The week ended nicely. Standing on a roof in east L.A. with Fernando watching the neighborhood fireworks. But sometimes I feel I don’t belong among the city folks.
Over in the valley there’s a bunch of flowers and candles strapped to the railing of the bridge on Fulton where that girl jumped or fell. I can’t do much but drive by.
Petey, the homeless guy who frequents my ally was sad. He’s got a softy downy beard that looks like a Mountain Man trapper from the 1880’s. He’s dark with soot as if he moonlights as a grease mechanic. I gathered he hadn’t had a good panhandling day.
“Can’t afford my Pillow!” (Let me translate: Pillow equals a 12-pack of super-cheap beer.)
I gave him my apples and 2-bucks. He started to cry. Petey’s not really a sentimental fellow so it must’ve been a different kind of tear. “Thanks, buddy.”
I try to unload my sack of groceries but my roommate has eight different kinds of mold-cultures growing in the fridge. She screams if I throw them out.
I gotta get outta here. I take a quick shower to try and wash off Petey’s despair and walk to the park with my notebook. I like to watch the Little Leaguer’s play but it’s too late in the evening for that.
I’m at the picnic bench that’s been drenched in purple paint from some art-project mishap weeks ago. A little kid stops as she tumbles by. She stares at me with this look. I can tell she’s absorbing something out of my eyes but I don’t know what. She cocks her head. Judas! She’s really staring me down! Then off she goes. “That was intense”, I think.
There’s a hot twenty-something lady with karate pads on. She’s punching the shit out of her personal trainer. The trainer moves behind her and puts his hands on her waist. The look on the lady’s face tells me that this touch happens once every session and she’s not happy about it.
A Daddy rolls a stroller past me and he looks at me with a calm question mark on his face. A little grin. He looks at me longer than a casual passerby should look. What am I? A monkey at the zoo? It happens about four times in ten minutes…these looks from strangers that hold way too long. Is my fly open or is my aura leaking vulnerability?
It’s gotta be one of the two and my zipper’s up…I checked.
All these families. “Shit, I forgot, I gotta get that plane ticket home so I can visit my Pop for his 70th.” I’ve been planning ahead fiscally, a new concept for me, so I can maybe meet up with Redhead when I get to Minneapolis. I really want to meet her. She sounds like a gas and my tank is due to be running out of fuel about then.
Sometimes I wonder why I go see an escort instead of spending the same cash at a single’s bar and play “Date Roulette”? The answer always comes back the same: I’ve been too long gamblin’ and the odds are stacked in the house’s favor, not mine. It’s a certain acceptance of what Sedona described in one of her posts (5-18-2004, I think) as accepting “compassion” particularly for “the ‘unlovely’ and the lonely”. I’m not overtly ‘unlovely’. It depends on where I’m walking. (I’m out of place on Rodeo Drive.) But at this public picnic table in the valley I usually go un-noticed. Not today for some reason…kids and dogs are sniffing ‘round my bench and really giving me the once over.
I usually, in a week of hard images like this, travel to a thought of someone who’s accepted me for me. You ever do that? Visit a provider in your head? (I thought so. I didn’t think I was the only one.)
I’m a normal guy ‘cause I’m not at all like anyone else. I’ve got loving friends, but not THAT kind of loving friend. I’ve got a fearless heart but that doesn’t make it any less scratchy. Sure I’m lonely but a provider doesn’t cure that. That’s not their business. What they CAN do is boost morale; Create some confidence even. And not to put too fine a point on it, but they can even stimulate a bit of self-awareness if they’re having a good day. These are no small skills to me. And when I can’t come up with the cash I soak in the thought of what’s coming. Bathe in a daydream so I can get the dust of living in this city out of my ears.
I feel guilty for not giving a donation to the lady for any lurid thoughts.
Haven’t you ever wanted to write a Thank-You Note to a woman just because she’s in your fantasy world? That’s all this is, my friends, a Thank-You Note. (I guess if every boy did that the Lady-Species would walk around in a perpetual state of angst!)
I hope, dear ladies, I won’t cause you unease when I say, “Thanks for being in my head!”
Thanks for working in shifts so skillfully! I’d like to send you all a royalty check. (What would that be filed under? Intellectual property?)
Thanks Octavia for cooking that terrific dinner for me and taking my hand in Powell’s Bookstore. Thanks Nettie for 15 years of wedded bliss. Thanks Sui Lin for introducing me to your little pet bunny…(oh, wait, that actually happened)….
Thanks Lily June for that unspeakably sexy thing you did on this very purple picnic table.
Thanks Redhead for asking me to the Homecoming Dance.
And Emma…thanks for… Oh, hell…I’ll start a new report on that one!
I’ve got a wee bit of Make-Believe involving most all of you. So at the risk of being accused of having a fickle fantasy world, perhaps I’ll post each of them, one at a time. That might be fun, huh? (I can’t wait to write about Cici.)
And while I thank the ladies, I’ll apologize to the gents who were hoping to get their rocks off when they started reading this. Next time I may succeed. (Especially if I start with Cici….wink.)
I’m home now and my roommate’s in the kitchen making some midnight mold. The candles on that bridge are lit for the dead girl. Petey’s asleep until dawn. I can hear him murmuring to himself through my bedroom window. Sometimes at 4 in the morning he stops murmuring and I find myself bolt upright from my sleep. I’m confused those nights. I don’t know why I’m awake. Then I check on him. Push my nose on the window.
All of that is out there. But I’ll stay in here tonight, in my head, with whoever’s available to talk. There are blooming flowers in that field, I swear. I just have to smell ‘em.
Love,
Jockeypants
