Yup, it's another hot & stifling day where the dying city of San Pablo meets the equally downward spiraling city of Richmond. Number 3 nationally in murder & auto thefts. California with the new Californios.
It's too hot to sit in the kitchen plugging away at work on the computer. the trouble with being self-employed is having to be self-disciplined. I have the self. I just need the discipline. Always looking for an excuse not to work.
I hear the volume suddenly increase from the apartment out my back door, and thank the Goddess Coatlicue that the black grandmother who lives there has such kick ass taste in music (in addition to being the unofficial block mother & go-to person for gossip). I don't date myself too much by that admission because she's a young grandmother. She used to work for the county, but got cut and now she's home all day. Her son used to live there also, but he's off somewhere with the army. Soon, I hear her daughter's voice and I know the free concert is over. Someone's going to get THAT lecture again, and it ain't grandma.
So it's time to go to the mercado. I go to get my shoes out of the bedroom & I hear Chris next door through the bedroom wall loudly speaking defensively in Vietnamese. That means he's on the phone with his mom & dad (at the same time). He's commented about it enough times so I know he's getting the lecture on "why haven't you found a job since the messaging service closed." THAT lecture. The thing is no one is hiring. He's recently been trying to get by on running martial arts sessions out of his apt-with mixed luck...but he dare not tell his mom & dad that. Oh, no. No way. De ninguna manera.
Thin walls, hot day, have to keep the doors & windows open, & too much noise coming in. Conversation coming in from over here & conversation coming in from outback. So I head outside & into the bright sun of Amerika.
Outside I pass Chris's torn-up & abandoned upholstered chair on the sidewalk-where it has been for the last 4 or 5 weeks. At least no one is sleeping in it today.
I cut across the street to head to the avenue and notice only 2 broken beer bottles in the street nearby. Plastic things lying about could be gloves for people who only have 1 finger or something else...so I quickly turn my gaze away from them.
I see Sergio's bike chained to the front door of the apartment (which he shares with 5 or 6 others) and wonder why he didn't go to the Home Depot's parking lot today to look for work.
As I turn the second corner I run into the Guatemalteco who has become a fixture on the spot. Today, for some reason, he's selling cotton candy. Normally, he or a younger member of his extended family take turns selling fruit there seated on a low embankment on the corner, until the owner of the house comes home & chases them away. "Q'ubole, Don Marcos." "¿Adónde vas?" "Al mercado." I don't ask him why he's trying to sell cotton candy instead of fruit today. Maybe reflects a dip in the stock market or something.
A little further on, I have to step into the street to bypass the old broken down Chevy station wagon that, seemingly for months, has been parked half in someone's driveway & half in the street. I see a tow sticker on it, but I could swear it has been there for a month. The newspapers that fill it up inside can just be made out through the caking of dirt on the windows. Probably waiting to get the money to fix the wagon so he can take it & sell the paper as scrap so he can fix the wagon so he can pay the ticket on the wagon for not being fixed cuz' he couldn't sell the papers...or got fired for not delivering them in the first place cuz' the wagon broke...or something. He's working on it though.
Across the street three Asian men are loading trash up on Toyota camper. Or what used to be a camper. I see the roof is about 80% torn off-and I guess the trash will be filled up soon past where the top used to be. A spray can supplied the advertisement painted on it, "hall" trash & a phone number. I look back in a minute & notice the entire left side of the truck itself is smashed in, & figure they salvaged the truck from the junk yard in order to use it for hauling junk. A piece of junk hauling junk. Being resourceful with less than minimum resources. I note the number and think about giving it to Chris-as the city won't haul stuff off the sidewalk.
I pass the crazy house that was apparently built or rebuilt some decades ago by someone who never met a 90 degree angle they liked. Their equally oddly designed & dilapitated fence was apparently plastered years ago with now faded bumperstickers with conservative anti-choice Christian themes. The amount of gang graffitti covering them now provides some needed camoflauge preventing me from rereading their messages.
I pass the usual foreclosure, for sale & for rent signs. All of which shout out that if you're thinking about the American dream, forget it. But there are dreams here other than the "American" one.
In the street nearby are some expended shells from someone's entertainment or mishandled business venture last night. Trickled down investment capital gone astray or awry.
Come to think of it, I haven't heard any shots fired for the last month. Have the price of bullets increased? Either that, or people have jobs now...nah...couldn't be that, or more likely I've just gotten so used to the sound I don't notice it anymore.
I sure heard when the last place I lived here got shot up with automatic fire just because my place was in the way of a quarrel next door. That was the beginning of a long quarrel, & that more than anything else made me move to this side of the city. The glamorous side.
Oh, here comes a man who I know has a business proposition. His eyes are all over the place & he's not looking at me as he talks. I can only understand enough of his English to make out "$20." "Next week I get my check, I'm flat." I don't know what the thing was he's selling, & if I'm lucky I'll never find out. Whatever it is, I hope he finds someone to buy it because he sure needs the money.
Almost to the avenue I carefully skirt around chalked words in pink pastel on the sidewalk, one of which looks like Ohlone, but is really "Oh, Kione." Whatever that means, it's not in recognition of the first humans here.
I'm in line at the mercado behind six people (used to never be more than 1 person at this time of day before the supermarket closed) and none of them are using cash. Each one in turn whips out their EBT cards & I'm glad they replaced food stamps...well, I'm going to have a little wait. Then, suddenly, I'm in heaven. I see a large pot of pozole on the counter and I buy a quart worth to take home, and I'm even luckier because they trust me enough to lend me a container for it.
I'm going home smiling & armed with fully-loaded pozole. I'm Charlie Potatoes. "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"
On the way back I pass the used car lot. As usual nowadays, the lot is jam packed with cars and not a customer or salesman in site. I haven't seen a customer there for as long as I can remember. The owner is a Palestinian Christian and a cool old gent who knows the worst and most stalest jokes ever. The ones Rodney Dangerfield rejected. I don't see him either. Oh, there he is laughing with the guy selling pirated music CDs on the sidewalk. I once bought a Banda Machos CD from him that turned out to be Elvis...I remember thinking to myself, "...him & John Wayne."
I get home & open my front door..and hear from out back something about "baby" and know that the lecture from grandmother is still in swing. But she's cooking something on the stove, & it sure smells good. My stomach voices it's agreement. I grab a slice of lemon, a gallon of red chile & then I sit down and eat my pozole. Hijo de su pinche perla (untranslatable)...I forgot to get cilantro & lettuce.
Ni modo, as long as I got pozole today I pretend I don't give a damn that the large Albertson's supermarket closed down. The store's gone, but every couple of days it seems I come across one of their old carts being utilized by someone.
Speaking of which, here comes the shopping cart guy who collects empty beer bottles. There's no sound in the world like the sound of that cart half-filled with bottles rolling acorss the cracks in the sidewalk. He's doing what he can to survive...and it seems like he does it all day long.
The sound of the cart finally fades away and now I hear the nostalgic sounds of Funkadelic coming from out back. Hearing "Tear the roof off the sucker"...makes me think of the roofless Toyota camper hauling junk. It also takes me back years to growing up in helLA in what is now Koreatown, & it just makes the posole taste all that much better.
Thank you, first peoples, for the joy of pozole.
Tlazocamatli (Gracias/thank you)
I have to admit, I love this place. Cities as rich in mixed cultural heritages as they are poor in resources, except the human kind.
No hombre, if people had themselves jobs, this would be a helluva neighborhood. Kinda' like America is supposed to be. Kinda' like it never was for everybody. Kinda' like it could be. Kinda' like it should be.