it, now closed until next season. From late 2015, until just over two years ago, I used to make this trip to work six days a week. It's noticeably colder today than the past couple of months of close to 100 degree days. Typical Colorado. As soon as September arrives, the temperature makes a turn down. Down the trail, I arrive at my old shopping center. I stop into a grocery for something to drink. I used to come in here all the time over a couple of years. I unsuspectedly grab some tea with active probiotic alcohol. I make the purchase, take it back, am taken around the place to find cold non-active-probiotic-alcoholic tea...which we never find. I have a quick salad and warm normal tea for lunch. The sky is now filled with a growing thunderstorm. This stretch of crosstown road leads to a dead end, requiring me to turn off onto a series of gravel trails which twist and turn between neighborhoods. I come out into one of them as I am passed by a young female runner. I ask her how close I am to my destination and she ignores me. Shortly thereafter, a middle-aged guy points me the right way.
After a slog up another long hill, at the top is the library. It's next to an assisted living complex. On the front steps, a folksy volunteer is handing out bags for books. He's reminding each and every patron who arrives, "It's bag day. Know what that is?" One bag of books: seven dollars. I score three books and I head out under overcast and darkening skies. I roll toward the train home. I stop at a gas station for more hydration. I watch an Indian guy with a long beard lock the door and go to the men's room. Some seven customers assemble before his return. One of them shows me her phone, with directions to the train. I get there before the rain begins in earnest. The train makes it's way north to my stop. The conductor comes over the intercom and mentions that we will be going only about half the way. I can't hear him that well. I think he mentions something about a football game. I disembark and discover that the elevator from the train below to the ground above is "out of order." As I carry my bike with books on the rack, I hear a passenger who is learning of the interruption in service. he is yelling across the station, "Are...you...shitting me?!" I stop into another supermarket for an item I can't get at my own neighborhood's supermarket, and I go next door to an IHOP. I lock up my bike under an overhanging piece of roof and I'm inside when the sky opens up. It's a deluge of rain. The manager invites me to bring my bike inside. He tells me that his kitchen workers had their own bicycles stolen from behind the place. He says that it was some homeless.
It's Thursday of the following week. In the morning, I'm on my way to work. I stop at a 7-Eleven which is a kind of crossroads for the lower classes and the transients. It's a kind of snapshot, perhaps of the current economic dynamic. The last guy I saw here had a bike, and was wearing nothing but underwear. Powerful testimony. This morning, there is a homeless couple who appear to be approaching their sixties. They are both tall and lanky. The guy is missing his bottom front teeth. He's dressed as an eighties rocker, and holds a card with a magnetic stripe in his hand. They both have a single bicycle and a bike trailer between them. The guy waits for the woman to come out of the store. A flatbed tow truck pulls into a parking space. The driver steps down from the cab and slowly makes his way inside. He's a young guy with a long dark perm. He's in Capri-length denim shorts with a patch over each back pocket. I don't think I've seen patches on denim back pockets since I was in grade school. As I said, powerful testimony. Down from the passenger seat steps a young woman with sky blue hair. She follows him inside. he comes out again and climbs in the cab. he starts up the truck and slowly backs out to move over to the gas pumps. The blue-haired lady comes running out and yells his name, barreling over to his door. I stop back here after work. At sundown, I'm sitting on a stone ledge outside, eating a couple slices of pizza. A middle-aged guy in a worn black leather sport coat comes over from the sidewalk. He tells me a story about his bike being stolen from here. He then runs through traffic across the street. The following evening, I'm on my way home after work. When I get out on time, such as this evening, twilight seems to follow right on the heels of sundown. It's dark by the time I'm climbing the hills through the neighborhood between the trail and my home. I'm rolling a residential crosstown street, past a small apartment complex with Mexican residents, children playing in the yard. An adult lays on his back inside the covered cab over the bed of his truck. Kids yell to each other. Adults yell to the kids. Adults are on their phones. It's a familiar cultural dynamic. Opposite the apartment complex is a perpendicular street which stretches uphill. Down the hill comes slowly strolling a Caucasian couple, late twenties or early thirties. They are almost statuesque, even in the dark. The lady has long brunette hair. The gentleman has a trimmed dark beard. He hold the leash of a dog. A late model Corvette rolls up to an intersection behind them. After is crawls across the street, it jackrabbits. The couple turns their heads. Powerful testimony.
The beginning of the following week. I'm climbing the last long hill home after work. In the dark is a Caucasian woman walking her dog. She's in a shirt which reads on the back, "Denver Dog Walker.com." Friday morning. I sneak in next week's grocery shopping before work. I'm then on my way to work late in one of the month's waning mild mornings. I'm passing the park in the neighborhood between my own and the bike trail. Running in front of me is a young Caucasian mom pushing a three-wheeled stroller with a pair of children inside. It's at least the second Caucasian parent running along this park with a three-wheeled stroller inside of a minute. I notice that the color of her tank top matches my shirt. I slow down alongside her to mention that, "We have the same shirt on." She pulls out her earbuds to hear me. He response is, "Yup." Disinterest or contempt? Nice to meet you too...neighbor. Saturday. I had hoped to get a haircut after arriving home from work. However, for the second Saturday in a row, I stay three hours after close. Sunday morning I do laundry and dishes. Now, I am ready for a day in the mountains with the sister. When I return home, I then pay a visit to the gorgeous Mrs. Thuy (pronounced "Twee"), the most beautiful Vietnamese woman in her 50s who you will ever meet. And also my barber. My late mom referred to her as Mrs. "Tweety." I mention to her that the parking lot of the garage on my corner was first torn up. Then, late this past week, the garage itself was demolished. I ask her if she think that new condos will arise in its place. She happens to know that a Vietnamese grocery, currently leasing space down the street, has purchased the land. A new Vietnamese grocery will be going up, right next to where I live.
...all the changes in the area, including encroaching gentrification, make members [of the downtown Japanese community] uneasy... "Where things were set in stone, they're now back to square one. It's the only home we have in Denver." ...the prospect of [downtown Denver's] Sakura Square's identity being subsumed by the city around it is 'heartbreaking." Keeping the neighborhood together, making sure that "existing businesses are not to be displaced"... Forced into a tiny pocket of the city, they made a community. A temple, a grocery store, a block in the center of a city's identity crisis. - Westword, 9/12-18/2019
Heavy snow falls. It's wet ice. Everyone
looks dismal in this down town. I stand, dark
and dismal...
watching another high rise of homes being
built. The BANG
BANG BANG on large hollow iron pipes like
empty bells without a song.
The snowfall feels like...
wet snowballs from the arctic that
don't miss slapping me in my face. I can
no longer feel my fingers, toes or nose.
I start to walk for warmth. And then I
remember: at least today I have a
warm, warm room.
- M. R. Dixon, Denver Voice, 9/2019
Monday. The arrival of Autumn brings the perfect temperatures. An illusion which hides the cooler weather just beyond. I come to find out, from my boss at work, that the owner came in Sunday to do some work. The manager himself showed up at his usual hour of 4 AM on Monday. Each of them saw our tiny parking lot behind our business with around fifty homeless sitting on the asphalt, some sleeping, some cooking. All having a fine time. The manager describes them as something of a "caravan"-like group. The owner of the restaurant next door cleaned up their refuse, including half of an umbrella frame. One of his employees tells me that, after sundown out back, she has seen homeless who have acquired some of the bicycles which the city charges a fee to ride. You can pick them up at stands where they are parked across the metro area. She has seen them stripping these bikes for tires and other parts. She called the city to notify them, but after being put on hold for fifteen minutes, gave up. After a couple of hours at work, I take my lunch and walk a block to a gas station for lunch, only to discover that there is nothing there to eat for lunch, which sometimes happens mid-afternoon. As I am walking back to work, I spy a brand new food court. I go inside for a chicken Cesar salad to go. Salad in hand, I'm out the door. Around the corner is a parking lot. On the ground sits a guy who asks me if he can have my "leftovers." Back at work, a couple of vendors of the local homeless newspaper come inside to sell me a copy. Capitalism, crime, and some kind of caravan. Thursday. I'm coming off the bike trail. Crawling up a ramp, I'm behind a homeless couple pushing a shopping cart full of stuff. They are going as fast as they can. I'm going as slow as I can. On Friday, I'm on my way home from work, just around the corner from this ramp. I'm on a sidewalk next to a long building, with a covered entrance which is a favorite of the homeless. I'm approaching some railroad tracks which I am prevented from crossing on a regular basis by a passing train. The street is a busy thoroughfare which intersects with both a busy avenue and the on ramp for an interstate, which runs right next to the thoroughfare. Coming across the middle of the street is a young homeless guy carrying an unrolled sleeping bag. He says to me, "Hey it's about to rain and I got a big fat joint if you want to smoke it under the shelter." By "shelter" I assume he means the covered entrance. I decline his offer, telling him I don't smoke. Not even big fat joints. He replies, "That's cool..." and then repeats exactly what he said.
Sunday. I'm coming back from a movie, and going across town to pick up a low carb product at a store full of low carb products and low car advice. Their door reads "Sunday 1 - 5." I arrive smack at 3 PM. Crickets. On my way back home, I top a hill at an intersection of two busy residential streets, Virginia and Tejon. From here, I have a view of downtown from the southwest, spread out before me. I stop and take a look. Sunset isn't far away and the sun shines directly on the scene. I can make out at least two red construction cranes rising over building sites. The following evening, after an eleven-hour day at work, I'm home around 11 AM. Across the street, at the renovated apartments full of Mormons and other assorted Caucasian college-types, a lone woman sits on the steps. She's in fur and sparkly pants. She's looking at her phone, and I hear her sobbing. Strange Autumn portents.
