| dewy decimal |
2003-09-04 - 5:42 a.m.
After the gridlock traffic but before the photo retouching, I have to park my car 4 blocks away on Vineyard Boulevard. The walk to work this morning was littered with sounds, provincial drums and the jokes that fill the lulls. I move past the Chinese temples and rows of majong and domino games being played on the tables that follow the polluted stream. Past this, I leisurely move into a sunlit screen of rain, next to the homeless, the pimps, the skaters, the people who aren�t drinking coffee arranging professional coincidences. Our scribbly shadows dangle off our shoelaces onto the fried grass behind our steps. I just look straight ahead in respect of an unsaid public privacy. Never stare at a man caught in vanity, in his own reflection.
At work, a new A/C system was being installed. Torches fusing pipes. The smell of burning rubber with the clack clack of keyboards.
On my way back to the car I see a recurring character pacing the moss rock corner wall looking for tricks. Skinny but strong, a sickly terror. A dark skinned boy in a size 0 skirt. You think to yourself and teach yourself quickly on the skills of being unassuming. Comforted by my cigarette, I stay on my path that forges right on through that spot of illicit loitering. I do it everyday.
�Excuse me, you got an extra cigarette?�
I smile and retrieve one from my leather Puma clutch, in converse sneakers feeling like a yuppie,
�Thanks,� Head bobbing, swiveling side to side. With elbows tucked into ribs, she holds the stogie kissing-distance from her jaw. No frills. Shaken by life, oblivious to the shake now. Working on shoes that are always collapsing as she turns to look at what�s behind the smoke. Looking ambitiously for nothing.