New Year's Day. Or, if you like, NYD. The snow has continued overnight, having dumped six inches. I elect to take the bus to the supermarket. My connections are ship shape. Groceries back home, I find that a different Chinese restaurant is open today. This one is behind the Vietnamese one. On NYD, I'm sitting and eating lemon chicken, watching a cable channel in Chinese. Four days later. I arrive at work to be told that the forecast is for snow today...just when I am going home. The flurries begin about an hour before I'm out of the door. An hour later, the streets are already covered with a layer of flakes. Wouldn't you know, I left my safety glasses at home. I usually carry them just in case...it snows. They keep the blowing and stinging snow out of my eyes. It turns out somehow to not be so bad. I try and use my headlamp to somehow spot imaginary clues to any ice under the new snow. When I get home, I won't be able to find them. I take it very slow as I don't know where the damned ice is. I'm almost through the old money neighborhood, headed to the end of a cul de sac, at the end of which is a path to another boulevard. Just before I enter the cul de sac, the tires slip and throw me toward the front. It's a funny step by step collapse, and I land with a thud. It takes me a second or two to get my footing as I stand up, and I'm back on the bike. All the good my headlamp did. I ask myself how many more spills like this I can keep getting up from. This month's issue of Colorado Parent has an article about children biking to work in the winter. It appears to be authored by the developer of bicycling clothes. I'm surprised at anyone who suggests children bike to school in 25 degree F weather. But the article's advice about wet surfaces as better to ride on than frozen shiny ones is sound enough. And what it mentions about the need for a bigger fitting helmet to accommodate warmer headgear is something else I found out for myself this season. I take most of the first trail slowly. I don't run into any more hidden ice. When I hit the connecting trail, I open up the gears. It feels as though it may be letting up. The snow is beginning to spread across the trail in drifts. When I exit the trail, it appears that the new snow has covered up the old slippery spots, and given them traction. It has yet to be covered in sand or churned into tire ruts. Though I didn't hear the forecast and didn't put any boots on when I left, my two pairs of socks under my sneakers are keeping my feet warm. It takes me an extra 40 minutes to get home. The next morning, I decide that I don't have an extra forty minutes to play with on my way to work. I run out of the door with the bike to catch a bus. I put on the last pair of new sunglasses which I haven't managed to lose. They are fogging up and I take them off. I hang them on the brake cables on my handlebars. When I get to the bus stop, they are gone. I take the bus home again and retrace my steps under the streetlight. I'm unsuccessful in finding them. I left my bike at work as I stayed close to the time the bus comes along, and I'm not sure what shape the roads are in. And the boss called and asked me to open tomorrow. As he will give me a ride to work, it makes no sense to take my bike home on the bus only to take it back again in his van.
In the middle of the week, the sister comes home from her two-month stay at the recovery center. A biopsy has revealed no local infection. Next month, if some weeks without antibiotics reveals still no infection, she will be on track for surgery. Now, is it on Friday? It gets up to 63 freaking degrees F. The vast majority of the snow has melted by my ride home. The following morning is a usual Saturday ride before sunrise. I'm stopped at the trailhead, having decided to change from gloves to warmer mittens. Someone enters the trail in a hoodie and no helmet. I think it's too cold for less than my long-sleeved shirt, hoodie and windbreaker (of, if you prefer, "shell.") I proceed down the trail in the dark. The sun will be up soon enough and I conserve my headlamp battery, which always appears to run down before I know it. I notice a dark figure ahead. It's the cyclist. They are stopped in their lane, on the phone. Sunday. I confirmed by phone that the film I dropped off before Christmas has been ready...who knows how long. I don't ask. Yesterday, I went to the gym after work, for the first time since I dropped off my last roll of film. Today, all I have to do is pick up the prints. I take the bus to the supermarket, and on the way home, a couple of long familiar local street guys get on. I hear them speak to a guy in a wheelchair. One tells the guy that they both went to prison together. The other one tells the guy that they both got out together. I must still be recovering from a cold and don't have the energy I usually do. I ride to a stop for a crosstown bus. This drops me at a corner with a short ride to the camera shop. I'm back in a neighborhood where I lived for some sixteen years, before I moved to my current one, where I've lived almost as long. My boss just drove me down this street a couple of days ago, taking me to open my store. I pointed out various establishments, a movie theater here and a restaurant there, which are now completely different buildings. I grab the photos and ride to a shopping mall, just down the street from where I used to live, for some yogurt. From there, I ride back across town. I'm headed down a street full of brownstones. I'm going off the street, up onto sidewalks to avoid snow still on the street, and back onto the street again where it's clear. I also have to dodge people and couples who have all decided to come out and walk their dogs. I ride back to a supermarket which I frequent, for one particular product my regular supermarket doesn't carry. I've checked out and am headed to the exit. I spot a homeless guy bring in a bicycle. He lays it down at a corner with a newsstand, upside down before he removes the front rim. I watch him as he leaves the bike there and carries the rim with him down toward the other end of the supermarket. (?) My bus transfer is still good and I grab a bus back to my neighborhood.
I was waiting until the end of the following week, next payday, before I take my newest bike in for a tune up. But on Monday, I can tell that my brake cables are again stretched out. The brake lever on the left handlebar provides no brakes at all. I just don't think I should be riding it until I get it tuned. I turn to the bike I rode to work and back, before I had my newest one. It's the one which spent three months of last Spring being refitted. It had troubles: a nail through a tire and tube, broken spokes on the back rim, a worn cassette, low brake fluid. I'm not sure that was all. But on Tuesday, I'm back out on the thing. It runs like a dream. Instead of rattling, it freaking whispers. The shifters are smooth as butter. The frame feels solid as a rock. It's a pleasure to ride. I need my newest bike to be like this again. I plan to take it in this weekend. Maybe Saturday. On Thursday morning, I've just entered the bike trail to work. I'm rounding a corner as an oncoming cyclist passes me. He's in a hoodie with hood on and drawstring tied. No helmet. He sticks out his left arm and puts out a couple of fingers as he says, "Peace, man." Just around another bend, another cyclist. This one in a yellow reflective vest. He says, "Good morning," in more of a buttoned-up voice. Not far from there and I'm passing the former guardrail homeless camp. This morning, it appears that a crew is preparing to lay two big spools of cable, next to the guardrail. I wonder if the camp was swept in advance of this work? This week I was thinking about the long lines of cyclists I would see during this past summer out here on the bike trail, when I'm passed by a line of neon Lycra clad senior aged cyclists. On the way home, I'm headed for the exit from the trail, past a golf course. This month, the lights along the fence across the course, where every December Christmas trees are sold in a big lot, are dark now for another year. I'm passed here this evening, not by a line if cyclists, but a line of runner with headlamps. After I exit the trail, I see more coming down a sidewalk on a hill. After I'm home, I go to bed. I try to be in bed by 9 PM. I wake up at 11:19, to use the bathroom. I suddenly hear a noise. Someone banging on my front door? No. It sounds almost like someone banging on metal, 20 times in a row. My next-door neighbor's furnace malfunctioning? It could be coming from the other half of my townhome complex. It has to be gunshots. I hear a couple of front doors creak open before I go back to sleep. I didn't hear any vehicles before or after the gunshots. No yelling. No anything. The next morning, I leave for work, and see a couple of bullet holes in a resident's window across the lot. A couple of guys are standing outside, looking at them, and discussing security cameras. No police tape anywhere. When I come home from work, the window has been replaced. There are wooden blinds on the inside, shot up. One blind is broken. A guy comes out of the unit and speaks to someone else outside about security cameras.
Friday after work I took the transit system home again. So I didn't get a look at conditions on the trail. Saturday morning, I don't know what to expect either. I consider taking transit again. When I'm out of the door, I decide that it's a toss-up which will be faster this morning, trail or transit. The streets are clear. I'm headed for the trail. There was perhaps not enough snow to plow, and the snow remains in patches, together with patches of ice melted into swaths of tiny beads. There must be a technical term for this kind do f ice. Along a line of trees, the trail always collects the melted and refrozen snow into patches of sloid ice. I've mentioned riding in the winter as searching for the line between traction and insanity. Over one patch of ice beads, I feel the line as I can sense the ice trying to throw me. Like an invisible arm trying to push me over. I slow down and then walk across a stretch of solid ice, my feet trying to slip. Once I make my way down to a bridge, I encounter snow upon which I can not only ride, I can open up my gears. I'm going almost as fast now as if the trail was clear. I'm racing the transit system now, to see if I can beat the connecting bus which would otherwise be my final leg to work. I know when it would have dropped me off. I check a clock tower at the golf course after I break out of the trees. Forty-five minutes to beat the bus. It all depends on trail conditions between here and work. They hold up the rest of the way. I'm on a bike which runs so smooth I want to push it, and I hope to get to work with enough time to grab breakfast at the shopping center before work. I cross the boulevard before I see any bus. I get to work and check the clock. I'm sure I've just beat the bus. After work, I've stayed late on a Saturday again, and I don't have time to hit the gym. I will instead go grocery shopping. The first trail home has a phenomenon which I've noticed this autumn and winter: more people out on this trail walking their dogs than I ever saw during the summer. Around one bend along one of the big string of connected parks, three people are walking with one dog off a leash. They suddenly attempt to corral the dog off the trail. A female tells me that the dog will otherwise chase me. A guy who appears to be the patriarch says to me in a Slavic accent, "He will knock you off your bike." Thanks for the honesty. It's shortly after 4 PM as the sun is headed down. The snow has mostly melted. The solid ice patches have turned to water. When I'm off the trail and coming down the street a block from my own, it's twilight. I'm behind a car which has passed me. The smattering of campers runs the long length of the street. I hear the car honk as it passes one camper. Then...it honks as it passes the nest. (?)
Yesterday evening, I get the grocery shopping done. This leaves only the workout, lunch with the sister who is back home, and taking my newest bike in for a tune up. I decide to ride all the way to the gym. I'm coming down a long hill, toward the street with the campers and the trailhead around the corner. I see an SUV parked in the middle of the street, facing me. The driver's side is next to the driver's side of another SUV, parked along the curb. The driver gets out and tries the front passenger side door. The car alarm immediately goes off. He casually gets back into the driver's seat of his vehicle and pulls away. An aborted car theft? Hmm. I'm down the trail and grab breakfast before the gym. I decide to take the train all the way to a stop downtown, a short ride to a connecting train, which takes me to the sister's side of town. After lunch, I ride all the way to the sporting goods supercenter. A young tech takes a gander at the bike. The front derailer needs adjusting. It's having trouble, she observes, shifting into high gear. I pointed out the loose brake cable. The broken kick stand is coming off. She finds me a brand new one. She claims that the tune up itself is covered under warranty. If it needs a new chain and cassette, the parts would be, at most, just about as much as the tune up. Should be ready tomorrow. Sweet. I walk back to the train. At the sister's, I changed out of the gear which I left the house in, when it was chilly. Now, the temperature is dropping again. I take a mall shuttle to a train, which should take me closer to a crosstown bus. The connections are prompt.
Tuesday. I wake up with enough time that I decide to pick up my bike at the bike shop. Last evening, I got the email that the tune up is complete. I Jump on the bus to the train, to the transit hub at one end of downtown. I go into the terminal to pick up more transit system ride coupons. A security guard is banging on metal benches, waking up the homeless, telling them to stay awake so they don't miss their busses. I'm sure he knows, just as they do, they ain't there to catch no bus. The office at this transit hub doesn't have the new year's issue of ride coupons. This is odd because one grocery chain does have them. But the transit system station does not. (?) I stop into the health food grocery next door for a quick breakfast. i watch a homeless guy carry a quart of milk and a box of Lucky Charms into the grocery. (?) I grab some eggs and a sausage from the buffet and get into line. The guy at the end is looking back and forth between his phone and at the line, but does not appear to be in line. A U Scan checker offers to check me out when she then asks the guy with his phone what he needs. The other checker, behind the stand where the line is, then looks at me as the first one is attempting to get an answer from the guy. I tell the other checker that this one offered to check me out when the other takes me to a U Scan. I outta there and I hike to the sporting goods supercenter, where I eat outside as I wait for the place to open. When it does, I get in line behind people with skis waiting to be repaired. A short grey-haired guy comes along and asks each customer if they are waiting to pick something up. When he gets to me, he asks me the same. When I tell him I am picking something up, he asks me if I have a "pink slip." (Am I getting fired?) I tell him I'm picking up a bike. He then acknowledges that I wouldn't have a pink slip. He asks me what kind of bike, and he mentions two separate sets of letters and numbers which I assume are two different kinds of bicycles. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone mention these sets of letters and numbers. I reply that I'm picking up a mountain bike. "What brand?" I mention that it's the brand that this store manufactures. I mention the color. He asks me to wait before he returns to tell me he can't find it. He disappears. I get up to the front, where a tech brings out my bike. I had them take off a used kickstand which I tried using on this bike. It never balanced correctly and in the stored position was hitting the spokes on the back rim. The one they put on appears to be a monster kickstand attached to the rear of the bike frame. I'm off to work as I make a train connection just in time. After work, I'm headed to one supermarket which is not on strike, as another is. I called them to make sure they do have the new year's ride coupons in stock for sale. When I get there, they inform me that their customer service is closed. They need all their employees at the check stands. Their sales have doubled because they have picked up the business from the supermarket chain which is on strike. They are also out of the one product which only this chain carries. I withdraw cash from an ATM and get changed into singles. It's back to dollars until the strike is over, and I can purchase more ride coupons.
Wednesday. I get home after work and see another unit in my townhome complex with a bullet hole in a window. It suggests that the shooting was impersonal. And perhaps there was more than one shooter. This is the age of the firearm as a toy. At some point this week, I ride home in freezing fog. The following day saw a dusting of snow. I ride to work past a guy putting yard signs along the trail, for another marathon run the following day. The ground is so frozen, he must use a drill. On Saturday I'm navigating the frozen streets, using my headlamp in an attempt to spot any patches of ice. I'm coming down the street with the SUV which I watched someone try to steal. I don't see any change on the road at all when I hit a patch of something. I cross the line from traction into insanity and I land on the ground. The strike does not last long, the employees got a quick concession. The following day, I will be able to purchase transit system ride coupons at my regular supermarket. But this afternoon, after a trip to the gym on the way home after work (which is nice to not have to do on my only day off), I'm now in the habit of taking the train from there. I get out at the station closest to home. I decide that I will be home just as the next couple of buses show up here, and I head out o the station. This takes me past an old, if not frequent, haunt of mine. It's a restaurant called The Breakfast King. I don't remember the first time I went there, but it was originally built decades ago, to serve a rubber factory spread out in various buildings around it. The factory is long gone. The place used to be open 24 hours a day, still had the decor from fifty years ago, and waitresses who wore the traditional white waitress uniform. Right down to white shoes. And orange aprons to match the orange booths. Next to the credit card machine was an old-fashioned cash register. T-shirts with the restaurant name on the front hung on a far wall, for sale only with cash. And it was old fashioned grill food. Outrageous omelettes for breakfast. Fried food or sandwiches or soup for lunch. Meat entrees for dinner. Not the kind of specialty food in popular demand for packaged delivery, or even pick up, during Covid. I don't remember recently seeing anyone picking up a delivery there, though what I found on what's left of a website mentions something about delivery. In fact, their response to everyone else's pivot to take out/delivery appears to have been basically "Fuck you." Fuck you to the present and future. They went out without even pretending to change the business plan, never reopening after Christmas.
So, Sunday morning, I'm headed back to the supermarket, on my bike for the first time in several shopping trips. Just past the long street a block from my own, with the handful of campers, is "Victory Outreach" church. Somewhere between 9:30 and 10 AM, a couple of guys who otherwise look like mafia types are standing at each side of the entrance to the parking lot. They both have black wool coats and black hair, slicked back by a copious amount of oil. Instead of firearms, each one holds a welcome sign. The second one I pass tells me, "Jesus loves you, bro." I reply, "That's what I hear...all the time." Foggetaboutit. Up the street, I pass a Caucasian guy on his own bike, coming from the direction of the supermarket. A milk crate is over his rear wheel, full of groceries. First person besides myself who I've seen doing what I'm doing. After another long day out, I decide to take the bus home from the train station. We pass a couple of Caucasian guys on bikes, neon windbreakers ad all, coming down one of just two nearby streets across two highways and a river. The first I've seen on bikes coming down this street on my side of town. Later on in the afternoon, I get home to see one of the townhome residents is having an open house, for prospective buyers. It comes quite fast after the gunshots. I wonder why someone would sell their place while bullet holes still sit in the center of cracks in a window, at one end of the complex. Unless they want to get out now. I take a look at the info on a laminated sheet hanging of the for-sale sign. It lists the HOA fees as less than half of what I assume we all pay. Or else the HOA ain't telling me something. And, there are photos of the interior. The walls are a deep cerulean blue. The stainless-steel fridge may have an ice maker. The bathroom has a huge round vanity mirror. This joint looks done up. This unit is right next to the one with a hole through the wooden steps to the front porch, where a guy who threatened other residents used to live. With his baby momma and baby.
"We will show you more than you can bear... But don't ask us what we mean." ...traditionally the province of the story...myth, history, fiction, and yes, war journalism. ...technologically advanced war...its depths had to be sounded with an ancient medium. ...storytelling...familiar to Homer and Herodotus. The more deeply events are embedded in story, however, the more they can tell...past mistakes and future challenges. - Reporting Vietnam, Forward by M. J. Bates, 2000.
I went back inside to pack for my thirteenth embed. Body armor...blood type written on...tape. Can stop a 7.62 round... Helmet...scratched...been to Najaf, Fallujah, and Mosul. Wiley X Ballistic eye protection. A Thuraya satellite phone... A cheap power bar imported from China. ...the antibiotic Cipro given to me by Andi, and a rubber tourniquet... Together, the bags weighed about thirty-five pounds. - I Lost My Love in Baghdad, M. Hastings, 2008
...if you're not doing a live shot, you need to be behind a curtain in another room with folding tables. ...a pair of emergency Spanx. [Spanx,] the unofficial sponsor of the female press corps... I have 21,376 unread emails. Three hundred unopened text messages. My suitcase is the size of a refrigerator. ...because I don't have the time to watch a banged-up black belt spin in a cycle from now until eternity. I'm not Sisyphus... Room service, maid service, the balm of a perpetually stoked minibar. However...there's [only] so many bags of Smart Puffs you can down with a shot of Hendricks... The room was 250 square feet... I convinced a friend to let me stay at his place. ...four hundred square feet - half of which are now covered with my clothes.
(Did I just drop something? Please don't let it be my portable Wi-Fi.) I've already lost one of those. It's dark and there's snow everywhere. (Is that a shoe? The toe is facing up. Jesus, did someone get buried?) "Ahhh!" I catch myself before my face lands in it. My pants are ripped and I'm bleeding. Charging cables are hanging out of my backpack.
It's midafternoon in...Florida. I'm in the backseat of a rental car...ditching my jeans and T-shirt for the skirt and blouse I didn't have time to fuss over...at five in the morning. ...I sacrificed a boyfriend, a dreamjob...and...stability. But these are the normal fatalities of ambition. But... I am losing...a life itself, a way of being in the world. - Unbelievable, K. Tur, 2017
There were times when only a handful of journalists would show up, outnumbered...by public affairs officers and the civilian media advisors. At one press conference...as the country descended into civil war, only two journalists attended. The press releases were written with a stilted, half-literate mix of military lingo and public relations spin. Hundreds of releases focused on weapons caches...a way for the military to keep score, along with the body count...but in a country teeming with firearms and explosives, the notion that the finds possibly make a dent in the...violence seemed absurd. The public affairs officers would spend hours writing the press releases, hours reviewing them, hours finding pictures to go along with them. As the months went on and the situation did not improve, the press releases seemed to become more cheerful, more detached from reality, dispatches from a la-la land of their own. ...a unit nicknamed the Polar bears..."chose to launch Operation Polar Valor on Dec. 7, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. 'We try to pick days that the enemy knows are holidays to the Americans. It is during those times that the enemy is less likely to think we are going to do anything.'" ...Pearl Harbor is not a holiday, and I seriously doubt that any insurgent...would have it marked on their calendar. "Paratroopers create gated community... According to an old proverb, good fences make good neighbors. Paratroopers...are...building a three-mile protective wall...between a Sunni enclave and the surrounding Shite neighborhood." "Gated community" - a term...to describe wealthy suburban residential complexes in the United States. "Why can't we get our message out there?" "Why won't you report the good news?" ...we don't even come close to reporting all the bad news. There's too much of it.
I know the cancelled mission does not matter at all. So how many missions and patrols would it take to make a difference? Is there a number? Does anyone know it? How many missions have been done already? Tens of thousands [by the beginning of 2007]? And what a difference they have fucking made! Why go out at all? You can make as much of a difference by doing nothing, right?
Andi pops out from behind a blast wall... I...take my body armor off, and go over to see Andi. We stand there being watched by my security contingent and hers, and we can't shake the somewhat self-conscious feeling that this is something of an event, me coming to see her. - Hastings
...I can see the vitriol rising, the death threats blowing around like loose trash. The most aggressive members of the crowd are now as close as they can get, taunting me... A reporter...sends...a picture of a bald man who won't stop saying my name. ...the hashtag "#I'mwithTur"...trends...long after...a few lingering creeps slink home. [Later on,] The crowd in New Hampshire is frothing... "Assassinate that bitch," the man said. And the crowd cheered on. - Tur
There is this moment before I know...when life was good, when I was in Baghdad with Andi and my career was skyrocketing...we were planning trips...I looked at a diamond ring in Dubai... ...the moment before the future no longer matters...nothing more than a wish for the past. "Michael... We lost Andi today. ...we think her car was hit with rocket propelled grenades." - Hastings
Finally, to Tony, do we have time to get married now? - Tur
Sunday evening. I'm in a Chinese restaurant which I discovered, right behind the Vietnamese one, right behind my home. It's a broader menu than my old Chinese place across the street. They have three TVS. Two are tuned to Chinese channels. One is CCTV, I think. (Communist China TV?) On the screen are images of US fighter jets. It appears to be Ukraine pilots being advised my Americans. There are scenes of warships. Then the camera cuts to the anchor, who appears almost as nothing short of a game show host. Then there is a story about a big wall with a lot of displayed plates. On Monday, I wake up to blowing snowflakes. Fuck this. I'm taking the transit system. Maybe I can ride home. I take my bike and shuffle down my street to the bus stop. It's right in front of a middle school. I hear someone blow a whistle. A woman runs out into the middle of the intersection. It's an old-fashioned crossing guard with a hand-held stop sign. This is the first time in the 15 years in this neighborhood that I've seen a crossing guard at this school. And she's blowing a freaking whistle, and she's saying "Hi," to a father who walked his kid to school. Next, along comes a guy in a thin jacket with a hood. It's in the 20s F. out here. He's complaining about how cold he is. After we get onto the bus, he's listening to music through earbuds and attempting to sing along. It sounds like he's moaning. It snows until late afternoon. The ride home is actually not bad at all. I'm swinging around the long park below the waterpark. A creek runs between it and the trail. I come out of an underpass and suddenly I'm in a fog bank. I get to the connecting trail and there's fog along spots of the river. The following morning, there's frost on bushes and chain link fences along the trail. Thursday. It just began snowing as I'm leaving for work. A layer of fresh snow covers everything, perhaps an inch. I have traction even over former slippery spots. It's wet, not powder. I enter the trail before the plow has made it this far. Soon, I reach the plowed trail. Just ahead, on an exit ramp, is the pickup truck with a plow. I turn toward an underpass and I stop. I spot a flat screen TV sitting sideways in a bicycle trailer., just off to the side of the trail. I want to get a shot of it before I hear a voice. "What's goin' on, man?" It comes from the homeless guy trying to sleep on top of the rising grade of boulders next to the top of the bridge. He's behind cardboard from a box which originally held oranges. There are illustrations of oranges on the outside. The pickup goes past, and a passenger waves at me. It stops snowing around midafternoon. I don't like the road conditions. I elect to take the bus home. Bus to the train, and off at the station where my bus home stops. It's dark now, and I'm sitting at the gate for just a short time. It takes a minute or two before I notice the police cruiser parked at the train platform. Then I notice the ambulance. Then I see a paramedic wheeling a guy on a stretcher. A police officer carries his backpack.
I have Friday off. Dentist appointment. I didn't want to try to make some kind of neck-breaking dash to work from there. I also take the opportunity of the rest of the day to head out to another library used book sale. My current dentist in within walking distance. I recall my sweet twentysomething Vietnamese female dentist, holding her tiny fists in front of me to describe what's happening with my teeth. After my appointment, I head home and get my bike. I check the bus schedule and dash off on the bike a couple blocks down my street to the bus stop. Before I leave my parking lot, I can feel that my back rim is running sluggish. Not that the tire is flat. The rear wheel has a tendency to slip out of true over time. The quick release doesn't hold it in position, and I have to adjust it from time to time. Which I do. I know the bus is close to showing up. When I'm a half a block along, I see it coming, and I make the stop just in time. As soon as my bike is loaded on the front rack, and I step inside, the bus begins to pull out. A car comes around us, honking. The driver sticks an arm straight up through the open window (in winter), middle finger extended. The driver tells me they are crazy around here. I tell him this neighborhood is always this way. He replies, "It is?" This particular corner a few short years ago saw another driver flip off the driver behind him, who was honking at him. The driver behind him shot and killed him. The driver had just been released from jail or prison. He claimed he was "firing a warning shot." (?) I wonder if the driver who flipped off this transit system driver knows about that shooting. Or perhaps it's in the neighborhood's genes. The bus drops me at the station, and a train takes me to a station where I grab lunch across the street. The bike helps move me there and back, just in time to catch a bus down the long road to the library here, across town from my own side. More than fifteen years ago, I was coming out here as a part of my job then, as a floater to many different company store locations. I remember walking, riding a bike, and taking a bus this same route to a store. Many memories working for a company which no longer exists. I'm off the bus and take a short ride to the library. It ain't a huge sale, not like the downtown branch has, but it isn't stinky either. I find a couple of interesting books. Then it's back on the bus, a bit of a hike to the train, and a bit of a long train ride to a station from where I catch a bus back home. I decide to use the rest of the afternoon to get grocery shopping out of the way. I grab dinner at a deathburger first, and then collect the groceries. On the short bus trip home, I listen to a passenger converse with the driver, the two obviously friends. The driver expounds on the travails of being a driver who must deal with a disingenuous public. The driver tells the guy, "I've been in this seat since 12:45 PM, and haven't gotten out." He says that the transit system runs "a hell of a lot of buses up and down" my boulevard. This squares with my recollection. One route runs more locally on the south end. Another runs from the end of the line a good 120 blocks north. Two more are express buses which run from the end of the line south to another train station. Or at least they used to. "(The transit system) is gonna have to decide how much it wants to put up with (from passengers who know they can come on board with a goddamned hustle instead of a fare) before they raise the fare again. And it's hurting the passengers who are honest, who pay $114 for a monthly pass." I assume he's implying this boulevard's hustlers will determine its transit future. The passenger tells him, "Three dollars is a lot for a fare. I mean, if you don't have a job, you know." (If you don't have a job, why are you riding the bus?) The driver tells him that he knows, he was there, he used to ride the transit system. In the process, the passenger admits he got on this bus drunk at one point, and passed out. He was headed north and woke up back at the end of the line.
Saturday. I stay more than an hour late at work, and I'm coming home down the long street a block from my own. A pickup truck is parked next to a flatbed behind a camper. Someone is loading the scrap metal off the trailer into the bed of the pickup. On the way to work this morning before sunrise. I was coming down the block with campers along an open field. I paused to snap a photo of one camper I first saw here just a week or two ago. It has spraypainted on one corner something like "turkey time" in big letters. As I'm digging out my camera from my bag, I noticed a car come to a stop at the intersection and just sit there. When I took a look, I saw a police cruiser, perhaps wondering what I was doing. The following day, I'm headed cross town again, from an early birthday lunch with the sister to meet my desperate demand for yogurt. I decide I don't want to slog over the north bridge. I've seen it when it has snow. I make my way south, across my boulevard, and toward a couple of bridges. Headed east, first one over the river and then the other over the interstate. Crossing over the highway, in front of me is a young guy walking two tiny dogs. Their leashes stretch across the entire length of the wide walkway across the bridge. I can't imagine who wants to walk their dogs along a busy avenue and across an interstate highway. Maybe he hates his dogs. I make my way past them and turn north, to cross the thoroughfare just past. Just before I cross the tracks, a train arrives. This is probably the best place to get stopped by a train, because directly behind me is an underpass past the train. I turn around and make a left to go under the train bridge. On the last stretch of sidewalk, now I'm behind another young guy. He steps along with attitude. When I climb up into an old parking lot, he becomes yet another pedestrian who suggests I tell him, "Passing on your left." I bet he says that to all the cyclists. Climbing the hill through the underpass, again I'm behind the guy with the little dogs.
