Yesterday, on the way to work, I turn along the street with the camper next to the open field. A second one has joined it. After work, I stopped along the way home at the gym to see if I could sneak in the workout I would otherwise do before work on Monday. Monday and Tuesday, I'm working open to close. The website for the rec center did not alert me that they close at 3:30 PM on weekends. I arrived to see the lobby being vacuumed. It's not a total loss though. Across the highway is Sportsman Warehouse. I stepped inside to pick up a couple of items which I have needed since last Autumn. I find a pair of lined bike pants and a neck gator. Next door is a Super Target, where I took a look at their men's running shoe collection. It's nonexistent. I returned home after work, on Halloween. In my mailbox was a letter from the IRS. They want more than $5,000. It appears to be related to a couple of years ago, when I changed mutual fund companies. But I'm not sure at this point. This is yet another project to take up every spare minute I have at work. I get home and later head out of my door to look for a grocery delivery. I check other porches in my townhome complex. I don't find them, they will arrive a little later. But I notice the front door of the guy who bragged about his domestic charges. There's a realtor's sign on his door. His place is up for sale. A hole remains punched through one of the wooden steps to the porch. I make a reservation at the rec center for tomorrow morning, where I ride back to on Sunday. There's a cute girl doing pullups, and she's got muscle. You go girl. For a moment before her pullups, she's working a cable with a rope while I'm working the cable next to her with a bar. Maybe I should start working out on Sundays... I'm out on my newly repaired back up bike. My main one has an empty brake fluid reservoir and it doesn't feel safe to ride right now. The owner of where I work fills that up for me, and he's stuck working a store until an employee returns to work. We're both holding down the fort. It's how we roll. I use my last ride coupon at the train station across the street from the gym. The coupons are valid throughout the year. I'm whisked to the only supermarket chain which carries a particular product. I do some shopping before I haul my butt toward home. It's turned into a gorgeous day. At a park along the way, I eat lunch I picked up at the store. Then I haul myself back home to drop off the food. Then it's out to a shoe warehouse in my sister's neighborhood, for which I have a coupon. I've been shopping at a discount shoe place downtown since I started working there. The shoes from downtown only last perhaps a third of the year, and for the past few months, I've been wearing a worn out pair from years ago. A pair, worn as they are, still haven't fallen apart. This afternoon, I have new shoes in hand.
On Monday I've just entered the bike trail. I can hear the individual on the gravel path with the rolling suitcase. More than an hour later, the dawn is breaking. I'm turning down the last residential, old money street to work. Coming up the sidewalk is a homeless guy. He does what I've seen other homeless do. When I turn my head his direction, he instantly notices. His hand shoots up in the air in a kind of petrified wave. While at work, I end up making the right phone call. I discover that the IRS simply wants a single figure which I left off my 2018 Federal income tax filing. This was a 20-hour Halloween nightmare. Tuesday morning. It's the first Tuesday in November. I can't remember all the hype about voting directed at as many as possible. I'm out the door and across the street on my way to work. It's 8:30 AM. I'm rolling past a liquor store where I used to purchase wine for my mom. Sitting on the step in front is a middle-aged homeless guy in a windbreaker. He has a weathered face and sits resigned to his station, here in this neighborhood rife with its crumbling past and stagnated future. Up the street is a small condo built last year. Around the corner is a new retail space on the site of a former church. Both sit empty. I don't know if this guy has an address, if he receives any mailers extolling the magical power of voting, or if he even qualifies to be registered. Will anyone ask him if he feels disenfranchised? Or is he simply expected to eventually move along. When I do get to work, I call my mutual fund broker. She inquires about the IRS letter I forwarded to her. Have I ever sold stock? This appears to be what the letter suggests. I have not. She has already spoken with headquarters, and she must do more research. But she is of the opinion that this is some kind of miscommunication. She and I shall speak again in two days. Then there's my coworker. Her thirty-eight-year-old daughter-in-law is a heroin-user. Just like the mom of my coworker's daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law was working a house cleaning job with my coworker's daughter when the daughter-in-law went into the bathroom to shoot up. She had shown up to the job high already. Thus she overdosed. She must have stopped breathing because it was determined that her brain was oxygen deprived, long enough for her brain to swell. She's currently on life support. Doctors surmise that if she wakes up she will be a vegetable. The daughter-in-law's brother, who is the husband of my coworker's daughter, has been crying, praying, and reading the bible. I don't know how common it is for ex-cons and gang members to pray and read the bible. Direct contact with folk such as these is new to me. It sounds, as told to me, that my coworker's daughter and husband and husband's cousin are the stable side of the family. The daughter-in-law was living with the trio while she detoxified and consumed meals. And lived there with her one and a half-year-old daughter. But there's more. The daughter-in-law already has three teenaged kids. The oldest is eighteen or twenty. He's in prison for life, for murder.
Wednesday. Somewhere, ballots are still being counted. I'm out on my bike on the way to work. I turn down the residential street with the open field. The not-so-old man's minivan I don't see. I spot a different minivan of the same color. Unless this is the same minivan with the big back rack removed. Yesterday evening, I was here on the way home. I rode the sidewalk between the street and the field. I saw the missing hood from the car without it. It leans against the sidewalk side of one of the campers. This morning, as I approach the trailhead, across the street in the small lot the big RV camper has returned. Down the way and around the corner, I spot the same homeless guy for the past three days. He has a bike with a milk crate on a back rack. We're at the small lot with the occasional homeless vehicle. On the opposite side of the trail is a big playground. I spot a young woman walking up toward the lot. he's in a tie-dyed hoodie and pajama bottoms. I watch in my rearview mirror and she and the homeless guy approach each other. I take a bridge across what's left of the dwindling Platte River. This stretch of trail runs alongside a busy street. After a restored station wagon zips past, I see a semi truck without any trailer on the back. A pair of SUVs are behind it. Suddenly, the semi honks. Then the SUVs reply with their own horns before they race around and ahead of the truck. The semi lays on its horn again. After work, I take the bus home. I'm leaving my back up bike at work. Because I am riding my other one to work tomorrow. The other bike will have to stay at work until my boss can come in and refill the brake fluid reservoir. I have not much more than 39 minutes to walk a city block over to the next avenue. I think I can do it, and the bus arrives there before it does on the boulevard where I work. I make it with just a minute or two to spare. The bus arrives and it's obvious the way the driver is pushing to make the last seconds of a green light, he doesn't want to get behind schedule. It's just like old times. Along the way to the train station, a young guy steps on and begins pulling out successive expired transfers. About the last one the driver tells him is expired, the guy suggests, "Maybe it was changed!" How? By a ticket kiosk or a transit system employee? He's still arguing after he exits and the driver shuts the door. He's got his schedule on his mind. Then there's the passenger who's itching to catch his train. I wonder if he's been to this train station before. The driver can't stop until he reaches the bus gate, which is after he turns all the way at the end of the station. The passenger responds to this fact with, "Really?" I used to come to and from this station twice a day, when I spent a decade working for another company. It's been some six years. I have memories of layovers here, on freezing days in the dark. Memories are what you have left when the water has passed under the bridge.
...Albertt...Camus' masterpiece, The Rebel...spoke of "crimes of logic" resulting from the revolutionary's "total rejection...absolute negation, of what exists," and the deification of that stance. ...brutal interrogation could produce within days "an illusory conviction"...to demonstrate "the physics of the soul." ...with such a regime, "Everyman is a criminal who is unaware of being so." ...totalists "put an abstract idea above human life...to which they...have submitted...and...will decide quite arbitrarily, to submit everyone else..." ...eight psychological patterns...characteristic of totalisrtic environments everywhere...in which...thought reform is likely to occur. They were [control of] all communication [and] an obscure...authority under the guise of group spontaneity; [good vs. evil; and] an obsession with...self-revelation; [and doctrine] both divine and scientifically proven; [and reducing] all human problems to...phrases [; and that] doubts [are simply] personal deficiency of psychological aberration; and [that some have no] right to exist... - Lifton
Thursday. I got a call from my coworker. She's sick and needs me to come in ASAP. I decide to take a chance on the train to get me to work faster than my own legs. I'm headed down a quiet residential street to a train station, a street I was headed down just last month. This morning, I see a big, dusty and worn out RV camper parked along the curb near a big park. It has brand new solar panels. I'm down a big hill, gingerly upon brake fluid fumes, with a quick stop at a gas station for a snack. Soon I'm on a train as a shortcut to the trail to work. I just happen to be looking out the door window at the right time. Just as three months ago, when I happened to glance across the river. I spot the new homeless RV camp. A line of RVs and tents. It's behind a chain link fence, between a highway and the train tracks. The camp is now a couple of city blocks north of where it was. I don't know if I would have been to work sooner if I simply rode the distance or not. My coworker informs me that her daughter-in-law has died. Some eight hours later, I'm almost home from work. I'm coming down the last street before my own. Where the longtime camper was, a camper trailer now sits. Friday. I head out to work, on a quest to track down this new homeless RV camp. I attempt to approach it from the east side. I don't find any access past the train tracks. I do find a residential street which goes straight through for several city blocks. It leads me to an unexpected supermarket, where I pick up something I need for work. It takes me under a busy avenue, so I don't have to go across it. After some pedaling all the way down one street, and all the way down another, there is one busy avenue I must cross from here. After that, I'm at the street to the horse trail. A homeless guy I recognize is on a bike, headed for the same trail. This week is perhaps the final one with daytime temps in the 70s F, and many folks are out enjoying it. The homeless guy, in his monotone pants and hat and winter coat, is an interesting sight among the other people in shirts and brightly colored nylon fleece. Soon I'm at work. I ask my coworker about funeral plans for her sister-in-law. She lets me know her husband will not be going to the funeral, as he was a member of a gang which is a rival to the gang which the son-in-law was a member of. After work, I'm determined (to an extent) to find this homeless camper park on the ground. On the way home in the dark, I turn off the trail where I know I didn't pass it. I find access to the sidewalk along the highway in a hidden opening in a wooden fence. I have to carry my bike a yard or two over a patch of sidewalk covered in shards of glass from 40 oz. beer bottles. I found the glass when I heard the first crunch. From the other side of the highway since this morning's journey. After a short distance, I spot the campers behind a line of parked detached tractor trailers. The chain link fence I saw from the train turns out to enclose a Christmas tree lot.
Saturday. Some time this week, across from the trailhead, I noticed a small camp trailer tucked in the front of the big RV camper in the small lot. Friday evening, coming home, I noticed that the big RV is gone, and the small trailer is left by itself. Saturday morning, I pass one of the two campers on the street next to the open field. I believe it's the Nude Man camper. A generator outside is running for the first time since I've seen this camper here. It makes me wonder how often these homeless campers are actually occupied at any one time. When I come back this way after work, the other camper is gone. But before I get here on my way home, I detour back to take another look at the new homeless RV camp. Back across the goddamned pile of broken beer bottle glass. On Saturdays, I come home in daylight, and I have a better view than last night in the dark. I can see both one camper and a tent behind the line of detached tractor trailers. A sign on the chain link fence of this Christmas tree lot reads "Happy Holidays." I don't believe these campers came, or were dragged or pushed there across this busy highway. On my way to work Friday, I spotted what may be an entrance to the tree lot off an avenue, which would certainly be a far more possible approach. It appears they've found a location liable to generate less complaints. I don't know what will happen next month when the Christmas trees arrive. On Sunday, I head out to pick up a few odds and ends from the supermarket down the street. I decide that it's worth blowing some money on my old pre-grocery place for a low-carb breakfast, instead of a cheapo carb-laden one. I enter and order, and am eating when the owner's wife tells me that they are selling the place to another owner, who wants to try a buffet. This has been my go to place for breakfast before grocery shopping for the past thirteen years. They shut down in seven days.
...one of the most fashionable shops in Colorado...helped transform Boulder from the tie-dye capital of the world to a more sophisticated and artsy destination. It's about self-expression, empowerment, art, family, community and purpose. And yes, one side of the store is the European collection and high-end New York lines. Shoppers from the coasts often walk through the door and are shocked to find such a well-curated store in Colorado. ...Prada, Dries Van Noten (the store's best-selling line), Stella McCartney, Celine, Yves St. Laurent, Calvin Klein, Nill Lotan and Botega Veneta. ...summer and fall of 2020...has a lot more color than its usual very black. Expect red florals, rust, olive, burgundy. ...plaid jackets for women and cropped flared jeans. "Fashion...some people think is shallow, but there are so many levels of connection going on here: women empowerment, service." - Travel Boulder, summer-fall 2020
"If I went around the world five times, I wouldn't have seen the humanity and all I saw in the twenty years I was there." Denver bands appreciated the independent club, an alternative to the city's increasingly corporate-controlled live-music scene. ...the Zephyr earned its reputation as a legendary dive... But blues bars have been dying for years... Ziggy's, Denver's oldest, closed it's doors in 2017. Dive bars around Denver have disappeared, too... ...customers have lost a community hub, which served as a second home for some. The customers are all saying, 'We don't have anywhere to go. Where are you going to go?' You can see the big buildings coming up, encroaching in the area. - Westword, 11/12-18/2020
Monday. On the way home from work, it begins to snow, big, wet flakes. Just beginning to accumulate on the trail. The grass and wooden bridges are already white. Along the stretch past the waterpark, a small fox is running ahead of me in the dark, across a white field. Perhaps an hour later, I'm approaching the trailhead just past a golf course. Another small fox is running through another field of snow. The following late afternoon, after sundown, I'm coming up the street with the twin campers. Nude man's camper is gone. I'm coming home on Thursday. I'm back on my corner when I notice a huge and weathered RV camper parked at the gas station across the street from my home. It's taking up quite a bit of space. And it has a small trailer with a bundle in back. It it the trailer across from the trailhead? The following morning, I'm across the street on my way to work. This big RV, complete with bundle in trailer, is parked in the drive-through of the liquor store where I used to purchase wine for my mom. The engine is running. An old guy is at the wheel. He's reading something, or he's asleep. Hours later, I'm on my way home from work. I stop into a Super Target for some yogurt pops; one for home and one for work. The ones for work are part of an effort to cut down on purchasing so much yogurt from the shop next to work. In the parking lot of this enormous shopping center, here in the dark, is an old camper. Inside an hour later, I'm coming off the trail. In the small lot across from the trailhead, the small trailer is gone.
Sunday. I'm on my way to get Christmas photo cards made...while I happen to have the money to do it. I'm out of the door and down a street I used to take when I worked downtown, until earlier this year. It goes past a park just across my boulevard. It has tennis courts which, to the thirteen years of knowledge from my residence 'round these parts, have not a once been occupied for any reason. Yesterday was a smattering of flurries and a cold wind. Today is sunshine and it's in the 50s. Caucasians are out playing a little November tennis. My first stop is an old diner, which used to serve employees of a former rubber factory across the street. The factory went back before WW II. There's room for me at the lunch counter. Toward the end of my meal, I hear a guy next to me, silent since now, suddenly speak to his wife. He tells her it's time to physically assault the "anarchists" (whoever they are), so they may wake up in the hospital with spinal injuries. He goes on to mention something about an island which hosted Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, and Mitt Romney. They supposedly received some kind of money for something. Soon, I'm on my way. Somewhere to or from the camera shop across town, I can't recall where, I spot a familiar camper. Who's at the shop but my tall photogenic hippie goddess. She's in a beautiful print dress. I hear her tell someone that she's a singer. Then it's home again.
On Monday, I'm on my way home after work. I'm just off the trail when I must have run over something. This is because my back rim suddenly has a lump in it. The air is gone in two minutes. I check the lump. There's a huge sharp object embedded in the tire. Fortunately, it's not a long walk home. I'm on the block with the last of the former twin campers along the open field. I climb a hill and then turn a corner. During the climb up another residential street, I slowly come to realize that I am approaching a homeless camper. It looks like the one I passed yesterday. The emergency flashers on, for how long I don't know, but the battery appears to be low. It's sitting mostly to the right, and slightly out into the intersection of a residential neighborhood. I have no idea if it's currently occupied, or how long it's been here, but it has yet to be towed. I walk up to a street with a bus route. Along comes the bus. The driver sees me running for the stop and pulls to a stop there to wait for me. The driver looks as if she could be a college sophomore. With her bob haircut, she reminds me of the singer of a band I lived with 30 years ago at the U of Kansas. She gets me back to my boulevard. The following day, I'm on the bus to work, with the bike rim. At work, the owner comes in and again puts more brake fluid in my other bike's brake line. Again, after work, I'm on the way home on my primary bike. As soon as I'm off the bike trail, I approach the spot where I got last night's flat. It turned out to be a nail. I'm careful about where I pass along this area. I've turned up the street with the single remaining camper parked next to the pen field. It's gone this evening. There's nothing left but a pair of drawers from some kind of shelf and a step ladder. Just around the corner and up the hill, where last night's camper sat with slowing emergency flashers, it's gone as well.
Wednesday. I'm on the way to work, turning past where the pair of campers were next to an open field. The is now a newly parked trailer here, with a pickup truck in front of it. I will come back up this street this evening. The pick up will be gone. In the evening, before I get back to this street, I stop by a 7-Eleven where a stand for a free weekly newspaper sits on the sidewalk. My stop to grab a paper is an excuse to grab a snack from inside. I take it to a bench across a busy street from a park, where my route intersects the bike trail. I usually sit and eat snacks. The sun has just gone down. A couple of pedestrians walk past. I watch as a homeless guy on a big tricycle comes up the street, a short distance from the intersection. He turns onto the trail and dismounts in front of me. Today is the pinnacle of a last temperate week, and this evening is mild. I'm in a long sleeved shirt and unlined pants. He wears his cold weather gear. Off his trike, he walks down the trail with a limp. I'm done with my snack in no time and head the same direction. He must have disappeared someplace off the trail. He's nowhere to be found. The following day I'm back on the way to work. The single trailer on a residential street, which now sits where a pair of campers did next to the open field, this morning has a small car parked in front of it. It looks like a vehicle which was missing its hood when it was next to one of the campers. It has its hood back on, but unlatched. An electrical cable runs from under the hood to the trailer. Is the trailer running appliances off the car battery? A sign the trailer is occupied? Just around the corner is the small lot across from the trailhead. The huge RV is back, but without the small trailer. I'm on the trail approaching an underpass when I spot a pedestrian exiting the trail. He has a pack on underneath what appears a bottom bed sheet, which covers his whole body. This trail hooks up with another, and soon I'm approaching the dog park. I immediately notice the parking lot, which is today host to a camper. It looks familiar, with its cardboard scraps wedged in the rear ladder to the roof. Is this the nude man camper? The port side has graffiti which has been whitewashed over. The rear top has a spray painted message, which reads, "take care of yourself." Someone has the hood up and appears to work on the engine. Two owners with dogs on leashes converse s few yards from him.
Friday. I'm down the street to work. Along the street just past mine, the recent trailer has a citation taped outside of a window. The windows are covered from the inside. The one with the citation has what appears to be a paper placemat for children, from the kind of restaurant RVs used to visit on vacation across America. This particular placemat has an illustrated story about the Wright brothers. Was it found in this old camper, from back when a family actually used it on a vacation? Around a corner, through a light, a couple more corners and down a long hill. I turn on the street with the single trailer. The once hoodless car has been replaced by a pickup truck. Around the last corner to the trailhead, the big RV in the small lot is gone once again. But...the real excitement comes on the way home. Going to work, I don't notice if the camper in the dog park lot is still there, but along the way home I can see it's gone. I take a look around the spot under a tree where it was parked. Nothing but two singular strands of wire. Then, perhaps an hour later, it happens. I'm coming home in the dark down the street with the trailer, with the citation on it's window. A pair of headlights are behind me. The fourth pair after the three vehicles which have already passed. Every street in this residential neighborhood is always busy. These headlights however are coming up from behind significantly more slowly. I turn up another street and make a U-turn, and wait for whoever it is to pass. And...there it is. It's the decades-faded cream-colored RV which has recently made my extended neighborhood its home. I turn in hot pursuit. It slowly rolls past this long street of empty fields. It turns up a side street. I follow. It moves up to the next intersection, my street, and stops. I catch up. It crosses the street and slowly continues up to the following street. It turns left and goes one block before it turns left again, back toward my street. I know what you're doing, smmmart guyyy... You're looking for a place to park for the night. This homeless camper is cruising my streets as if he's rolling past camp sites in a state park. It's hard to believe I'm witness to this. Back on my street, he goes up the the park. It cruises just past the tennis courts which only this summer have recently become inhabited by the new Caucasian residents of the neighborhood. It slows and pulls close to the cub along the park. It backs up slightly. Then the engine goes off. Sleep tight.
Saturday. On the way to work, last night's camper is gone from the curb along the park. On the way home, the trailer is gone from the curb next to an open field. It will be back here the following afternoon. I've been sitting around at work, shooting the breeze with the cobbler who moved into the back space of our store. He and I both go way back in this town, and we've been comparing notes on businesses which are no longer around. During the week, I mention my plan to take the back rim of my backup bicycle to the bike shop on the way home, to get a new tube. He convinces me to get a simple tool to remove the valve stem from a new tube, grab some sealant, and do it myself. The owner for whom I work suggests I grab a cheap tube from Target. I do just this, stopping at the Target off the trail on the way home Thursday, bringing it to work and putting it on the rim Friday, and swinging past the bike shop on the way home Saturday for the tool and sealant. It feels good to be changing my own tubes again. When I get home after work on Saturday, I discover that the end cap from my quick release stem is missing. Great. Did the friend of the owner not replace it when he installed my new cassette in his shop? I decide not point any fingers, regardless of the fact I cant figure out where else it could have gone. On Sunday, along the way to pick up photo Christmas cards, I make a detour to a bike shop. Before I leave, I check online. Their website sez they're open today. Then I successfully remove my first valve stem and put in my first ever sealant. Across my boulevard, Caucasian runners are out in warm spandex. I take my old route downtown, the way to work when I worked there. I past a familiar-looking camper along a residential downtown street. When I arrive, they bike shop lists hours which do not include today. I grab a quick lunch on the way to the photo shop. I eat it on a bench outside of a mall I used to live up the street from, and then go in the mall for some yogurt. I left late in the morning in ski mittens. It's warmed up considerably a round half past noon. It's a short jaunt to the photo shop, where I have a clerk look up the number for the bike shop where I stopped on the way home less than 24 hours ago. They have a quick release stem. I make my way south, past neighborhoods with older homes. Residents are putting up their Christmas lights and yard decorations. A mom in her thirties is placing big plastic illuminated lollipops along the tiny walkway to the front door, as dad uncoils the lights. I will be putting my own string up next weekend. Along the way, I stop at a supermarket for a few odds and ends. Soon, I'm at the bike shop which is open. I have my stem, and then it's back on the way home. I swing past a bench I was sitting on Wednesday after work, to eat my snack. A guy sits there now. He rests his arms and chin on his own bicycle. His shopping cart is next to him, full of stuff.
"Life Cereal? Homeless Guy won't eat it, he hates everything. He likes it! Hey Homeless Guy..."
Monday. I'm just out of the door. I will have to begin leaving more early on Mondays, as this is now the single day I go to the gym. And the workout, previously twice a week, is now twice as long. Coming out of my parking lot, I turn to check for traffic. Pedaling along comes a middle aged guy upon his own bicycle. He is towing a small skinny flatbed trailer. In the flatbed is a single shipping box for Life cereal, complete with the Life logo and cereal bowl. The box appears big enough to hold several cereal-sized boxes. It's the only thing on the flatbed. He's pedaling slowly down my busy street. I pull in behind him before I sneak back onto the sidewalk, and then I blow through the waning green light. On the other side of my boulevard I stop to adjust my balaclava. He slowly passes me and I watch him proceed up my street. He slowly inches to the curb before coming to a stop. A pedestrian approaches along the sidewalk. He asks the pedestrian a question. The pedestrian does not appear to have any more of an idea who he is than I do, and turns down a alley. I again pass the travelling cereal box trailer cyclist. I'm down and across, and down and around and up and then down the long hill before I arrive at the street next to the open field. Joining the trailer at the curb, once again, is a camper.
Jack London On A Bicycle
And then comes Tuesday. A few inches of wet snow are on the ground when I leave for work. The flakes have stopped coming down, as they were when I woke up. The streets are snowy but not icy and I find some tire wipes through which to ride. Having left a half hour early, I'm making better time than I thought....or so I think. I've just crossed a bridge over the river and I stop to take a drink from my water bottle. It's in a pouch on the handlebars, secured with a thin bungee cord. I take the cord off and put it around my neck before I completely forget about it. I put the bottle back and attempt to get going again when I discover that my chain does not want to stay on my flywheel assembly. When I take a closer look, I see the bungee cord is wrapped between the cassette and the spokes. This can't fucking be happening. I attempt to pull it out. It ain't moving. I take my bag off the back rack and pull out a child's scissors. I snip the cord. One end comes out. The end wrapped between cassette and spokes has it's hook on the back of the cassette. In the summer, I can't so much as stop on this trail without a neon-Spandex-clad cyclist immediately showing up to ask me if I'm okay. Not this morning. There's not another body upon the trail to be found. I contemplate calling the manager of the company I work for. Her would be at the plant, which isn't far from here. I pull a pliers out of my bag and bend the hook off the back of the cassette. I give the remaining end one more yank. The cassette reverses and the rest of the cord comes free. At the time, I think I spot a broken spoke. When I get to work, I can't fid it, and conclude it was a trick of the light. Now that I'm going again, perhaps a half hour later, I'm rolling past the waterpark, shut down for the season. A guy in shorts is walking his dog out in the snow. Not long after, I'm headed for the trailhead when I do indeed pass a Spandex-clad cyclist.
Thursday is Thanks giving. The sister sent a frozen, already cooked turkey last Sunday. I've thawed it and I put it in the oven for a couple of hours. When it's done and cooled in the morning, I put it in the fridge. Yesterday, I turned on a lamp with three small bulbs. All of them blew at once. Today, I'm on my way to the supermarket for more bulbs. I decide to take the bus. It picks me up and, at a following stop, a woman steps on. She's looking for a community college which is the end of the line for this route, more than a hundred blocks away. Only she's stepped aboard the bus going the wrong way. I step out at one deathburger, along with a skinny young guy who's rapping non-stop along with the beats from his earbuds. The deathburger is closed for indoor take out. I cross the street to another deathburger. Same thing. It appears I will be having Thanksgiving lunch from &-Eleven. I cross the other street and grab some food. I take it a nearby bus stop, sit on the concrete next to the bench, and take out a book. I'm spending Thanksgiving lunch at a bus stop with a skinny young non-stop rapping guy. When I'm done, I wait to cross the street again, on the way to the supermarket. A car making a turn through the intersection honks at another in front of it, the driver of which has her window open. She responds by gesturing to the driver behind her that a tiny woman in a wheelchair is using her legs to slowly push herself through the crosswalk. To make it before the light turns red, she must begin just as turning traffic gets a green arrow. Or perhaps because she's going backwards, she can't see the traffic turning through her crosswalk. I'm across the street, in the supermarket, and out again. I head for the bus stop in front of the supermarket. Along comes the wheelchair-bound woman. I'm again sitting on the concrete reading as she almost reaches me, before she stops and turns. When she turns to look at me, I see she has a pair of teardrops one under the other, tattooed at the right corner of her right eye. She's murdered two people. The bus arrives and I head home to put up my Christmas lights.
Friday. I'm turning down the street with the open field. There is the trailer running a cord from under the hood of a pickup. The pickup is running. So is a small car parked behind a second trailer. This one has black-painted wooden boards over all the windows. I turn off toward a supermarket which carries low fat cheese. There's an underpass I ride through just off the trail. This morning, it's been painted with a mural. A caption at the top reads, "Anything is possible." Off to one side are a couple of graffiti tags. Next to one of the tags is spray-painted, "Happy Thanksgiving." Down the street and around a corner, and I'm at the supermarket. I've been coming here perhaps as long as the very end of the spring. I believe that this is the first time I've been here before 6 PM. It's perhaps 7:30 AM. Inside the store, I pass one manager who says nothing to me. A second asks me to leave my bags up at the front. This is a first. But I think I get it. I've seen over these months the homeless and the tweakers and all who find their way to this doorstep. How many groceries get shoplifted? The following frigid morning I'm turning down the long stretch of street next to mine, on the way to work for another Saturday. The trailer with the citation has vanished. Around several corners more and I'm on the trail. Down and around the small lot with homeless vehicles some months ago, and I'm crossing my first bridge over the river. Halfway across is a couple who are kissing. I believe that this is the most positive thing I've ever seen on the way to work. Some eight hours later, and I'm rejoining this same trail. I wonder why this particular afternoon in November, I'm seeing lines of cyclists out here. Then I realize, they must have the entire weekend off for the holiday. And it's in the mid-fifties today, up from the high twenties this morning. The sun is just setting when I exit the trail. At the intersection of this busy street and the one with the open field, there is a small Toyota pickup which has seen better days. It's being drive by one of two shirtless young men, who has his window open. Stopped and waiting for traffic to pass, he's revving it's straining engine and burning whatever lubricating fluids are left. He turns out onto the street and, through the window, flips off the vehicle behind him back at the intersection. I know not why. It appears to be a woman in a small hatchback. No more than a minute later, he comes careening back the way he came, burning oil up a steep hill.
I'm Too Sexy For A Large, Too Sexy For A Large...
Saturday, I was at work thinking about how it's too cold for my short sleeved shirts during this frigid season. It's the first fall and winter when I've felt this way at work. On Sunday, I ponder my clothing shopping choices. I go online and look at nearby shopping centers. One down the street from work has nothing in the way of clothes at all. The Super Target on the way home doesn't appear to have anything appealing. I leave it for Sunday. I could make the crosstown trek to the city's premiere shopping mall, down the street from where I used to live. Their indoor Christmas display is indeed very nice. But many of the same shops in this mall may be found downtown on the pedestrian mall, which is only half as far. What I like about shopping for clothes, which i don't do very often, is taking the requirement of something to put over my body and finding something I couldn't have found anywhere else. And it doesn't hurt if it turns out to be ridiculously inexpensive. It's a chilly day with a cold wind. I'm out of the door on the bike with my newly installed rear tube. Boy this thing is difficult to pedal. Am I tired? Am I getting old? Into downtown, I will discover that the axle is migrating to one side along the frame, sliding "out of true" as the gear-heads like to say. My quick release feels tight, I don't know what's up, but it will continue to do so all afternoon. I'm headed past the park across my boulevard. Halfway past it, I watch a Caucasian woman in skintight fleece is out for a run. She's coming the wrong way down one of two residential one way streets bounding this park. She passes through a three-way stop before a big pickup truck comes to a stop. Inside, a Hispanic guy watches her before rumbling on his way. I can hear Mexican music behind his tinted window. The temperature is not far into the thirties, and I hear the pops of tennis balls being volleyed on the tennis courts. The crazy new Caucasian transplants are at it in the cold. The undisclosed side of gentrification: tennis. I have a long afternoon ahead of me, and it doesn't include my clay court game. A camper is parked at one corner of the park, oblivious to the Autumn recreation of the idle. I'm once again along the route I took when I worked downtown, until earlier this year. Until I discover my back rim issue, I really believe that's the problem is with my body. I'm very briefly on the bike trail. Between where I enter and the underpass after which I exit is a homeless guy. he's off the trail and on the gravel. He's repairing a scooter. As I pass him, I'm on the trail and he's on the gravel. He says, "Sorry, sir." He's not in anyone's way. I'm up onto and over the bridges across the river and the interstate, in immediate succession. On a long strip of grass between a thoroughfare and the highway is a familiar homeless tent encampment. I turn at the railroad tracks and it's a short jaunt across the light rail tracks. I discover and adjust the back wheel. Now I'm rolling easier.
Soon I'm on the pedestrian mall, which allows bicycles on the weekend. I've heard about downtown's 'deserted streets and boarded-up shops.' I only see my bank boarded up, and a couple of other buildings. The deathburger homeless central is boarded up, but a sign reads "closed for remodeling." I decide to stop at the 7-Eleven on the mall for a take out lunch. A security guard hangs out in front of the store and chats with a handful of homeless. A young woman with a long skateboard arrives in a spaghetti strap blouse and her midriff exposed, on this chilly damned day. I'm in my balaclava, lined pants, winter coat and gloves. There are young hipster urban resident couples strolling the mall in shorts. I grab some chicken nuggets and head for a seat on the mall, my back to the wind. I take off my helmet and put my hood over my head. The security guard tells one of the homeless, "I don't have any change, man." Then, one homeless guy begins yelling at someone else down the block. The security guard follows after him. This appears to be more than the simple duties of a guard at a business. He seems to be involved in managing these characters. Interesting. A young guy on a BMX bike begins broadcasting some hip hop on a device. He unexpectedly says, "Fuck you." A pedestrian wonders if he's talking to him. Another asks him, "What?" I decide to get a Krispy Kreme doughnut for desert. I'm getting underway when a pedestrian crosses the corner on a red light. A car comes to a quick stop and honks at him. He barely turns to look as he maintains his casual pace. There are some families out here this cold afternoon. A woman in a stylish hat with a brim and a skirt with bare legs, with her family. The hell with these people. I've been cold before. I don't wear it as a fashion statement.
Speaking of fashion, just a block away is a two-story promenade of clothing shops. I try Uni Olo without success. A friendly clerk points me to a men's room off the walk, and gives me the security code. It's funny, working in drycleaning I see these brand names every day. I'm up on the second floor balcony, when I notice a couple of guys with selfie-sticks. Over the balcony is some kind of small Christmas house, in the middle of a block. Santa's house? It's completely void of anyone. Then I enter an H & M. I bought my winter coat here. Only 50 bucks, and I love it. They have long sleeved shirts on sale. Eighteen bucks. Ten. Seven. I've stumbled into the right place. I need one for each of the six days I work during the week. I pick out six large shirts, only to discover I'm an extra large. I'm trying to put European designs on an American frame. This is why we are the greatest nation. Our men can't wear shirts smaller than a size large. I meet a clerk and listen to her converse in Spanish. Yet I can't place her accent. French? She helps several customers in Spanish. I didn't realize that H & M is running their Black Friday sale until the end of today. I don't hear her speak English until she gets to the guy in front of me. These appear to be folks who appreciate a sale. I greet the clerk in my own Spanish, mentioning her plethora of Spanish-speaking customers. Then I ask where she's from. She's not French but Italian. Not only do I get the Black Friday 30% discount, on top of the sale price, but she hooks me up with a membership and an extra 10% discount. I'm walking out with six new shirts for $56 and some change. I thank her in Spanish. The woman behind me begins laughing at me. She's another Spanish speaker. "Muchas clientes hablamos Espanol," I tell her. They both laugh. I must just be too big for my shirts...
I exit the shop and am heading for the outside escalator. I hear a couple of guys behind me talking about the right to bear arms. "If someone has intentions," he tells the other, "those intentions don't change." Sure, uh, Merry Christmas. I get down to the street and turn a corner. I barely notice a young woman hurrying along before she turns around. She tells me she thought I was following her before she apologizes. No, I'm not making this up. Then she tells me I look like Mike Ditka. She begins to talk about one of his recipes before I arrive at my bike. I head down to the other end of the mall, to a popular homegrown local bookstore. I'm looking for a magazine, but I also need a calendar for 2021. I walk in behind a couple of young women. A clerk is next to the door, at a desk. He's reciting a list of stuff such as they have hand sanitizer for us, the coffee shop is closed, please maintain social distancing... I find a calendar. I ask the desk dude where the periodicals are. They currently are not carrying any. Whatever. I'm checked out by a hip elderly guy with a sedative-drenched personality. A bandanna covers his head. I ask about a restroom, and he directs me across the street to the city's major transit hub, Union Station. I'm hitting al the hot spots this afternoon. I should complete the tour with the baseball stadium and amusement park. No time though. The problem is that I have a life. Across the street, families are enjoying the late afternoon along the station. I run inside to use the facilities, which a sign informs us are "for Union Station patrons and patrons of its businesses." My intentions haven't changed. I come out of the men's room and sit at one of several long wooden benches to rearrange my backpack and a smaller bag to make room for the calendar. A couple of guys walk in. I don't see what they have with them, but I hear a female security guard ask them if they are "planning on using that in here?" (Is those bananas in their pockets, or are they just happy to see her?)
I'm out of there, back on the bike, and out again on the mall. Soon, I'm approaching yet another woman out for a run down the mall, also in the lane going the wrong way. Her own butterscotch colored tights match her long copper hair flying behind her. She's a beautiful sight to see. Her boyfriend brings up the rear. Then I'm between a Business Improvement District pickup truck in front of me, and a pedicab in me rearview mirror. Back at the other end of the mall, I exit onto an avenue along the park downtown. This year, the park is host to an annual Christkindl outdoor market. I notice a friggin' line to get in this cordoned event and decide that today I don't need this either. I'm headed out of downtown when I roll past the building for one of the local network TV stations. Last winter, I saw nothing but snow-covered homeless tents downtown. This afternoon, the tents are sporadic, until I get to the TV station. Along one side of the building, there's a line of tents from one end to the other. It's a curious sight at a TV station. Another new normal coalescing out of circumstance. Around a corner and a few blocks away. I weave past a single homeless woman surrounded by containers of food and supplies on the ground. She also says, "Sorry, sir." Across the intersection, I run into a Chipotle and grab dinner. A young couple is ahead of me, wearing various pieces of ski gear. The girl is in snow pants and sandals with wool socks. Neither have bike helmets and I only see my own bike outside. I don't know if this is some kind of hipster wannabe-ski-bum statement, or what their...intention is. I quietly collect my tofu/meat/fajita/guac/cheese and lettuce bowl and exit stage left. I eventually head back the way I came into downtown, past where the scooter guy was, and climb a steep hill to a park. The wind appears to be gone as the sun swings closer to the Rockies. I sit again at cement mosaic table, the other side of the tracks from where the young urban crowd frolics, and eat a quiet meal. Then it's home again, where I break open a new bottle of chain lube. I'm lubricating the chain on my main bike, when I notice that indeed, I do have a broken spoke on my back rim. I attempt to unscrew it, which does not appear to want to happen. I try to cut it off with a pair of needle nose pliers, which has snips toward the handle. No good. I try an old pair of branch snippers. Nope. I suspect they make spokes strong so that they do their job. I finally pull out a pair of bolt cutters before the thing finally snaps off in my hand. At last I have a chance to sit down. This was another productive day, and I've learned that my back up bike has a rear wheel which I need to keep an eye on. I bring down my miniature Christmas tree, already decorated, and a ew other pieces and set it up on the bar. I tune in a Sunday evening avant garde jazz radio show. Now I'm ready for December.
Monday caps this month. I'm on my way to pick up some yogurt pops for work, then hit the gym, then on to work. Along my route to work, I make my way across a busy avenue, two streets away from my own. Then I make an immediate left, toward a hill which takes me up to the street which connects with the one next to the open field. This morning I make the left. It runs a short few blocks behind the businesses along the busy avenue. There, tucked away here behind one of those shops, is the trailer formerly with the citation taped to the window. The citation is gone. The front end is up on cinder blocks. It's off the street, on a strip of gravel between the sidewalk and the back end of a business. I can't tell if this is here by the occupant's or occupants' choice, or if it's been relegated to this spot. But I can't imagine it' been placed here by any authority. Here, it's relatively hidden, almost as if this is the idea.
