People have been using meth for...survival...our unhoused...in Denver...on cold, snowy nights to walk around the city to not lay down and freeze to death. - Westword, 2/2-8/2023
Wednesday. The month begins as we get out of the damned freeze. I wait for the snowbound days of this month and the next to begin. This morning, the sun is out. This week, the camper along the long street a block from my own has vanished. They don't last long where they used to anymore. Yesterday evening, I went off the cold meds. I feel good enough to head for the gym. I even hauled my ass up and over the steep bridge across the interstate to get to the train. I thought I could save some time. It's warmed up when I exit the gym, and I change into my short-sleeved shirt under my coat and ditch the long underwear under my pants. I head toward work, through an extended residential neighborhood. I'm waiting for a car to pass through an intersection before I turn. I make my turn in front of a firehouse. In the small driveway is an ambulance with the engine running. Right where I turn is a patch of ice which I couldn't see, because the vehicle was blocking it. Before I know it, I'm watching the world turn upside down and both my legs sticking up in the air. I pick myself off and dust myself off. I don't think there is anyone in the ambulance. No one rushes out to see if I'm injured. I make it to work without further incident. The following day, I'm asked to come in to work a couple of hours early. I leave late enough that, if I want to get to work early for a snack, I had better head for the bus which takes me directly there. I make it to the stop with not much time to spare. When it arrives, the driver appears to be the one I ran into on this route last year. Back then, he was talking to himself and thought I was ignoring him. I called the transit system to let him know, I wasn't ignoring him. He needs to speak up. This morning, I step aboard, and he says something like, 'Oh great, just what I need.' I have no idea if he's referring to myself. He's silent right up to my stop. Behind me is a guy on his phone, telling someone about smoking a joint. I disembark and head for the bakery for a snack before work. The same Jesus dude is at a table, speaking with yet another guy.
Sunday. My schedule is cleared, I'm not making the trek to the sister's today. I still need a haircut, to grocery shop, and then to grab a particular item from yet another supermarket. It's a rare visit to the salon when it opens, and my cut is fast as I need not stand in line. Then it's straight to the bus stop where I hop on board. In back are a couple of street folk conversing a mile a minute. One is telling the other how he spent last night looking for a female who sounds as if she's a stranger. "I'm just tryin' to help her out, you know?" When he disembarks, the other tells him, "Hey, better control that ho!" I get inside the supermarket and in line at customer service for more transit system ride coupons. A middle-aged guy smelling of urine comes in behind me. He goes over to a display and puts a phone charger cord into his coat pocket before getting in line behind me. I grab what's on my list and am through the U-scan and out to the bus stop. I watch a guy on a bench in the shelter down a shooter bottle. He then sways back and forth. I hear the bottle hit the ground, and after a couple of minutes I look up. He's done what homeless do, vanish into thin air. I get the groceries home. I take the bike out to the pizza place for lunch, hitting the other supermarket along the way, for the one product which I am able to find only there. Back home, I prepare some food for the coming week before I hear a car horn. I know who it is. The girlfriend honks her barely audible horn outside, and expects that I will know exactly who it is. I suspect this is the foundation for a worthwhile relationship. We head up my boulevard and across a busy avenue. Her's is one of the only few cars I'm in anymore. I notice that she drives too slowly and I keep my eye on the passenger side mirror for angry drivers behind us. She describes herself as "fiercely independent", and I suppose this is an example. She takes us to a Mexican place she found. Inside, it's beautiful, not simply a space rented out for customers to sit and eat. The atmosphere is traditional and family-oriented. We sit and do what we do on our outings, we talk about what we've been dealing with in our lives. We order, and the food is delicious. I have an omelet with hash browns as soft as butter. I move over to her side of the booth and put my arm around her. This is our Valentine's Day dinner. Considering our busy schedules, we got pretty close, within a couple of weeks of the holiday.
I learn what's going on with her by following her Facebook posts. It's difficult to hear her in here because of the music. She posted about planning to move, but her son convinced her that this idea is insane in this astronomically priced market. Her boss at 7-Eleven told her he's retiring. The new owner wants the place spotless. She told her old boss that she would stay until next month, and he replied that she must stay until July. The new owner is out of the country and won't be back until then. She isn't sure if the deal has been sealed or not. The Mexican family in the booth behind us has departed. A grey-haired Caucasian couple sits there. A waiter asks the long-haired guy what he wants to drink. "A Budweiser, the king of beers." The waiter looks at him as if, and I'm sure he was not, not born yet by the 1970s. And didn't see that commercial. He repeats his order and the waiter goes off to get him his beer. The guy turns to the lady and says something my girlfriend does not hear. He says, "If he doesn't know the king of beers, he's got no motherfuckin' business being here." I want to tell him, your on a Mexican side of town. You're in a Mexican restaurant. If he was at the Mexican place across the street from where I live, and should he not speak Spanish, he would be unable even to order. Much less his king of beers. Let's begin with the word "reconquista." After desert, we've had a delicious meal, and she returns me home. She's off to work her overnight job, somehow the least stressful part of her day. Or night. Or whatever.
Monday. I hit the bank before work, which I couldn't do last week. And I'm headed for the gym along the way. I make for the train. I'm attempting to validate a ride coupon, which the machine at the station fails to do because apparently it's not working. I have some cash and purchase a ticket from the kiosk. I hear the sound of shuffling footsteps behind me. A middle-aged Caucasian guy appears. Shaggy hair and beard. Nylon fleece jacket under an orange reflective vest. Pants slung low revealing maroon satin boxers. He asks me a tactical question, to see if I will engage him and perhaps be receptive to giving him money or a cigarette. Hey, O.G., is a storm comin'in?" [O.G. is a cultural appropriation. It stands for "original gangster."] I reply that I wouldn't know. He shuffles up the ramp to the high block, where disabled passengers board and disembark. He turns around and goes back toward the direction from which he came. Tuesday. For a couple of days, the rear rim on the bike I ride to work has felt as if it has a bump somewhere. Last time I felt this, I took it back to the sporting goods supercenter, and was told the rim was collapsing structurally. The manager replaced the rim, tube, and tire. This morning, I can see where the tube is coming through another hole in the tire. This is exactly how it appeared last time. I move the Velcro bags to my standby bike and hit the road to work. The ice continues to disappear. In jig time, I'm right back at this same train station. The ticket validator still does not work. I am able to use the change the kiosk gave me to purchase another fare. Instead of the O.G. guy, another homeless guy sits working on a sign. He's listening to hip hop on a sound system. Wednesday. For the next three days I will be working open to close. I hit the road to work at 4:30 AM. The days have been in the 40s F, but now, it's cold out here. Mid 20s. But there's no traffic. Out on the trail, I pass another intrepid cyclist. Along the connecting trail, ice has frozen across spots, creating sheets across which I must dismount. Just off the trail, I turn a couple of corners and I'm across a path to the end of a cul de sac. Up ahead is a neighborhood of mansions with backyards all connected without fences. A lone figure stands silhouetted in the dark against dim light. He turns out to be someone walking his dog. His light goes on.
Wednesday goes by quickly. Thursday I turn around and do it all over again. After we close I decide to grab dinner at the bakery. The grey-haired Jesus dude is back here with yet another younger guy. As they're leaving, the latter says something about his students. I eat and then head out to the bus stop. The temperature is sinking as fast as the sun. A woman comes running across the busy boulevard. She's holding a pizza box. Her destination is the bus bench. She offers me a slice. It's cold. I immediately understand. She's homeless and got this box out of the trash. There's not a pizza place across the street, or within walking distance. She has a coat with a hood, but she's in tight fitting seat pants. She doubles over on the bench to keep warm. She has a large backpack and a big handbag on her lap. The side of the handbag facing her has writing on it. Perhaps she flies it as a sign. She awakens and pulls out a paper pouch of either soup mix or dry oatmeal when the bus arrives. Onboard, she must search for fare. She sits down and makes an attempt to dig out her bus fare. After a minute or two, the driver asks her if she found it. She walks back up to the driver, and from what I can hear, the driver is unsatisfied with whatever she produces. But allows her to return to her seat. She disembarks ion a stretch of boulevard known as the University District, with shops and tall apartment buildings serving the private university along one side. The train station is on campus. I watch her out the window to see if by chance she's headed into a large luxury apartment building. She continues to quickly walk up the sidewalk. She's left her pizza box behind. The driver had her eye on her. She asks her if she's going to take her "trash" with her. She ignores her. As homeless do. She puts the bus in park and sticks her head out the door and asks again. The lady is on a singular mission not to do so much as turn her head, but simply walk. We get going, as the driver honks the horn at her as we pass her. When we get to the station, I take the box off the bus for the driver. The train arrives and I take a place at one end of a car with my bike. A guy in a seat next to me asks me if it's a cold bike ride. A homeless tactical question? I tell him it isn't. He goes quiet.
Sunday morning. I catch upon some sleep after 3 weekdays of working open to close. I woke up some time after 1 AM. I heard 10 gunshots equally spaced. These were somewhere in the distance. I went back to sleep. In the morning, I get a lot done. Grocery shopping, dishes, chopping vegetables. Coming back from the supermarket, I noticed a single police cruiser parked at the curb in front of my townhome. A pair of officers were walking very slowly, each one along opposite sides of my street, looking down. I stopped into the Vietnamese grocery on my corner for a few vegetables. Inside were some Pakistanis of Indians shopping. Hmm. Native Vietnamese food comes from the same region of the world as India and Pakistan. After a couple of weeks, back when snow and ice were still on the ground, I'm back doing lunch on Sundays with the sister. I had a cold which she did not want to catch. During lunch, one of the things she tells me comes from where she works. She's a local judge, and another judge she heard suggest that the court get ready for an influx of Medicaid appeals. ...because the extension of Medicaid during Covid, for people such as myself, is coming to an end. I am prepared for a letter in the mail, from my social services "team". On Monday, I'm off to the gym before work. On the way from my door to the trail, I am again turning onto the block next to an open field. A newly arrived trailer, complete with a tarp over the roof and "in tow" spray painted on the back, is parked smack in the middle of the block. Overnight on Tuesday, more snow arrives. It snows all day Wednesday. It's some inches. I don't like the way the streets look, so I elect to take the transit system. At work, it's one of the slowest days I can remember. I finished one used library ale book last week, and I've stared another. After work, I step out onto the train station to catch my last bus home. I get to the gate just before an elderly woman arrives. The high today was 15 degrees F, and she's in a long winter coat. She's dressed much warmer than a passenger on my first bus to work this morning. I turned to sit in a seat across from him, and he mentioned to me that I almost hit him in the face with a bag on my back. I apologized. The overnight low was 7. He's a balding, grey-haired guy and was in an unzipped hoodie and sneakers. Before we pulled into this same train station, he pulled on only another hoodie.
This evening, the elderly lady is someone else with the popular destination of Mosier Place. She asks me if the next bus goes there. She may have a lot of years on the usual evening nuts who converge here with me at this spot. Clearly she's no nut. She only lives on the same block with them. But at long last here is someone with experience using the transit system. I tell her it's only the last couple of runs on this route which stop there. She's disappointed, and pulls out her phone. As she does, a lighter slips from her hand, which she picks up and lights the cigarette between her fingers. She's some kind of character out of an old movie. I hear the conversation between her and the transit system customer service coming through the speaker. They give her the same news. She jokes with them, telling the agent that the information the agent just gave her had better be true, "Or I'm going to come down there and ask for you personally." They share a laugh. Twenty-four hours later, I'm stepping off the same bus, after work, back on my street. In the distance I see lights from a police traffic unit. It appears that one vehicle rear ended another directly in front of the entrance to my parking lot. As I walk between the vehicles and my parking lot, I see a police corporal with a flashlight pointed at the ground. He looks at me and I look at him. I check my mailbox. It's undamaged.
...David...Lerner, s sociologist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...drew the conclusion that... People outside the Western world would have to be changed...into what the sociologist termed "mobile personalities" capable of "empathy"...for others within modern society that made the whole coherent and functional. Traditional people would, in a sense, have to reject...cultural, historical, societal pasts... ...a political, economic, and social infrastructure in the countryside...bringing into direct contact with the [state.] The population, so long as it remained isolated in thousands of villages...stood in the way of the development of a separate and sovereign state... Modernization...required that the people become a part of the...new...infrastructure....and put to work for development ...those same...peasants...also represented the very backwardness and underdevelopment on which the "enemy" thrived. ...all vestiges of the traditional [had to be expatriated.] It was to be an assault upon tradition, particularism, superstition, ignorance, clannishness, isolated and ignorant world views...the people themselves. - Inventing Vietnam, by J. M. Carter, 2008
..."hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge - some never-to-be imparted secret..." - Aldiss
...the Thin Man...is an uptown bar... ...the Thin Man never had any TVs, and...it never will. "I wanted it to be a place where people can converse with each other and with strangers. It's not a sports bar; it's an everyone bar." - Westword, 2/16-22/2023
...a mythical command unit...designed as a model for the [US] Army in the 1990s... ...planetary peace, global interdependence... ...New Age soldiers...well aware of the power of visual symbols, music...relaxed-brain-wave states. ...meditation, yoga, and fasting. ...psychic communication...dowsing... - OMNI Magazine, 2.1982
Sunday. Another lunch with the sister. And I successfully attempt to bungee cord a rear bike rim to the back rack of the bike I ride on weekends. It's a short ride to a stop for a bus to her neighborhood. Four municipal police officers are placing someone next to another bus stop into their cruiser. Waiting at the stop for my bus is a middle-aged guy with a thick Hispanic accent, rambling on in English. WE board the bus and he continues to ramble on with the driver, telling the driver he quit drinking "a year and three months" ago. The ex-drunk's voice is loud. He tells the driver he's looking for a friend's house, but isn't sure where it is. He steps out at my stop. I do lunch with the sister and ride to the train, which takes me downtown, and a short ride to the sporting goods supercenter. I'm told that the rim needs a "professional truing." The spokes on one side are loose. A new tire is recommended for me. The tech also wants me to bring in my bike to see how the wheel sits in the frame. I leave the rim and ride to a downtown grocery for more sodas, only a single box of which I am able to carry per trip home. I ride to a nearby train station and catch a train to a stop for a last bus home. The train car appears to be full of passengers, couples a decade older than myself. We all disembark at my stop. I get on my bike and hear the train operator, outside pulling a wheelchair ramp back inside, ask me to dismount on the train platform. Monday. I get a call to come into work a half hour early. I believe I can just make it to the gym for a workout. If I blast through it. On the way to the trail, on the block along the open field, the trailer is gone. I get to the gym, and inside I sit down next to a rec center member using the handball court. Before I sit down, I drop my bike helmet and a couple of other bags where I usually do in a corner of the weight machine room. So it isn't obvious that I'm on a bike. I'm taking off my coat and riding pants as the guy asks me if I'm expecting a storm outside. I get done with my workout just in time to make it to work only one minute later than asked. My coworker asks if I can work for her Wednesday. Today I stay a half hour late, just in time to take the bus. When we hit the University District, a guy steps aboard. He scans his fare and quickly heads straight to the back. The driver calls him back up front to tell him he scanned a "youth pass" fare, for which the cut off age is 20. The passenger does not dispute this and purchases more fare. I suspect he was hoping the driver wouldn't notice. From the bus to the train, to the station for my final bus home. The driver of said bus is outside having a smoke. I hear him say, "Thank God this is the last trip." Twenty-four hours later, I'm back here for the same bus, with the same driver. He says exactly the same thing, "Thank God this is the last trip."
Wednesday. It's now after a full day at work, open to close. I'm at the bakery a couple of doors down, for a snack and a chat with my favorite employee. She's a high school senior who wants to go on to study nursing. She's in a serious relationship with another employee, a junior. I fully expect the marriage and kids thing. It's fun to watch them work together. This morning I awoke to more snow and freezing cold. The snow appears to abate by closing time. I made the mistake on the way to work before sunrise, of following the habit of disembarking at the train station. I forgot that there is no train or bus here this early which will get me to my last connecting bus to work. The bus I stepped off of certainly would have. I didn't realize this until the bus had left. Instead of any buses or trains at the time, the station was full of snowplows. Pickup truck plows, ATV plows, mini-ATV plows. Plenty of light and noise before sunrise, and not enough sleep. I made all my connections of course, and I'm only a few minutes late to open the store. Now I'm at the bakery. Here with me is the middle-aged Christian recruiter. He speaks to me for the first time. He tells me he's seen me in here. He asks if I work at the hardware store in the shopping center. I tell him that I do. It isn't the truth, so I suppose it won't set him free. I somehow get less sleep overnight. Before I'm off to my tax appointment, I get a call from work. can I come in early? not today. It's stopped snowing...and it's -9 degrees F. I arrive in jig time, and though I can't yet have my taxes done, I had an email last night that Social Security is sending me a new SS card in the mail. My appointment is rescheduled for next week, and I get some paperwork done there in preparation. Then I'm across the street at the bus stop, with a young woman in a tie-dyed hoodie. The high is only supposed to be 15. On the bus I notice the contents of the big pocket on the front of her hoodie. They include a roll of aluminum foil and a lighter. "Drug paraphernalia?" She's fidgety and doesn't stop moving. I'm at the stop for the bus which will drop me at work's doorstep. I have a layover of more than 40 minutes,. From here I am looking north for my bus. Just across the avenue is a set of concrete stairs up to a building. I am looking this direction when I watch a female who appears as if she is launched over the stairs, to land on the sidewalk. She appears at first glance little the worse for wear. Shortly thereafter, I se a middle-aged guy helping an elderly woman through the intersection. is this the same woman. His jacket is unzipped and he appears as if he may have unexpectedly come from inside somewhere to carry out this task. I still get to work early per my coworker's request. As soon as I get there, she asks me if I can work for her again tomorrow. Perhaps I will get some sleep next week...
After work, I'm off my last bus home, walking down the sidewalk of my street. It's a cold late winter evening. Across from where I live is a brick building, some kind of little energy plant or something. Between the sidewalk and the walls is a rising slope of large rocks. At the top of the slope next to the wall, is a guy screaming. It almost sounds as if a female on the property next to my townhome is answering him with her own noises. I'm walking into my parking lot when I next see him back onto the sidewalk, quickly shuffling toward the boulevard, still screaming. I go to bed an hour early, instead of an hour late which I did last night, or the night before. I can't remember. It's been a wild week. I wake up Friday with six hours of sleep, which is better than I've had the past three days. And it will be nice not to have to rush through a shower, brushing teeth, shaving, getting dressed. I may even take the transit system after work to pick up my bike wheel, which is ready. I don't hear screaming across the street. This cold and travelling to strange neighborhoods to get my taxes done. The rented space with blank walls and only folding chairs and tables. This week strikes me as somehow associated with death somehow. I've had to move appointments around. A meeting with my broker, a dental appointment, both of which have already been moved. I was sitting in a folding chair yesterday morning at a communal table with some other Americorps volunteers. I was seated next to a woman who I overheard say she is 67. I was answering questions from the kid helping me about my mutual fund and property tax and mortgage points. She was listening and looking at me, most likely a resident of this stretch of abandoned urban winter wasteland. I' suspect she has none of the things I mentioned. But while I was there, I didn't hear anyone across the street. screaming.
Friday. I don't know it yet, but I will be gone from my home for a solid 16 hours today. I got home dead tired last night. I did not get my bike wheel from the sporting goods supercenter. I feel as if I've had more sleep this morning and Imay pick it up after work this evening. If I ride today, I will have to feal with the below freezing temperatures. I'm up with plenty of time to catch a bus to work, at a stop just down the street. I catch a bus shortly after 4:40 AM on my corner. I will step out here at this very spot shortly after 9:30 PM. But for now, once again, I am at a stop where I hardly catch a bus to work. Upon another predawn with temperatures well below freezing. 'Tis 3 degrees F. In a couple more weeks, it will be Spring. The time will change. A few yards away from the stop stands a homeless couple outside of a 7-Eleven. After some fifteen minutes, the female wanders over with a lit cigarette in her hand. So I know she won't be asking me for a cigarette. She wants to know the time. There's a wall on the 7-Eleven from which she just came. That's where I got my own time. I tell her I'm not sure. She asks me if I know "even roughly" what time it is. I point to the gas station behind me, which has its own clock on the wall, which may be seen from outside through her choice of window. She mentions something about not having her glasses or contacts before she wanders off. She crosses the avenue to catch the bus I came down on. Even working open to close, the day goes fast. I make the decision that, though I'm still tired from the past couple of days, I will get my bike wheel this evening. All I need to is stay on the train, where the bus from work drops me. I step out at the end of the line, the big deal downtown transit hub. A transit system security guy steps out with me. He's looking through the windows and doors of each train car to make sure everyone has disembarked. I heard on the radio that the transit system has a new policy. No one may any longer ride to the end of a line without disembarking. I assume that if you pay another fare, you may reboard. Critics say this will have a disproportionate effect on the homeless. They gonna have to, to quote the late Janis Joplin, try a little bit harder.
[Edgar Allen] Poe's heroes in extremis often find themselves...bathed in luminous meteorological phenomena... ..."the rays of the moon" shining on "a thick mist in which everything there was developed"... ...that "shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any other dweller among man"... - Aldiss
I drag my tired ass over the steps across the train tracks around 7:30 PM, up and across and down again. Over to the bridge across the river, across the street. The high today was at least 62 degrees F. On the bridge, a twentysomething girl passes me in black shorts and a black coat. She carries a pizza box. Inside the supercenter, I get in line at the bike shop. I have a seat before a guy with a grey buzz cut asks me if I have my pink slip. He thinks I'm here to get skis waxed. He asks if I'm picking something up and directs me to a register. He brings out my wheel and explains the four-part invoice. I ask if they replaced my tire liner. He deflates the tire and has a look inside, asking me to witness the liner inside. He wants to know how full he wants me to fill the tire. It takes 73 lbs. max. I tell him to fill it up. He asks me if I'm sure. He says 60 lbs. is "a more comfortable ride." I tell him that's fine. He then has me come around to his side of the register to read and sign a disclaimer. It sounds as if I get killed as a result of their repair, I waive any right to sue. And my corpse picks up the court costs. He rings me up and reminds me not to forget my wheel. Leave your life behind, take the wheel. It's time to drag my ass back across the steps to the train station. I get aboard a train and hear a couple of people yelling at each other outside before we're on our way. Union Station, don't leave home to go there. Soon I'm back at my usual train station. But again, I'm here during what may be considered 'off hours.' There won't be a bus home for another 40 minutes. The hour is closing in on my bedtime. I have breakfast and lunch to make, to take with me to work tomorrow. And when I get home (if I get home this evening) I should put this wheel back on. The streets are clear and the temps have risen. There's no reason for me not to ride to work tomorrow. I'm standing here in the dark now, in this empty station. This is where I stood a couple of mornings ago. Snowplows running back and forth, lights blazing. on the bus lanes and up on the platform. This evening, it's quiet. Instead of snow, sediments cover the ground. I think about the past three days. I've traversed poor streets and wealthy ones, all upon the same transit system. Now I'm weighing my options on the quickest way home. If I take a train back to the last station I passed, I should be able to catch a bus back to my neighborhood with only some extra walking involved. The station is so close, it's within sight of this one. They are perhaps the closest train stations in the city. If one does not show up within the next 40 minutes, taking the next train back here will be my fallback plan.
I do take the next train a station up. And a bus does arrive in ten minutes. This train station I used to pass through on a regular basis back and forth to work, some fifteen years ago. Before the condominium complex which now sits right here. It replaced an expanse of grass, which the homeless among others could sit on during dry days. Now, as condo residents come out with their dogs in a tiny area surrounded by chain link fence, the homeless occupy the condo's corners crevices. They sit against a concrete wall or under metal stairs. The last connecting bus home drops me on a corner of my boulevard, and I elect to hike the rest of the way home. I'm approaching the next bus stop on the other side of an intersection. A bus pulls up to a red light. I begin running, in snow boot, with a bike wheel, for the stop. I make it. My transfer still has a half hour on it. In perhaps less than 120 seconds, I am off the bus and right back at the stop on my corner from which I left before dawn. Exactly 16 hours ago. Saturday morning I am back on the bike to work. I'm at the last intersection before the trail head entrance. I watch a homeless camper go across. Hitched to the back is a big trailer with a little trailer hitched to it. I get home late in the afternoon and put a load of laundry in. I go behind my home for dinner. I end up back home fifteen minutes before bedtime. I'm too tired to take the laundry out until the next morning. I get a better sleep but still not 100%. I do a quick grocery shop before heading down to the sister's for lunch. Afterward, I'm headed for the train. I'm on a sidewalk to a busy intersection when a cyclist passes me. He has no helmet but he does have casual slacks on. We meet at the intersection. I notice that he's rocking back and forth with his bike at the light. When we get the signal to cross, I let him go ahead. He passes in front of a vehicle in an oncoming turn lane. I let it go before I cross to the other side. As I climb through the underpass, I watch him stop on the sidewalk. I pass him as he's looking over his shoulder and talking to himself. The train takes me to a station near a supermarket, which is the only one to carry a product I need. Along the way, I pass a train station which has a row of shopping carts lined up and stored outside. There's not a grocery around here. These are all stolen shopping carts which obviously have been collected here. I'm crossing the enormous parking lot when I hear a "FUCK!" At the bike rack is a guy having trouble unlocking his bike.
Monday. I am out the door and down the street on the way to work. I am about to turn onto the long street a block from my own. Here on this corner is a newly arrived camper. I turn left and ride the length of the street before I make a right. It's a short ride to another corner of a busy avenue. A grade school is over my left shoulder. Crossing the intersection toward the corner with the school is a young woman. She's disheveled, with big bright red curls of long hair. She has the green light, and she either presses the button to cross the other street or she simply holds the light pole to steady herself. In her crocs she takes the most tenuous steps, slowly and one at a time. This is the speed at which she has come down the sidewalk to this intersection. The following day I awake and realize that I need to turn a couple of wall calendars to a new month. I realize that I have been so busy, I never turned the one on my fridge from January. Early this morning I have an appointment for a dental check-up and cleaning. I mention to my dentist that I'm in the know about the Medicaid having been extended to patients such as myself, who don't otherwise qualify. I tell her I heard that it's being unextended. She replies that she heard the same thing. I would like to stay with Denver Health. My appointment is quite early, and I decide to walk here from home. In normal clothes, instead of bike gear. I'm walking home when I pass the new wide sidewalk on the long street a block from my own. It's only here and now when I turn my head the opposite direction and see the very same sidewalk extending the other way. The new sidewalk is an extension of this one, only this is a bike and pedestrian trail. That's what the new sidewalk is! Not a sidewalk at all! Well, that didn't take me too many months to figure out. Not bad for a guy who is never told anything. Soon, I'm out my door and literally on the road to work. I'm around a couple of corners and onto the long downhill, toward the block along the open field. Up at the top of the hill, off on a side street, is a pop-up trailer tent. The tent is deployed and falling down. Some eight hours later, I will be coming up this same side street on my way home after work. It's then I notice that a cord from the tent is plugged into the home which it sits in front of. Just before I turn onto this side street, I'm coming along an intersecting street. Halfway down this street a pickup truck is parked. Before I see it, I hear unintelligible yelling. When I spot the truck, a male is circling the pickup and stopping to stick his head in the open driver's side door. I hear a female voice inside the truck, much more subdued than his. At first, I think he's saying, "GIVE ME THE KEYS BITCH!" Instead, he's saying, "YOU'RE MOM'S A BITCH!" When he spots me riding past, he says, "What's up, bro?" before going back to yelling.
I've been waiting for my new Social Security card to come in the mail. I have an appointment Thursday to get my taxes done and this is the last document I need. I also have an appointment to meet a new doctor on Thursday. I will be cancelling one of these appointments, depending upon whether or not my new card is ion my mailbox by tomorrow evening at the latest. I check my mail when I get home from passing the yelling guy and the falling down pop-up tent. The card is here. Now I have what I need to find out how bad the shape my taxes are in. My own mom is deceased. I may end up being the bitch.
