It was now around 5:30, so buses were already delivering workers downtown. Many got off one, just to wait for another. Most of these early risers were Hispanic, I noticed. In the orange glow of the still-lit street lights, they hurried past Broadway's clothing stores, electronics shops, restaurants and botanicas. A black sanitation worker swept, while a white cop on a Segway woke up a sleeping woman, "You have to move on." She sat up groggily, a middle-aged woman all alone on a dirty sidewalk, but plopped right down as soon as he was gone. To prevent it from being stolen, she was lying on the handle of her collapsible shopping cart.
It was now light, and I had made my way to Skid Row. Nearly five thousand homeless people live here. On sidewalk after sidewalk, they have set up their crude dwellings made up mostly of tarps and cardboard. I saw shopping carts all over, and a few bicycles. Bodies lay on cardboard, bedding or sometimes just concrete, but trash was generally confined to trash cans. There was a commotion at 5th and Gladys, with cops and an ambulance, and people were speculating that it might have been a stabbing.
I talked to Fred, a Hispanic man in his mid forties, and he said he would have to move to another block since one of his neighbors was too volatile, and perhaps not quite right in the head, "I just don't feel safe around that guy." I offered to buy him a beer, but he said he had stopped drinking. "If I had one, then I'd need another, then another," he chuckled. Then how about a coffee? No, he said. He didn't need anything.
In LA's Skid Row, destitution is on vivid display and goes on for block after bustling block. Warmly lit by the Southern California sun, squalor is bright and lively here. Even in winter, a light coat is sufficient, and most folks don't need to wear two or three pairs of pants to keep warm. Stores and restaurants are few and not of the best quality, of course, but you can also get what you need from an underground economy. If your pants are too raggedy, you can buy a new pairs, for no more than $5, from this man right here, and this upstart entrepreneur ambling around with a slightly used blanket will let you have it for $2, after some haggling. I saw a security guard buy a charity shirt from a homeless guy, which didn't surprise me in the least, for the rent-a-cop lived on a fixed budget too. One pink slip and he might end up on Skid Row.
I walked for a few blocks, but could find no store that sold beer, for having eaten only a boston crà ¨me for breakfast, I was getting hungry again, and since I didn't want to waste time in some eatery, at least not yet, a cold, tall can of yeast would have to do. I hollered at a random dude, "Yo, where can you get some beer around here?" Follow me, he said, then led me to a fat man sitting on a folding chair next to a cooler, from whom I bought a Colt-45 for me and a Steel Reserve, alcohol content 6%, no less, for my guide. They cost but $1.50 a piece, though after dark, it would be $2.
It was thus I met Jay, who told me he had worked all sorts of jobs, at a store, in a factory making aluminum siding, and as security guard at a warehouse. He had a wife who stayed at home, and had a lover, or lovers, he suspected, for she was becoming increasingly distant towards him, and when he got home early one day, said to him, "What are you doing here?" in a way that irritated him to no end, and from which he never recovered. He finally placed his wedding ring and a brief yet carefully worded note on his pillow, and left before she woke up. They never saw each other again. Jay then boasted of other women, and of a threesome escapade, after which he was tipped $200 by one of his lovers.
"What about the other one?"
"She liked it too."
"But two hundred bucks?! Man, come on, you got to be shittin' me!"
"You know what they say, Once you try black, you'll never go back."
O, why was I born a scrounging shadow of a poet, and not a resplendent and strutting gigolo? And with my luck, my threesome would have me permanently locked in a room, No Exit style, with my mother and mother-in-law, Herr Doktor Freud.
Continuing my interrogation, I then asked, "Hey, how do you get p*ssy on Skid Row?"
"For you?"
"No, for you."
"sh*t, man, it is easier to get p*ssy here than it is to get food!" Jay did add, "It won't be high grade p*ssy, but it is still p*ssy."
Leaving Jay, I thought I had exhausted this line of inquiry, but then I met Johnny Velasco. Clean and trim, Johnny looked younger than his 53 years, and his living area was also neat and clean. Mike, in a blue muscle T and blue Nike cap, worn backward, sat on a canvas chair. Peacefully dozing, he never got up to burp a single word, even as Johnny waxed insanities about him. Per Johnny, Mike was the coolest guy the world, practically, "He's like the Dos Equis man! Women come down from Brentwood to pick him up!"
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
