Some time this month, I notice the homeless vehicle in our parking lot is gone. Last night, I stopped by a supermarket on the way home from work. There's an open side of the building covered by the roof, popular with homeless. I'm used to running into someone seated against the wall or next to their shopping cart full of belongings. This late afternoon, there's a folding table under here, covered with a banner for the Girl Scouts. A mom is here with a single girl, perhaps middle school aged. I stop to purchase a box of cookies before I run inside for a free weekly newspaper. She notices that I ride my bike and tells me she moved here from New York City, where she used to ride her bike. She mentions an interest in doing so here. I tell her about the bike shop where my bikes get service, in the sporting goods service center. I grab my paper, bid them farewell, and I'm on my way home. Friday is the 1st. My tax prep two days ago couldn't have gone more smoothly. Early this morning, I have my teeth cleaned at a clinic just down the street from my place. It's performed by a travelling dental hygienist from Tennessee. She the best hygienist I've ever had. She's only in town for four months. She mentions that she has an allergy to gluten and diary. I mention the Vietnamese grocery up the street, which carries some gluten free stuff. She talks about having to shop at Whole Foods for her non-dairy items, and how expensive it is. I mention a spoof hip hop tune called Whole Foods Parking Lot. Today being payday, I decide to hit the bank before work. I want to withdraw some of the big check I got, and put that money into another fund from which I withdrew money to cover my over budget living expenses. I also now have all of this year's annual homeowner's insurance premium, all of next year's, as well as next year's annual life insurance premium. I didn't expect to have quite that much from simply covering my coworker's vacation. So, that's a nice surprise. When I get to the bank, I encounter a second female professional. She appears to be the branch manager. I've seen her here once before. I didn't take much notice of her then. But this morning, she's in a skin-tight kind of dress. For the first time I notice, she has a fantastic body. Beyond fantastic. I mention this to her. She thanks me. I ask for a money order to pay my federal tax. I tell her I realize there's a fee for the money order. She waives the fee. She tells me it's because I was in a long line. But it's Friday. The line doesn't surprise me. A woman in line behind me does no share my appreciation of the branch manager, who speaks to the drive through customers through a microphone. I hear the woman behind me quietly say, "This bitch has a voice like a dude." When I get to work, my coworker tells me that she arrived this morning to a guy pacing up and down the line of shops. He asked a driver for money, got his money, and then left.
Sunday. The warm weather continues into winter's last two and a half weeks. I missed the gym last Sunday, due to a romantic lunch date with my lady. I got an awful lot done last night and this morning. I bought vegetables from the Vietnamese grocery next store. I got them chopped. I did dishes. The sister is off on her own excursions both last Sunday and today. So, I on a bus down the street, to a bus to the gym. Off the bus, I first hit a favorite lunch place before my workout when I'm flying solo. After lunch, I take a stroll down what appears to be one of those historic "old town" avenues. The gym is in a municipality outside of Denver. I stop into a "corner store" for some "locally sourced" potato chips. It's a short walk from here to the gym, and after my workout, I return to this avenue. This is an obvious hot spot for local couples, kids, and dogs. I stop into an ice cream and coffee shop. Lunching ladies and strollers are here. Hearts are hand painted on one wall. A giant butterfly on the facing one. A neon sign informs patrons that "love is the answer." Another asks patrons to silence their cell phones and video chats, for a more peaceful experience. I may as well be up in Boulder. I'm back on the bus to my boulevard. I get out and head for my supermarket, where I need some items. A woman almost runs into me and says, "Sorry sir." I reply in Spanish that it's no problem. She laughs. I decide to grab an early dinner at a favorite Mexican place of myself and my lady. It's not far from the supermarket, but I'm on foot carrying 12 diet sodas and other groceries. I opt for a light meal. A waitress takes my order in Spanish. She has one good eye. It's interesting watching her write my order in Spanish. An elderly homeless woman comes in and is seated by a waitress with the same service as any other customer. After I eat, I lug my bag out to the nearby bus stop. I'm not there long when a big family arrives. The mom has a tattoo of letters running down her neck. The father is in a hoodie with faded letters on the back. "God bless my hustle." Two grown males are pretending to box each other and running around. A pair of little girls sit silently on the bench. One of the son's begins blasting hip hop music and hopping. A middle-aged guy who appears unrelated to the family joins the party. For w little while, another woman stands a few yards away, as if she's also waiting for the bus. She's disappeared when the beats are going. Yet another guy arrives. He speaks to me as if he disapproves of the scene, even though he's moving to the beats. He throws a transit system transfer on the ground. The bus finally arrives, One son is the only one with a bicycle. He's attempting to put in of the bike rack as his parents confuse him. When we all step aboard, it's silent on the bus. It's packed, and I stand by the back door. One guy sits on top of a wheel well. A couple of bags are behind him. he hangs onto the overhead rail with one hand. His shoes reach for the thin edge of some metal flashing rising along the well. He appears to be falling asleep. The bus waits for a car which has pulled out of a drive directly in front of us. the car backs up a few inches, then makes a left. We finally arrive at my corner. I step out as a middle-aged guy with a walker is at the front door.
Home...my favorite four-letter word. As an introvert and a homebody... ...mood lighting, candles and incense, blankets and books... ...raised by an antique dealer...
Denver...ranks the second most gentrified city in the United States, with 27% of neighborhoods currently being gentrified. - Out Front Magazine, 3/31/2024
...Cafe 180. ...had a seat for everyone, no matter how much they could fish out of their pockets or purse. "...our unhoused community was just at a different level than we've ever seen it in the last 13 years." "We realized that people need so much more than just a fresh meal." - Littleton Independent, week of 2/29/2024
...an eighteen-seat counter surrounding the open kitchen. It's current eleven-course menu from [the] new executive chef...is priced at $160 per person... ...an eighteen-course omakase menu at a twelve-seat counter for $175 per person, before beverages...
It's been a decade since...the local gold standard for people craving East Coast-style bagels [opened.] ...until last year, when Call Your Mother chose Denver for its first expansion outside of...D.C.... ...won the Staff Pick award at Rebel Bread's inaugural Denver Bake Fest... "It's like a rising-tide-raises-all-ships kind of thing."- Westword, 3/7-13/2024
Another Stimulating Late Afternoon with the Jesus Guy
At work on Monday, again I find myself at the gas station next door. Instead of someone purchasing cigarettes and scratch tickets, instead of wisecracking blue-collar guys or homeless looking for a bathroom, I run into the owner. He's a young, clean cut, professional guy. I had mentioned to the clerk, who I like to speak Spanish with, that their new coffee machine does not dispense hot chocolate. He comes out and begins speaking to me in Spanish, telling me an endless list of facts about the pair of brand-new coffee machines. He switches to English, which he speaks without any trace of an accent. The coffee dispenser grinds its own beans. Two days later, I will discover that he is but one of a group of partners in the gas station. In between, on Tuesday, I get the call. Can I come in two hours early? I'm tellin' ya, I'm tryin' to do the ride all the way to work. Instead, once again, I make for the bus. I get breakfast to go across the avenue from the stop, and I eat it at the stop. The bus comes to collect me. A new driver is being trained. A passenger comes up from the back and asks the trainer where a certain stop is. It's behind us, just before the stop where I got on. He has the trainee pull over to the curb. He gets out with the passenger to show her how to get to the nearest stop for the bus going back the other way. When the pair is outside, another passenger says, "Really?" As in, why are we stopped and the trainer outside? The following day, it's after work. I've stayed just a little late, but having done so, the bus will be here soon. I decide to spend the time before it comes getting dinner out of the way. I find myself across the street at the old bakery. I am once again seated at a table next to one with the Jesus guy. He's with an apprentice who strikes me as familiar. So is the barely audible conversation. "I imagine him locked away in a dungeon somewhere," begins the Jesus guy. "Exactly," replies the apprentice. Jesus guy continues. "I'm out fighting... He's in the middle of his probable experience. It's not what you would want. And when that's forgiven, any foothills based on that disappear. They're washed away" If these weren't first century metaphors, I would be interested in what Freud would have to say. ...if I cared about Freud. His apprentice responds, "That's beautiful." Jesus guy goes on, his voice rising and then dropping out of hearing. "Then the truth will set you free. ...washing...the way and the truth. Expose the lies to the truth. ...you will turn to... You understand... Your world... His life... Jesus is the way. The truth sets us free..." Listening to him is as if I'm going in and out of consciousness. Who knows, perhaps I am. He could be but a figment of my imagination. That explains why he never leaves any empty plates on the table. Or it could be because neither he nor his buddies never purchase anything to eat. His apprentice answers, "Never experienced it..." "I understand," Jesus guy reassures him. "And that's what he wants from us. He wants us interacting, asking..." He could be describing what my own customers want. He continues, "You go back to Ephesians... ...Super Bowl. Uber Super Bowl. He's with you. Because the good things he wants. Not necessarily for you, but for his message. All his promises he has are just side effects of following him, for his namesake, for his glory..." What the Lord appears to want, what's good for his message, is a really big Super Bowl. When Jesus guy is in the middle of his sentence, just after he says "just", he pauses to abruptly sweep his arms horizontally in the swiftest gesture I've ever seen him make. "Awesome," is all the apprentice can say. He will find no argument from me. "Be blessed," says Jesus guy. And with that, they close in another prayer and stand for an embrace. I write this conversation down on a scrap of paper, which I can find nowhere when I get home.
Saturday. I'm at the stop for my bus to work, here with another passenger. Down the sidewalk comes another guy. He's in an orange reflective vest and a hoodie. It's cold out here this morning, and I'm in my winter coat. He has a construction helmet hanging on his belt, and his work boots are untied. In his hand is a cup of coffee. He asks the other passenger when the bus comes. When he answers him, he continues on his way, tossing cup and coffee onto the grass. The bus arrives. Yet another new driver is being trained for this route. The trainer is talking a mile a minute, and it's a challenge for this new driver. I disembark at work, throw my bike in the store and head across the street for breakfast. I stop into the bakery for a slice o toast with butter. The guy behind the register found my scrap of paper. he returns it to me. How he knew it was mine, I know not. But I am impressed. Tomorrow is Daylight Savings Time. And then it's tomorrow. I get the call. Instead of an hour early, can I come in two hours early? Again, I'm off to a stop for my bus to work. Driving the bus is someone I recognize, but he also has a supervisor standing next to him this morning. Twenty-four hours later, I get the call again. Only this morning, I'm told that I can come in as early as I want. That's a new one. I dress for moisture, I leave with no breakfast, and I head for a stop for my bus to work. There's someone at the stop when I pull up. He turns to me with a weathered face and bad teeth, and asks, "How you doin'?" I decline to answer, thereby avoiding any requests for the time or a cigarette or spare change. He picks up his bag and walks a few yards away, and waits. When the bus arrives, I don't see him climb aboard.
...Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener...was a figure of legend - a national myth... ...destroying the empire of the Dervishes and reconquering the Sudan. As commander of the armies of India...he had imposed his will as...he had done in Egypt. The far-off outposts of empire ...lent him their glamour. ...magical, larger-than-life, like a sphinx... ...the part for which destiny and the popular press had cast him. ...with the rise of imperial sentiment, literature, and sentiment in Britain. Disraeli, Kipling, A. E. W. Mason...Lionel Curtis, John Buchan, and others created the tidal wave of feeling on the crest of which he rode. [It was told in 1900 that he led his Egyptian armies] over nearly a thousand miles of rock and sand...to conquer a country of a million square miles. George Stevens of the "Daily Mail"...wrote..."the man has disappeared...there is...but only the Sirdar..." (or commander of the Egyptian army)... ...Kitchener moved...the making of policy from the capital city of a world empire, where officials...tended toward a broad and cosmopolitan view...to the colonial capitals of Egypt and the Sudan, where the prejudices of old hands went unchallenged... - A Peace to End All Peace, by D. Fromkin, 1989
The artist knows something about the strange worlds... ...contrary to the popular view, that these worlds are real. ...knows the simple face of reality is often false. It is a universal dream... ...that we are all the hero and we are handsome, strong, courageous, wise, and above all, unbeatable. The finest of heroes are then pressed back into service as demons...vampires, and composite monsters of all sorts. ...it takes more courage to be a demon... - Omni Magazine, December 1982
Thursday. A big snowfall was predicted for today. This morning, flakes are floating down, and we're on our way toward the forecast of eighteen inches of wet snow. I get a call from the boss. We're closed today. We're opening late tomorrow. I get out to the supermarket down the street. I get dishes done. But it strikes me that having an entire day off such as this, it gives me a break from the go-go-go. Even my one regular day off, Sunday, is taken up with going out with the sister. Or going to the gym myself. Today, for the first time since I can remember. Before I worked for the guy I do now. I have a chance to collect my wits. I call my coworker to make sure she's opening tomorrow. For the second time this week, she tells me I can come in whenever I want. The following morning, I have a dentist appointment for a check-up. It already feels as if it's above freezing. I found a new diet online, which includes a daily ration of bread. With me to the dentist, on the way to work, and over random stretches of sidewalk which haven't been shoveled. I lug a bag with a toaster, a bunch of bananas, and a tub of butter to the dentist. This is the second check-up at the dentist when I have no new issues. I grab a bus across the boulevard, up the street to a stop for a connecting bus to the train. At this stop is a transit system employee here to clean the stop. He's on his phone with HQ, asking them about his hours on the clock. The bus pulls up the intersection and he jumps into his truck and leaves. The bus gets to the train station. I jump on a train where a couple of homeless are each in a seat. One is a woman in a mask. She smells like vomit. I take the seat across from her, which has been rejected by a passenger who step aboard ahead of me. Her cane is in her hand, and the tip rests on the seat across from her. In the next seat in front of me, at the end of the car, is the other. He's a guy in an overcoat leaning his head back against the wall. He talks to himself with his eyes closed. He's yet another homeless with a broken broom handle as a cane. The orthopedics of the street. The train drops me a couple of stops down the line, and from there I walk to my diner across the avenue from a stop for my bus to work. I grab breakfast before I head to the stop. I need to step out into the street and over snow to step onto the bus.
The following morning, I'm still not satisfied with road conditions. More melting needs to happen. I'm out the door and across my boulevard, and down the sidewalk to another bus to work. Shortly after 6 AM, first light is just breaking. I'm not even a block down the boulevard when I meet someone coming the other way along the sidewalk. He asks me if I have a phone charger. Tells me he's been trying to charge his phone, "all night, actually." Actually, if I had one to let this complete stranger "borrow", I don't know what's open for him to go inside and plug in. Sunday is St. Patrick's Day. After breakfast and a workout with the sister, I'm back home before noon. I call a department store down the boulevard from my place. I'm looking for shorts to wear this summer, when I'm out with my lady. Not just any shorts. She always looks fantastic, and I need to up my game. They have no shorts. I call a store downtown. Shorts they have. Looks like I'm goin' downtown this afternoon. I could ride there, but I'm going to give the snow a last day to evacuate the streets. I grab a bus across the boulevard. On board is a woman who is looking for something out the window. We stop and let a guy on. He sits next to her and they embrace as she weeps for some time. We pass an exit ramp for a highway. Where the ramp meets my boulevard are a couple of squeegee guys. One is finishing the window of a vehicle which is clear to make a left onto the boulevard. behind it, traffic in the lane is beginning to collect. The sister tells me that the squeegee guys are Venezuelan refugees. The couple embracing could be. We pass a motel where Venezuelan refugees have stayed and may continue to do so. We stop in front of it and pick up a family who may be refugees. All waiting for work visas. To be a refugee is to wait. To be homeless is to have nothing to wait for. Many of us pile out at the train station. I'm on the platform, watching and listening to someone drag a heavy bundle on a dolly as it scrapes along the concrete. I catch a whiff of marijuana. A tall skinny kid wanders up and asks me if he can purchase a cigarette. I never did begin smoking. The train arrives to collect us, and deposit us at the north end of downtown. I walk over to a health food supermarket and pick up some hand soap, along with a buffet lunch. I eat it at a table, where I am surrounded in the store, not with refugees. But with young urban dwellers, some of whom surely live in the high-rise tower above this place.
After lunch, I exit out onto the big city and walk to the pedestrian mall. I had heard it was being rebuilt. But I haven't been out on the mall in some time. I catch a free mall shuttle, which detours off the mall immediately. The mall is blocked off. For some kind of St. Patrick's Day festival? I can see down the block at an intersection where my clothing store is. I step out and walk that direction. There it is. The entire pedestrian mall has been torn up. reconstruction is indeed underway. I'm in and out of the store with two new pairs of shorts. A homeless guy pulls a cart with a leash tied to it, and a dog at the other end. He's in an overcoat and walks with a stoop. He turns the corner as I'm exiting. I catch a train on the street, back to my usual station, and grab a bus back home. I have a message there when I arrive. Can I open tomorrow? Looks as if tomorrow, I won't be depositing the tax refund which came Friday after work, or purchasing a money order for my annual homeowner's insurance premium. I'll be too busy earning a living. The day ends with myself trying to get some last-minute stuff done. The last of my milk needs to go into a water bottle to take to work. Daily vitamins go into a Ziploc bag. The gear I will be riding in, depending on cold it is a 5 AM, stays out of the bag I take to work. The rest goes into a new drawstring bag I purchased with the other items at the ARC yesterday, to replace a drawstring bag I've had forever and is wearing out. I haven't found another until yesterday. I hit the hay at 8 PM. I only wake up once during the night. I next awake with at least 7 hours sleep. I jump in the shower, get dressed, and I'm out the door on my bike for the first time since last Wednesday. This means that Sunday bleeds directly into Monday. The streets and trail are clear. The ride goes fast, and the day as well. I am home and, as I'm typing the previous sentence here, I get another call. Can I work again all day tomorrow?
...but of course. Tuesday. Here I am again, out on the trail to work. I take a street way down past a detour off the trail. Only I get on the trail where the detour begins going the other way. Soon, I'm on the connecting trail, where I spy a cyclist exiting the trail through the lot for a dog park. It's the first of two cyclists with no helmet, but in winter coats and hoods. This guy had a pack on which appears to be stuffed full. Then I'm around a corner, across a bridge and up a hill. The second cyclist also has no helmet, and a winter coat with the hood on. He's pushing his bike oncoming, along the level trail. His body is bent horizontal to the trail, his head facing the ground. His bike frame is covered with odd small bags tied to it. He doesn't even appear to know I'm here. After work, I ride home and throw the bike in the house. I'm out the door for a haircut behind my place. Then I go back to my corner for dinner at a Vietnamese place. When I pay my bill, the owner sits near the register. I hear him whistling along to the Vietnamese song playing over a sound system. From there, I stop into the Vietnamese grocery for a small desert. There are two Vietnamese girl clerks and a Hispanic young guy ringing me up. He's telling the girls that "Colleges want Mexicans." They are enjoying his tale.
Beyond the Mexican cafes and pawn shops and mom-and-pop stores...Denver's great city ambitions grew and LoDo spilled to the north. For decades...a lonely and crucial cultural outpost. ...fans disrupting shows after games...nearby tent cities, and LoDo drunks pouring out...
"The comedy scene...in 2004. There were a handful of mics and weird showcases at shitty suburban sports bars..." "...the crowds...are just smart...and love to party. Usually...don't go hand in hand, but in Denver's case, they do. Denver...has that sort of Middle American blue-collar sensibility...but it's an intellectual city... - Westword, 3/14-20/2024
The Mile High City...late-night coffeehouses...the '70s era of beatnik cafes or...the grungy...'90s spots... "A city can feel very lonely and hard without these third spaces." "...a place that is not home...not work, but...you feel like you have some ownership. ...late-night people were bohemian artist types. ...people who can't afford to live in Denver any longer." ...customer base is older than it used to be, with more families and less night life in the area. - Westword, 3/21-27/2024
Wednesday. I have no voicemails to come in to work early. And I do have plenty to take care of along the way to work. Last night, I finally got my hair cut, which I had been trying to do since Friday. That evening, the intrepid Vietnamese lady who cuts my hair had two customers in curlers. And she turned myself and another customer away. Saturday after work and Sunday, I had too much to do. Monday, I get home later than during the rest of the week, and I didn't want to bother her as she was trying to close up. Tuesday was the first day of Spring. In the evening, I finally made it into her shop. I was telling her about my efforts to curb my spending of the money I'm making, from all the hours my coworker has been giving me. She instructed me that 'money is for spending.' She is obviously not a communist. Now, the morning after, my first stop is the clinic down the street from my place. I'm picking up a prescription refill. As I'm waiting in the pharmacy, I listen to the women behind the desk talk about their favorite places to go hiking and camping. They include places I've been to, including the sand dunes of Texas and Yellowstone. I ask them about Utah, and they reply that they like it as well. From here, I'm headed for my bank, where I deposit my tax refund check, which came in the mail Friday. Along with a bill for my annual life insurance premium. Speaking of which, I purchase another money order to send off to my insurance company. Refund deposited and money order in hand., I'm off to a supermarket along the way to work. I need low fat cheese, which only this place has. And I may as well pick up other groceries I need for work. Groceries in hand, I consider grabbing a burger in this shopping center for breakfast/lunch. Instead, I decide to press on the rest of the way to work. Soon, I'm across the boulevard from work, at my investment broker's office, to deposit one last check this morning. For reasons unbeknownst to myself, the office is closed. Perhaps the office manager is out with a client. I grab lunch at the bakery before I arrive back across the boulevard at work. I clock in with a minute to space. After work, when I'm home, I decide to run across my boulevard for a burger at a relatively new Mexican place. Just past my parking lot is a drive to the Vietnamese place behind where I live. A guy with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other comes sauntering along the drive. He leans against one pole of a chain link fence. He looks at me, and says something unintelligible. A few steps along the sidewalk is the corner. As I'm hurrying to make the light, an oncoming cyclist without a helmet is on an old cruiser bike. As with so many other homeless, he's in a jacket for the city football team. He looks at me with his reddened face and gives me a nondescript expression. Over my left shoulder is the gas station. A guy sits slumped and motionless on the steps to a side door. He will still be there when I'm walking back home. Over my left shoulder is the strip mall with the Mexican burger place. Down the covered walk in front of the shops comes a teenager who has just excited one of the doors. He's moving as if he's high. I step out into the parking lot to avoid him. When he sees me he stops. I glance back at him as I'm going into the burger place. He's half dancing on his way. Inside the burger place, lately it's filled with grease smoke from the place next door, where they cook meat. On the flat screen TV is the same show which is always on. It's something titled Fail Army. It's an endless collection of footage of home footage of family members falling off porches, skiers crashing, etc. I feel as if I'm in the novel Brave New World.
I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I must have been on my way to work, because the sun was up. I was on the street when the homeless '80s camper passed me in the opposite lane. Friday. I'd like to ride all the way to work. But I need yet more groceries for work, which I was unable to carry yesterday, and anyway couldn't get from the supermarket I stopped into. So I stop into my neighborhood supermarket before making another stop at my bank across the street. My state tax refund check has cleared. I withdraw the vast majority of it to put it someplace where I won't spend it. Today is one day when I do not want to misplace my wallet. The office manager of my investment broker tells me that all citizens of the state have been given or are due to get an $800 rebate. If this was part of my state refund, I was not informed by the people who prepared my taxes last month. After the bank, I'm due at work an hour early this morning. I head toward a stop for my bus to work, grabbing breakfast at the diner across the avenue from the bus stop. I eat and run, and am at the stop when another cyclist arrives. Tall and young, and with an aloof attitude, he has no helmet. He parks his bike across the sidewalk next to the bench, creating a sliver of space through which pedestrian traffic have no choice but to squeeze through. At one point, he blocks that space, but not for long. He's restless before the bus arrives. When it does, he tells me where he plans to disembark, and asks if he should put his bike on the rack first. Yes, he should. When we're onboard, I hear him make a call. He makes an appointment with someone, telling them he's currently at a halfway house. Saturday. I've been waking up too early since the middle of this week. I'm still coming down from my back-to-back open to close shifts. Last night I was dozing off in a chair. If I'm p before I'm supposed to be, then I got the time this morning to ride to work. I'm trying to take very opportunity to do the ride all the way. I take a couple of long streets straight down instead of the winding trail, as far as I can before I intercept it. I'm on a cross street when I'm passed by another cyclist. Off the trail, and at 7 AM on a Saturday. I would be impressed, but he has no helmet. I stop where the street intersects the trail. I take off my head and tail lamps. Dawn is breaking. A derelict guy is walking up the middle of the street along the trail. This four-way stop is pretty busy during the day. He talks quietly to himself. Some kind of literal suburban street poet. From here to the connecting trail, I'm passed by another pair of cyclists. They disappear before they must have stopped somewhere out of sight. They pass me again. Neither have helmets. I head across the boulevard from work, to a breakfast place. Yet another good-looking waitress has joined the crew. At a table next to me is a grey-haired couple. The husband suddenly begins an admonishment of local politics. They are replaced by adad and his two teenaged sons. The father and one son are bantering about basketball. It is, after all, March. The son speaks with a rapid-fire tempo.
Sunday. Back to breakfast and workout with the sister. I'm home before noon. The forecast, for rain and snow in the late afternoon, will turn out to be some hail. In the early afternoon, the sun is out. The temps are in the 50s F. The gym where we workout isn't small, but it can get crowded fast. There are plenty of young guys working with free weights who don't sanitize the machines. A couple of them are discussing paid positions as coaches in local public school. They agree that $5,000 is a good rate. I don't catch per what length of time that figure is. One guy tells the other, one district offered him "$2,200. I said, 'Really? $2,200?'" After I get home, I decide to take the bus and grab a few groceries down the street. I could ride there, but I don't feel like changing into riding gear. On the bus are a handful of derelicts. One is a grey-haired guy in tactical sunglasses, who speak Spanish loudly into his phone. Another holds the handles of two canes in the same hand. I recognize a third. She's a lady with a walker and a big knit hat over her permed air. A fourth guy gets up to disembark at a stop. he's in shorts and a T-shirt, and a yellow safety vest. With his walker, he very slowly makes his way from a seat directly across from the front door, toward the front door. he appears to grab a metal bar to steady himself. We pass a couple of bus stops along the short route to the corner where I am stepping out. The first is in front of my clinic, within walking distance of my place. Homeless gather here. In the shelter is a guy with a bicycle which appears new, painted in gold metal flake. On the other side is the guy with some kind of trunk in a wagon. Outside the shelter, on some steps to a door, is another guy. His face pokes out of the hood of his winter jacket. It faces the concrete where he has a collection of items. Just a few blocks along is a drug store with a pair of bus benches on the sidewalk. Four guys take up both benches. None are waiting for a bus. Three are in overcoats. One is in a white T-shirt, mirrored sunglasses, and spikey moussed hair.
The hail turned into light rain before it turned to wet snow. We didn't get a lot, but the next morning, I decided to leave the bike at home and jump on a bus to work. Onboard is a guy sitting up front. He's one of these passengers rattling off his life story to the driver. The guy, in camouflaged pants, tells the driver that his parents were "city slickers" who "never liked the outdoors." Let me guess, they never bought him the camouflaged pants he always wanted. He claims that he learned to ride a horse. That his brother didn't want to continue the family tradition of military service, specifically the US Navy, so he himself enlisted. That his brother did join the SEALS...which is a part of the US Navy. That his brother told him he was deploying to the Middle East, but he was unable to say anything about his mission. He claims he told his brother, "Well, you'll be working for the CIA. We know that, because of what everyone knows about the SEALS. The following morning, the wet snow has mostly melted off the street and bike trail, and I do the entire ride to work. When I get there, my coworker tells me another story from her own life, which relates to what I will refer to as the socioeconomic gulf between us. A relative of my coworker's husband had lost her husband. who passed away. So, to make ends meet, she's renting a room to a couple of guys. One has been trying to enter her bedroom at 3 AM. He put a ladder up to her window at 4 AM. My coworker's husband went over to beat up the guy. My coworker's story continues to tumble out. Her husband asked her to come along with him, on his task of administering a beating to his relative's tenant. His reasoning was, he needed her as a witness to why he was going to beat the guy up. She declined. Wednesday evening. I get the strangest call from my coworker. It's a jumble of unassorted facts. She needs me to work all day for her tomorrow. By Friday, I will end up forgetting that I worked the entire previous day. But I'm already getting ahead of myself. Which is easy to do when you live a life such as mine. You blink, and suddenly you're ahead of where you were a couple of days before.
On Wednesday evening, she tells me that she had a DUI some time ago. She claims that her license was suspended after that, about a year ago, and she claims that she had no idea that it was suspended. On Friday, she will blame her husband for perhaps throwing away a letter informing her of the suspension. Well, she found out her license was suspended on her way home from work Wednesday. She was pulled over because her tags were expired. One could argue that, had her tags not been expired, it's possible she would have never known her license was suspended. That's the first entanglement of her story unwound. On Wednesday evening's call, she then takes a stab at how this may play out. She believes that in the process of being sentenced (Friday she will let me in on the date of her hearing, April 29th. Exactly one month from today.), she will either be given an ankle monitor, or 30 to 40 days in jail. So, Thursday, she has a lot to do. Namely get to work unsuspending her license. When I do see her again on Friday, she tells me that she must have her license unsuspended by the time of the hearing at the end of next month. Or else, there ain't gonna be no ankle monitor. And instead of 40 days, it'll be 51 in the lockup. But she sounds confident. As near as I can tell, her license was suspended for not taking a DUI class. She's not sure. Perhaps the mysterious letter tossed out by the husband, besides letting her know about the suspension, was alerting her to this class as a requirement to get her license back. That's a paragraph and a half here to explain why she needs the day off. The good news is, she can take this class online. Just something else to do on your phone. Now, about my open to close shift on Thursday. We moved into our current retail space last August. Next to our space, on the end of the strip of shops, was a restaurant. I ate there before work when I first began working on this corner on a regular basis, back in 2015. Jesus, almost ten years ago. A decade ahead of myself. It was around at least since the 1960s or 70s. Last year, the owners finally called it quits. Someone else began doing construction inside after the restaurant left. Whoever it was neglected to file the appropriate paperwork with the city, and were ordered to stop construction. From last August until the middle of last week, a parade of potential new business owners have been here to look at the place. But as far as construction noise from the inside, all that has been heard are crickets.
Well, Wednesday of last week, and for the following couple of days, I listened to more banging and drilling than I'd ever heard inside. The name of a new restaurant was put up above the front. Graphics listing the hours of operation appeared on the front door. Butcher paper inside covered all the glass facing the street. There were guys who were part of a crew working on the inside. There was a young couple who appeared to perhaps be the owners. There were some guys who appeared as if perhaps they were Italian, and sounded as if they were speaking Italian, who may be the staff. Then, Wednesday of this week, I watched a small pickup truck pull into a space in front. A lone city employee got out and glanced at the place. He briefly walked toward the other end of the strip mall and then came back. And with that, he was gone. Thursday. I roll up to our door. I notice a red laminated piece of paper on the concrete next door. It's another stop work order from the city. It mentions a specific permit which has not been signed. I take it and stand it up against a door frame. It's not long after we open that I watch a vehicle with four guys pull up and get out. They are of varying ages, from grey-haired to twentysomething. They are all sucking toothpicks, and all appear to be Italian. They all bend down in a huddle to read the red laminated paper. The they shortly proceed to take out scaffolding from the inside. They leave. I watch a male half of the young couple pull up. He's on the phone for a while before he goes inside. I hear more noise. He leaves. I peek next door. He took down the butcher paper. It's stuffed into a five-gallon plastic bucket. The following day, a long guy pulls up and briefly goes inside for a short while. The following day bringing us back to Friday. i awake having entirely forgotten that I worked from open to close just yesterday. I have a busy morning. I stop by the bank to withdraw more money from another big check, from all the hours I've been working. Some of it will be stashed away. Some is for bus fare. But I didn't realize I would get here before they open. I decide to grab breakfast down the avenue, as I left the house without it. On the busy corner is a handbill, posted with all the others on the pole for the streetlight. I don't stop to read it. The headline is in English. Something about the Colorado Communist Party. There's a line drawing of Lenin. The text is in Spanish. I grab breakfast and return to the bank, where I collect my withdrawal. Then I'm off to a rec center which I used to frequent. I pick up a season pass for the waterpark. I get it early at a discount.
I get to work to find out that my coworker called me to see if I could have come in two hours early instead of one. She fills me in on more of her license troubles as detailed above. Not car troubles this time, but license trouble. After work, I'm on the way home down a street not yet in proximity to the trail. It's a way I've been taking home to avoid the massive hills further across town. I make the decision that I can still make it to a supermarket to pick up a grocery item I can find only there. I arrive and lock up the bike. Sunday is Easter. We've already blasted all the way through yet another month. Inside I also grab some milk, and I ask my first clerk if they have any Easter egg coloring kits. I decide to color some eggs and give them to my lady, who I expect to see this Sunday. "Coloring books?" she replies. No. I explain. She directs me to the back of the store, where I find no kits. I find clerk number two, a manager, who looks on her phone. She directs me back to the same place to wait for clerk number three. The third one also searches her phone, and finds an egg stencil kit, of which they are out of stock. I ask about food coloring. Aisle W6. I look there but find no food coloring. I run into the first clerk again, who checks her phone. She finds me food coloring. My lady messages me that she won't be free to go out for another two weeks. So I won't need the eggs or food coloring anyway. Which doesn't bother me. I'm just glad to have her. From the supermarket, I decide to head home on the train, just on the other side of the highway. I step onto a car near a pair of chatty elderly couples. They're headed downtown form something doing there. I'm going three stops along the line. At the first, a young guy carries his skateboard onto the train. He sits across from the elderly couple, his blonde dreadlocks and lip piercings facing the floor as they continue to chatter. At the second stop, he bends his way past me out the exit. He asks me if I'm getting out, he apologizes, and he compliments my bike. If he exited a door where bicycles don't go anywhere near, instead of one of two ends of the car, he wouldn't have to squeeze past anyone. It takes what feels as if it's the better part of a minute before another young guy comes casually running up to the door, a couple of yards at most from the bench he stood next to when the train pulled up. He presses a button outside to open it. He has his own bicycle in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other. On a bench on the platform, he leaves a zippered case, and he mentions having to leave something behind.
In her nearly ten years [, the] Denver District Attorney...has never seen a murder defendant as the one accused...last January. On January 27...on [a transit system] bus heading along [the boulevard upon which I live] the thirteen-year-old got upset that [a] sixty-year-old grandfather...was blocking an aisle with his leg. "...there was a verbal exchange." [The kid] pulled out a handgun and shot [him] multiple times. [I was down the very same boulevard from home, at the supermarket at the time this happened, having taken the very same bus.] ...similar stories have grabbed headlines across Colorado over the past few years. ...last month, [a] sixteen-year-old...was...acting as a lookout during a vehicle break-in [when he] shot and killed a nineteen-year-old girl as she was driving by... In Denver [county, where the bus shooting took place, a fourteen-year-old shot and killed] "a young mother." ...in February of 2021. [The two vehicles tapped each other] "and he got out of the car with a long rifle" [, firing multiple times at her window and into her head, blowing the top of her head off and exposing her brain. He and the eighteen-year-old driver of the vehicle he exited] were gang members. [I remember reading about the victim, a 32-year-old single mom of a six-year-old at the time. She was coming home from dinner, having just celebrated with a friend. She had her real estate license and was beginning her own career as an agent. He professional Facebook page is still up, waiting to hear from clients who will never have a chance to meet her. The pair were arrested, if I'm not mistaken, the same day. The previous day, they had gone to the McDonalds up the street from where I live. Where I used to go in every morning before catching the bus to work], before I commuted by bike. That day, they fired off rounds through the drive through window. After the murder, they came right back down my boulevard, past my home, headed toward that same McDonalds. A policewoman investigating the drive through shooting had a description of their vehicle. She happened to be out on my boulevard when they went right past her, in the same vehicle. She pursued, they stopped and bailed out, and were arrested after a chase. In their back seat, not hidden but simply laying on the set, were a pair of AR-15 assault rifles.] - Westword, 3/28-4/3/2024
Saturday. I'm up too early and won't get back to sleep. Which means that I have plenty of time to ride all the way to work. I put some air in my tires and I'm out the door in the dark. My headlamp is out of power. I'm headed down a street as far as it will take me. I'm at a stop sign not far along, when a homeless camper passes in front of me. I don't recall any tail or headlights. And the steering appears to be very loose as it attempts to stay in its lane. On the opposite side of the street, a dark clothed figure is coming along the sidewalk. When the camper goes past, the figure is now walking back the opposite direction. I continue down the street, and across to another one and down that one. I turn toward the tail for the short ride there. I stop where I enter it, at the same spot where I was the last time, to do the same thing. I take off my tail and head lamps. The sun is rising. Last time I did so, s literal street poet came walking up the street speaking out loud. This morning, someone else comes from the opposite direction. He pulls a collapsable shopping cart. It rattles as he makes his way down the trail. He stops every few yards to pick something tiny off the ground, and put it in his cart. He's up ahead, beneath an overpass, when I get going and pass him. A lawn sing announces some kind of event today out on the trail. I'm past the supermarket I stopped into yesterday, the item I picked up packed in the bag on my back rack. I take the trail to a connecting one, and then exit onto the street. I stop at another supermarket along the way to work, for more groceries for work and a copy of a local newspaper. The following day is Easter, where my sister finds us a small and fantastically delicious brunch, tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood. From here on out, I expect the days will slowly become more temperate as the Spring descends. Tere are already buds on trees. My coworker wants me to work for her again tomorrow. April Fool's Day. I'm opening. No foolin'.
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