...the road I was taking escaped human influence and came under that of sheer nature Why there was a road at all...is open to speculation. ...no one travelled that way unless it was on foot or horseback. The road started out mildly decomposed and eventually became nonexistent. ...two feet to the right was drop of several hundred feet...on the left was a solid cliff I could reach out and touch, one that kept spitting pebbles off into the void. ...I found...a pleasant roadside park...with a chuckling stream bouncing through the towering evergreen forest. The park served as a community bath...it was as packed with people as Coney island on Labor Day. Scruffy children chased after soccer balls...parents drank beer out of their car trunks and stood in wide circles, jabbering and shouting in animated conversations. ...my final destination [was] a quick three-hour drive [from here. Upon arrival, it] smelled like a burning landfill [and was] lost in the haze of a rancid smog. It's an unhealthy combination of coal smoke from a nearby power plant, fuming roadside garbage, and rotting meat. [There were] zombified...refugees from the countryside. They stagger the streets and the trash heaps looking for food while their children loiter...waiting for a red light to dash out and scrub a windshield. The buildings are made of cracked cement and barely seem to remain upright...teetering like crooked teeth. garbage blows through the streets like pollen. - Campbell
An hour after I get home from work on April Fool's Day, I read an online post from the city police department. As I walked through my door an hour ago, two men were fatally shot at a major intersection up the street from where I live. The day after, I'm not long out of my door, on the way to work. I turn onto the street a block from mine. Almost all homeless campers and trailers have gone from this long street. All that are left is the long silver trailer from the 1950s, and a minivan missing a rear bumper and appearing to have had its windows spray painted black from the inside. It's as if the two strangest mobile makeshift dwellings are the ones left behind. A few blocks along and down a long hill, I turn onto the street next to an open field. There are a pair of new campers. The smaller one has a loud generator running. Then I'm on the bike trail. Coming out from the second underpass, the trail rolls past a short street with a few buildings. One is an old VFW hall. As I was coming past it on the way home last night, I noticed a brand new fence in front of it. A banner on the fence announces a brand new space for some kind of culinary classes or something. The grand opening is the following day. This morning, I'm all the way down to where I turn onto a connecting trail, where I pass a small shelter with a couple of benches inside. Standing next t the shelter is a homeless guy. On the ground is his camping pack and bedroll. he has a mask over just his mouth and is flying a sign. When I pass him, he flashes me a peace sign. The following morning, I'm off to work at the end of another week. Beginning Thursday afternoon, a spell of high temps in the 70s F have arrived. Buds are appearing on trees. This morning, I turn onto the street with the open field. The black spray-painted truck is parked here, along with a flatbed trailer hitched to the back. Both the trail and the bed of the truck are piled high with scrap metal and bicycles. A child's bike lay in the grass next to the truck, along with another front rim. Picking among whatever other metal lay on the ground is a familiar-looking young guy, in black jeans and his head inside a black hoodie. Down at the end of the block is a small car. The back rear wheel has been removed. The wheel is laying sideways underneath the right back corner of the vehicle, propping it up. As soon as I'm on the trail, I pass a cyclist with no helmet and bleached hair. I'm much further down the trail when he passes me from behind, coming the other way. When I get home from work on Saturday, I listen to a local TV news report online. One of the two men fatally shot up my street were waiting at a stop for a bus. I've waited for a bus at all four of those stops, going each direction, at one time. He was a 22-year-old single dad of an infant, working two jobs. At this early stage of the investigation, he does not appear to have had "a beef" with anyone. There are two young guys who were pulled over in their car, and booked into jail. In the back seat of their car was a child in a car seat.
On Easter Sunday, I decide the time has come to take my third and final bike in for servicing...and I do mean servicing. I had a look at my checking account for the first time in a couple of weeks, and decided to make this move while I am in a financial position to do so. As for this bike, well, allow me to run down the list. This is the bike I was previously riding back and forth to work. For some time, it's had at least one fluid leak in the brake line. This is my first bike with hydraulic disc brakes. I discovered that they eventually leak. My new bike has a cable system for its disc brakes. Besides the leak in the brake line, the higher gear cable snapped last year. At least one pedal is broken. And then there's the back rim. I had to cut off a broken spoke and the rim is bent. The tube and tire currently have a screw stuck through them as deep as far as it can go. And those are only the problems of which I am aware. I decide to make this something of a shopping spree. This only happens when money turns up from somewhere, and I decide to spend it on something I need. And I could use new cycling shorts and something in which to carry my water bottle. My oldest bike didn't come with anyplace to attach a rack for a water bottle, and the one I'm taking in for service, I never bothered to have one put on. I've been putting my water bottle in a pouch on my handlebars. But the pouch will no longer hold onto it without a tiny bungee cord. It's becoming too complicated to take a drink out on the trail. I plan on including a water bottle holder with the rest of the work. I'm out of the door in the morning. Only, on this morning, I won't be riding anywhere. This bike has a screw spinning around with the rest of the back rim, and consequently no air in the tube. Unless I'm at work, at home or across the street someplace, I'm never anywhere when I'm not wearing my bike shorts. Which is why they only get washed once a week. And why I can use a new pair.
I'm across the street where I catch a bus up the street. I sit in front on a young guy in an untucked buttoned down shirt. He tells me he's asked everyone else on this bus where he can find "a pair of Jordans." (Michael Jordan sneakers? Do they still make those?) He wants to know where there's a shoe store out on this boulevard. I draw a blank. We pull to a stop on the corner where a couple of young guys were fatally shot this week. He plans on making his exit. He mentions he needs laundry detergent and we're across the street from a Walgreens. He approaches the front door but an elderly woman is making her way on board. With a sigh, he uses the back door. I get out at the train station. A waiting passenger asks the driver impatiently when the bus for the other route comes along. He's obviously going further north. The transit system has cut the service so much, I don't even know if he can get north of here on a Sunday. Then I'm on a train with a couple in jerseys for the city's baseball team. There must be a game downtown. My own neighborhood is planning a Cinco De Mayo festival in a few weeks, which I will discover online when I return home. Perhaps the park downtown will begin hosting all last year's cancelled festivals this year, instead of political protests. Then I'm off the train, over the tracks, and at the sporting goods super center. A skinny kid with long blonde curls asks if I need service, and a young woman in a tie-dyed shirt comes out. They both collect the bike's list of issues. She stands behind a register making a work order as another employee quickly walks behind the counter and lazily shoots a rubber band at her shorts, hitting her squarely in the vagina. She lets me know that, of the parts my bike needs, they must check their inventory to see what they have and what they need to order. She and an older guy go in a back room before coming out and looking at rims stacked along a wall. After some minutes of the guy checking the computer, she comes back out to tell me she will put in a work order to get the ball rolling, and they will call me with an eventual quote. I hand over a new they sold me before I decided to bring the bike in, along with an old kick stand I had sitting around. She promises to have both installed. I thank her for all the typing she did on the keyboard, with all my bike's problems, and for all her work. I go off in search of new bike shorts. I find a pair of the store's brand, complete with two tiny pockets, which my previous bike shorts have never had. All for a price at the low end. In the checkout line, I pick up a bottle holder with a shoulder strap. It's a perfect solution. Then it's off to the pedestrian mall, for lunch at the place with a nice big salad, where I'm told no one else "ever finishes the salad." I hop a mall shuttle with a street guy who appears to have nervous energy. He gets out before I do. Where I exit, I see him being chased out of a bar and grill. But this afternoon, there is someplace open for him to be chased out of. At spots along the mall, restaurants with outdoor patios are filled up. It's a post-pandemic spring...for the literal spring. Across the street from where I disembark is my lunch place. I get a seat at the bar, where service is fast. After lunch, I'm across the street for a hot chocolate for Easter. I hop another shuttle to the end of the mall, where i catch a bus to a supermarket for a particular item. Then I cross the parking lot to the train, which takes me down to the next station, where I hop on a bus headed back to my neighborhood. A stooped over guy comes aboard at the station and takes a seat across from me. Before we depart, I pull out a book I've been reading, by a journalist during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. The guy asks me what kind of a book it is, and I tell him it's a biography. Of sorts.
Thursday. I'm on the way home after a ten-hour day at work. I'm turning onto the street next to the open field. A line of campers, trailers, and other vehicles are all parked at the curb along the field. i watch as another camper turns onto the street at the opposite end. It pulls into a space between other campers before it aborts and passes me. The following evening, after another ten-hour day at work, I'm back here at this very same spot. The camper looking for a spot is now parked at the near end of the caravan. On Saturday, I'm on the way to work, turning onto the next street down from mine. A lone new camper has shown up. All the others are down along the street next to the open field. The entire curb has no more space. After work, I head across town to pick up some photos. This means taking the sidewalk along a busy boulevard straight along from work. Along the way, I'm climbing a hill behind a couple walking a small dog on a leash. As I pass them slowly from behind, the dog (as do so many others) goes into a frenzy, as if it wants to kill me. The guy is holding the leash, and from his response, i assume he is worried about my opinion of the dog's reaction. he says, "Tell us you're behind us and that won't happen." It's an interesting perspective. My tall photogenic hippie goddess is working at the camera shop this afternoon. She's playing the Smiths on the store sound system. "To die by your siiiide...is such a heavenly way to diiiee..." I haven't heard the Smiths since I was her age. She says it reflects the mood she's in. Lately, whenever I see her, she's stressed. She tells me about a customer who she helped with framing a collection of photos of her son. He was fourteen and passed away from a brain tumor. She shows me a graphite portrait a family friend of the customer did. It's fantastic. On Sunday, I head out for just a few items from a particular supermarket. I elect to stop for lunch at a breakfast place along the way. The last time I was here (was it this year?), the gravel parking lot had three homeless campers and a collection of tents. There is some scattered trash left behind today, but only a single camper remains. The eatery is on an intersection of a busy avenue and a highway. The corner of the place is popular with panhandlers. Only today, there is a busker here, complete with a top hat with feathers. When the one way traffic gets a red light, he walks out into the intersection and juggles three pins, first blowing a whistle to get the cars' attention. He yells, "Thank you Denver!" (He's from out of town?) Then he collects cash from drivers. The scene has come full circle, where in a spot where panhandling has become no longer unusual, this guy is the one who appears bizarre. I wonder if he has a license to perform? Inside, I mention him to my waitress. Her reply doesn't make sense, as if she's afraid to comment at all. "He's just, yeah, not homeless but, just trying to help any way he can..." After lunch, I'm unlocking my bike as a homeless guy with a sign comes along. The two exchange greetings. As I'm crossing at the corner, he's going back out again, and blows his whistle in my ear.
...identities expand...to a clan or a tribe or a group of people... ...also...traditional values...God, country, family, traditions. ...more "mythic" modes of thinking... ...the mythic religion...supported the king and monarchy... ...moving to a rational stage... - Westword, 4/15-21/2021
The black marble lobby is filled with cigarette smoke, and gangly waiters in threadbare monkey suits...offer strangers the opportunity to be ripped off when changing deutsche marks into...dinars. vacant-faced charwomen lurk in the breezeways like ghosts... The media center was a combination lounge, spin control center, war room...and sports bar. ...once...intended...as a conference room...the media had made it theirs: a wall of satellite-fed televisions... ...the...secretary of information...saw all...casualties as the death of "terrorists." ...most of the information up to that point had come from refugees who's stumbled across the mountains... [The night] was spent on sticky sheets, with strange footsteps...all night and...jets splitting the sound barrier... - Campbell
Focusing on three core values - expression, connection, and transformation - Art From...Ashes' youth programs are focused on youth who feel they've fallen through the cracks of society - whether it be education or social services... ...using poetry and spoken word to help...those in juvenile detention facilities and treatment centers... Youth today are "constantly being...graded and told what to do and where to be. They have a lot to say and sometimes don't even realize it until they get to write creatively. When young people speak their truths and connect with others, [they] recognize their value..." - Washington Park Profile, 4 2021
Discover Maintenance-Free, 55+ Living... A lifestyle exclusively designed for active adult living ...on-site classes and activities ...rich social experiences Mention this Mailer to Receive a Complimentary Bottle of Wine with Tour! - retirement community mailer, 4/19/2021
On Tuesday, I'm on my way to work. But first, I must swing by a medical clinic just a few blocks south of where I live, to pick up a prescription. I'm in and out in a few minutes. As I'm unlocking my bike, I watch a young homeless guy come along, carrying a sleeping bag. He's asking patients, as they are entering the clinic, for a light for his cigarette butt. He asks me if I have a light, and I tell him this. It's less likely that medical employees or patients of a clinic are smokers. He looks at me with a double take. Then I'm down the street, all the way to the corner with the line of campers and the open field. As I turn onto this street, I can see all the way down at the other end. The first beat up pickup truck, with its bed piled high with scrap metal, is turning off this street. I pass the line of campers and approach the other end of the street. Another beat up pickup truck, its bed also piled high with scrap metal, turns onto this street here at this end. Then I'm on the trail. halfway to the connecting trail, I approach an underpass. Coming up from the other side are three homeless guys on bicycles. Wednesday. On the trail home, I'm coming up behind a couple of homeless guys. Between them is a shopping cart. Balanced on top of the cart is some kind of wood structure. The pair are pulling it along the trail. Though it takes up the entire trail, I'm able to sneak around them where the trail has an extra width of space.
Local journalists...had no sex appeal at all, looking like just-released prisoners of war. They worked with the type of equipment that would be found in a low-end Sunset Boulevard pawnshop. They were...without pretension; to them, the conflict was personal... All of them had been born [here.] ...the foreign reporters staying at the Grand Hotel were indeed just doing a job... ...the foreigners need video footage [for] people who are in no direct danger of the violence being portrayed. Local...reporters, however, never really leave a story. ...the people they see through the lenses in their cameras are no different than themselves and their families. One of the men was a heroin addict...the caved-in eyes, the profuse sweat...and the sewing-machine action of his legs under the small table. - Campbell
[A] 46-year-old family physician...providing health care to Colorado resettled refugees for more than ten years..."knows what it's like to feel lost and underserved in...jobs, medicine, religion, food, housing." At an age when some physicians are trading in spouses and buying $4,000 espresso machines, he drives an old Chevy Volt... Fixed appointments create barriers to health care for poor people... ..."these folks, they don't work white-collar 9-to-5." [He works among] overcrowded...multi-generational living situations... ..."the state has basically forced us to vaccinate rich white people. We are doing undocumented folks, homeless folks. Some of them sleep on my property..." [He owns the big building where he practices, a former restaurant space.] Twenty-five new retail spots are almost completed on the third floor, and...a waiting line for tenants... ...each caters to the members of its community, in their own language. - Westword, 4/22-28/2021
On the way home Saturday, I need to stop by the bank on the way home. I haven't been able to make my fortnightly sojourn there this Friday. On both Thursday and Friday, I was called into work early, as my coworker wasn't feeling well. On Thursday, I let the house and decided to shoot for the train station, where I caught a train with seconds to spare, which whisked me two stops to another station, where I disembarked as the bus arrived, making it to work two hours early. Friday I worked all day, and got a handy ride from the manager, when we popped into the plant for a few minutes. I said hi to a presser and her daughter, and the owner. They constitute perhaps half of our total current employees. So I haven't had the time to swing by the bank. And the sister needs reimbursement just for this month. She's been paying for my groceries for at least a year, and having them delivered, as she did not want me going into the grocery store. This has been extremely successful in severely curtailing my supermarket visits, and appears to have kept me from contracting the virus. I arrive at the bank after work, the branch off the bike trail which I discovered a few months ago. Though they are not open, I can use their ATM. Cash in hand, I get back on the trail. The great RV trailer park in the distance catches my eye. I decide to detour off the trail to see if I can find it. Indeed, I locate it along a side street, off the southern end of my very own Boulevard. I decide to ride it straight home, which I surely haven't done in a good fourteen years. I ride the sidewalk all the way to the base of this hill, beginning at the next major avenue. I remember the climb and the ride as treacherous. This afternoon's ride is hardly so, even with the melting snow turning bare ground into mud. At selected spots near the top of the hill, the sidewalk gives way to mud and grass. I ride past a guy slipping on a muddy incline as he waits for a small car pulling close, apparently to pick him up. I pass one homeless pedestrian toward the peak. I've plateaued when I pass a young pedestrian drunk homeless couple. They are followed by a homeless guy on a bike, who I recognize from the bus years ago. The stretch of my boulevard, south of my old supermarket, strikes me as a area with even less prosperous business. And though there appear to be new condo complexes, the neighborhood feels less inviting. Even without any obvious homeless campers. Perhaps even the homeless don't want to be here.
On Wednesday of the following week, I on the way to work, turning the corner next to the open field. half the vehicles, campers, and trailers, bikes, and motorcycles are again gone. Across from the remaining ones, along the opposite curb, is a Starcraft with its pop up tent deployed. It's a sorry looking sight, with the entire tent frame sagging. On Thursday, I'm coming down this same street. Just a few yards along from where the other Starcraft tent turned trailer sits, piled with scrap metal, is another trailer. This one has one half of it covered with two or three tarp strips. The strips have five or ten enlarged photos displayed on them, perhaps four by five feet in size. Half are images of groups of young people. Others appear to be movie stills from the 1930s. It's completely inexplicable. The following morning, I've just turned onto this street. Before the trailer with the enlarged photos on its tarp, I pass another old pickup with its bed piled high with scrap metal. It pulls up to the curb and parks. I pass it and watch it in my rearview mirror. The driver gets out and walks across the street. On the way home hours later, I'm back on the street with the trailers and open field. I turn and climb up the steep hill on an intersecting street. In the distance, I can see the next street, with the camper and its strips of tarp draped over the back half. The enlarged photos also cover the tarps on the side facing away from the street upon which the camper is parked. I realize that what appears to be enlarged photos on tarp material are, in fact, parts of some kind of display. They must have come from a school or library, perhaps thrown in a dumpster. Printed in capital letters at the top of each tarp, above the big photos, is "YOUNG LIFE". This circumstance is not simply odd in appearance, it's remarkable in circumstance. This educational display is now being used by someone who most likely has no idea what it was, and perhaps could not care less. Observing the side of the camper facing away from the street, the door appears to be open, and the whole thing strikes me the same as any evening campsite.
Sunday is the beginning of the last week of the month. Last month, I successfully made ad had an appointment with a free tax help volunteer. She took digital photos of all my tax documents and forwarded them to a tax professional volunteer. I had forgotten to bring my Social security card for her to photograph. She told me to just take a shot of it myself and email it to her. Which I did that evening. She had instructed me to wait for two weeks until I specifically got a phone call from the tax professional. A day after a full fortnight after the appointment, I called her back. It was the last time I've been able to reach her, and I suspect she was lucky she picked up the phone. She didn't realize I emailed her the photo of my Social Security card for two weeks. Well, I didn't get a phone call before I got an email from someone with a title which I didn't recognize, and I assumed it was a scam. This was before I spoke to the tax volunteer, with whom I had my appointment, by phone. The sender of this email wanted my Social Security card photo. It turned out to be the tax professional. I suppose I got him the photo before she did. I then received a phone call at work (where I am during the tax professional volunteers' hours of operation), confirming my documents arrival, and was told to wait for a call from the guy doing my taxes. I then received another unexpected email, to make a last appointment for another phone call. My taxes are finished, the email reports. They need to speak with me one more time. The only appointment days left is the very last day they will be helping people prepare their taxes, or according to them they "will not be able to help" us "this year." I mistakenly make the last appointment listing my home phone. I attempt to replace it with my work number without success. I send a message to the free tax help folks into the abyss on their website. I send a couple of email replies, one to the guy who told me my taxes are finished, imploring them to call me at work and not at home. These emails and message go out Friday evening, so \I assume they won't be read until Monday morning. I can't find anyone to be at my home in case they call at the appointed hour. I will just have to wait and see if I end up being fucked.
Sunday is the second one during which I am back to doing my own grocery shopping in just over a year. And a couple o days ago, the knob which adjusts the size on my bike helmet has quit working. I bought it three years ago...and I understand that a bike helmet should be replaced every three years. This one, my first $100 helmet, lasted just long enough. There's a department store across from my old supermarket. If I can find one in there, I won't have to go downtown, and I have a lot to do at home. For some time, I've been cooking breakfast in the microwave. Within the past couple of weeks, it's lost its appeal, and I have been spending unnecessary money buying breakfast elsewhere. This morning, in an attempt to break a bad habit in the making, I decide to cook breakfast n a frying pan for the first time since I can remember. It comes out delicious. I put a new Teflon frying pan on the grocery list. The grand opening of the new Vietnamese grocery, next to my townhome complex, was last month. They have some goodies which fit into my diet. I will probably be preparing breakfast the night before, along with lunch. But the old frying pan hardly appears to take any longer than the microwave. It's another curious twist of noncontemporary technology. Microwaves and jpegs of my Social Security card. Don't leave home without them. I'm out the door on the first day this year, I think, to hit 70 degrees F. Before I leave, I slather on the sunscreen my non-Medicaid doctor wants me to remember. I'm in my new bike shorts and an old sleeveless shirt. Typically deceptive Colorado weather. As much as I like the shirt, it's old and stained. I can't find my other sleeveless shirt. This is how decisions arise in my life, and along with the bike helmet and frying pan, I elect to find a new sleeveless shirt. I suspect that, it's only because I buy what I need that shopping can be fun for me. I grab a lunch which is inexpensive, relative to the restaurants I've been frequenting since they reopened. It's one of the few deathburgers which are open for dine in. I'm ordering at the counter when whoever is in the restroom is vomiting so loud, I can hear them out here. Soon, I'm down the block to the department store.
The first thing I look for is a sleeveless shirt. I don't know why I think it's so funny that I find a tie-dyed one. It's on sale for less than six bucks. Perfect. Along with my stoner sleeveless shirt, I also find a helmet like the first one I bought for bike riding. It's a skate helmet. It has more cushioning inside than I've ever seen in a helmet. There's nothing to adjust. I love it. And it's a fraction of $100. Couldn't be better. I also pick up a new handlebar bag. I looked for one at the sporting goods super center, and found nothing for less than the price of my old bike helmet. I called them yesterday, checking up on the progress on my last bike repair. The guy who answered the phone told me there were no new notes in the computer since the 9th of this month. I suspect parts are still out of stock. No worries...at least at this point. It's a busy day at the department store. I'm through the U-scan and across the street to the supermarket. I forgot to look for a frying pan at the department store, but find one here for less than my new stoner shirt. I'm able once again to use the coupons they send me by mail. Goddamn, I hope the U.S. Mail doesn't get defunded. I need the coupons. I never do this, but this time I hand a pile of them to the cashier. When I'm unlocking my bike, I watch a little guy who is stopped outside by an employee. The guy is trying to walk out with a stack of frozen dinners in his arms, without paying. I don't think he's as criminal as he is insane in the membrane. He keeps taking a step to the left and right, to get around the employee, who keeps blocking him like a basketball player covering his man. The employee keeps telling him in a matter of fact tone, "You're not leaving with them, bro. You're not leaving with them." They both return inside. Welcome to my neighborhood. When I return home, I unsnap the visor from the helmet I had before the one with the knob which just broke. I suppose I've had three previous helmets since I began riding again in 2015. My new helmet has no holes in which to snap the old visor. I'm able to successfully attach it to the new helmet with some rubber bands, even hiding most of them underneath the visor.
Tuesday. I get the call at work which I've been waiting for. My taxes are completed. Both federal and state. After this particular ordeal, I can't believe it. In 2019, when I finally got around to updating my fluctuating annual income to the state health care exchange, having spent two and a half years working for a seemingly drug-addled owner, I was told that I had underreported previous figures. My monthly premium increased six times. A few months ago, I began doing my taxes online, and the software told me I owed over $800 for the last two months of 2020. For tax credits towards health insurance I never had during those months. Today, I'm told I overpaid last year. And I will be getting a refund. 'Check your email, give your e signature, and be patient for the next four to six weeks.' It's a short and sweet end to a ridiculous tax year. The bad news is, I leave work just as it begins raining. By the time I get across the street, it picks up. Around the first corner, a flash of lightning is followed by a clap of thunder. Eventually, the wind picks up. The whole thing is as if it came out of a script. Not what I was expecting. My head is under the hood of a poncho. As the wind makes the rain beat against it, I never knew rain could be so loud. I just oiled the chain at the beginning of this week. If this was a car, I would have just gotten it washed. Had I known the gale was imminent, I would have instead put on my pants with an extra lining. They are warmer even when wet. Same with my winter mittens. I begin the evening ride in my fingerless gloves, and I don't change into the mittens until I reach a small shelter where the two trails intersect. This morning, on the ride to work, I spotted another "cyclist" here with his own bike upside down. He was working on some part of it. Mounted in the middle of his handlebars is a larger-than-life-sized human skull. In the middle of my own handlebars is mounted the new handlebar bag I purchased Sunday. This afternoon, the shelter is where I at least change into my mittens. By the time I make it home, I take them off and pour out the rainwater.
On Wednesday, I stop along the way to work at a supermarket I haven't been to in a while, to pick up one item for work and another for home. It rained all night, and when I leave the house, it's slowed and is very slowly letting up. I'm not sure what to expect and head out in the pants I didn't put on yesterday afternoon, along with an extra hoodie. I decide to put my wet mittens back on. My shoes are still damp, and I put on my snow boots. By the time I get to the supermarket, I have to take off the balaclava and neck gator. I'm in and out, and unlocking the bike when three guys have arrived to loiter in the usual loitering spot. One is in a motorized disabled scooter. He's listening to the speaker on his phone. The female voice on the other end almost sounds as if she could be working for a phone sex service. As I'm putting away my bike lock, I'm almost knocked over by a cloud of cigarette smoke. One of the other two guys approaches the first and begins rifling through the contents in a basket on the handlebars of the scooter. He should pick up a larger-than-life-sized human skull... Such an accessory may traditionally connote danger. But the end of this month is rapidly bringing what at first appears to be a change of fortune, which finally could be breaking my fucking way for once. I've been fully vaccinated with no side effects. I'm receiving emails which tell me that my taxes have both been filed and accepted. A refund is forecast, as opposed to last tax season's $800+ payment for underreporting my annual income to the state healthcare exchange. When I get home from work, I will find a voicemail from my doctor's office. No one from this office ever calls me. They inform me that I'm clear to schedule the colonoscopy for which I am due this year. And I'm working on taking care of another dental cleaning I'm due for. It appears to be all coming together faster than I imagined.
...a group of international human rights workers...all acted strangely toward one another... Their team was composed of a former Austrian priest who was defrocked for alleged homosexual proclivities; a beautiful Serbian translator who looked like Susan Sarandon; and a fortyish ex-Navy SEAL... Thee three were led by a twenty-something American woman with frizzy hair who lived in Prague, collected prints of teddy bears... - Campbell
Thursday. On the way to work, I'm turning the corner on the street of campers. One vehicle is parked along the curb next to the open field. It's the black-spray-painted pickup truck, the familiar driver behind the wheel. He's parked behind a camper which strikes me as the residence of a woman strolling around out in the street this morning. Twenty-four hours later, I'm again turning this same corner. The two homeless folks are gone. The hood is up on the pickup truck, and the driver's side door is open. On the way home from work, I'm out on the trail, where the occasional homeless person is not unusual. With the temperate turn in the weather, I see individual homeless guys with bikes, stopped and sitting on rocks, stumps, or benches, out of the Otis Redding song. Sitting in the morning sun, they'll be sitting when the evening's done. What' I don't see a lot of are homeless couples. And i pass two such couples along the trail this late afternoon. The first, a thin, taught guy is walking with a stick, next to a woman on a bike with a hat which has a plastic flower in it. I come upon them just as the trail widens enough to allow me to pass. The next are both on bikes. The guy has a long beard, and is dressed head to toe in black. Instead of a helmet, he has a black cap. I cross a bridge over what's left of the river., and the trail swings around a playground. On the other side of the trail is a long drive to a dead end, which includes a defunct VFW hall, the neon sign up on a metal pole. The place is now some kind of health food restaurant. Through the front door I can see a full bar. For some time I had heard about VFW halls closing down, because they aren't a part of the community of current veterans coming back from particular countries which are all too familiar. This strikes me as some kind of literal changing of the guard. Across the river is a busy street. I hear someone yelling from that direction, and I turn my head to spot an old orange pickup truck. The passenger side window is open. AS I hear a woman yelling "Oh! Oh!", I also hear a guy yelling "Let go of her!" The truck pulls off onto the gravel shoulder next to the river bank, and briefly slides to an abrupt stop. Someone opens the passenger side door and jumps out. I roll through an underpass and say to myself, "One Adam Twelve..."
