Packing Much Into a Few Hours

My struggles continue.  I know, I know, you have your own to crab about, but I am going to try to make mine entertaining.  I wish to perform the old literary trick, you know. . . to inform AND to delight.  Therein lies the art of things, or so they say.  That's what I was told, anyway, in the hallowed halls of enlightenment.  Besides, the horror here onstage are meant to purge you of your own fears once you leave the auditorium.  You'll feel better once the tale is told.  That is what they preached in the old hallowed halls, too.  I must warn you, though.  If you are sensitive to strong language or sexual content, you may want to stop here.  Some of what is to follow may offend your social sensibilities, too.  I am not sure.  I haven't written it yet.  

On Saturday night, I went to bed tired.  On Sunday morning, I got up tired.  Something is killing me, but it is hard to pin down.  I can only blame it on the long haul effects of Covid which I shouldn't experience having been vaccinated and all, though some of you careful readers have reflected that I must have had Covid at least four times according to the blog.  O.K.  That's fair.  But the last time, I was tested.  You needn't beat me while I'm down.  

First thing, I got a text from Q correcting me on some factual details.  He loves to correct me and I know he will treat me badly when I am on canes or in a wheelchair.  He has no affection for those who must suffer.  But writing the blog had taken the last shreds of energy from me and I was not prepared for witty repartee, so I took myself back to bed.  When I got up the second time, I felt no better, so I decided to eat a big breakfast.  I cooked up some eggs and sausage and ate it with gusto.  After polishing off the plate, though, I was once again overwhelmed by fatigue.  I went back to bed.  

I rose again in the afternoon.  I didn't want to, but I felt some silly duty.  I staggered around the house without purpose, bored by the season's hum, disinterested.  What?  C'mon, pal.  You've got to get out of the house.  Remember yesterday?  Remember?

So I put on some clothes, grabbed my camera bag, and headed out the door.  Once in the car, motor running, I felt a wave of nausea come over me.  Where was I going?  I hadn't a clue.  So I just pointed the car in the same direction I took the day before.  I would pick up on that stretch of dreadful highway where I had previously ended.  

Bingo!

Trouble was, I was heading into dangerous territory, and I wondered where in the hell I could leave my car?  I turned off the highway into a neighborhood I'd never been in before. In just a few blocks, the world was transformed into a picturesque old neighborhood with nice houses, manicured lawns and the beginnings of Christmas decorations.  The street looked safe enough.  I parked on the side of the street, grabbed my camera bag, and walked back into the throng.  

On the corner of the highway where I had turned was an old hotel that used to be a nice one when I was a kid.  Now, however, it was a beehive of drug addicts and prostitutes.  And this was not a small place.  Nope.  It covered many acres with over a hundred rooms.  Now it looked like something that had been abandoned.  Dangerous looking characters hung out on walkways and in the parking lot.  I passed what surely was a pimp and one of his girls.  I tried to look like I knew what I was doing, tried to look like I hung here all the time.  

Good luck, white boy.  

On the opposite side of the street was a minimart/gas station where a bunch of "brothers" hung.  They were shouting and waving and running up to cars.  The parking lot was teeming with what the signs politely call "loiterers."  I don't think anyone was enforcing the rules over there.  I grew up in a rough place, and I knew the vibe, the people, the activities.  And I know it can be dangerous.  All it takes is a tiny bit of blood in the water and heads start to jerk and limbs start to twitch, and in the flash of an eye a person can get caught up in something that will make them wish they had stayed home.  Just don't look like a wounded fish, I told myself.  Act like you know what you're doing.  Act like you belong.  

I had gone some distance from where I ended my photo journey the day before, so I walked back in that direction which was good as there were not so many people on the street.  I was carrying two Leica's and an expensive camera bag (link).  An old fat man with bling.  Fuck yea.  I looked like I knew what I was doing, alright.  But like I say, it felt o.k. as I was walking away from the crowd.  

I was taking pictures, but they were as they have been, buildings and things, frames devoid of humans.  But, I told myself, I was out of my neighborhood, away from all the privileged, glossy looking things.  Maybe there would be some grit to these black and white images.  If I were lucky.  Maybe.  I could only hope.  The street was littered with run down buildings that housed medical facilities for those who had ruined their livers or had run afoul of some sexual virus.  There were the sort of legal offices that looked like they housed movie versions of schlemiel attorneys representing the poor.  There were posters echoing the voice of the people.  

And, of course, there were spiritual houses that offered in big letters--HOPE!  

None of this was outstanding I knew as I walked the sparsely trafficked Sunday afternoon highway.  

It was cold, and I guess I had been a little "tense" earlier, and suddenly I really had to pee.  Across the highway was an abandoned building covered in spray paint.  "I'll just hop over there and relieve myself," I thought.  I wouldn't be the first to do so, I was sure.  I crossed over to the building taking pictures as I approached the back lot of the place.  And as I passed a gap between the larger building and a smaller outbuilding, I saw a guy.  No, it was two guys.  A white guy was sitting on an overturned bucket.  A black guy was kind of hovering over him.  Wait.  What?  Oh, shit. . . I backed away quickly.  The white boy was giving the black guy a blow job.  Yup.  I'd stumbled onto some young love.  Either that or they were playing "prison."  Whatever it was, I was tiptoeing out of there as fast as I could.  Shit, shit, shit. . . I didn't want to see that. 

I crossed back over the highway thinking I didn't really need to pee that bad, and moved on up the street toward yesterday's destination.  In a little bit, though, I saw something curious and crossed back over.  I don't remember what it was now, but as I wandered off the highway a few blocks, I came to the sign at the head of the blog.  I had entered a Drug and Prostitution Free Zone.  I couldn't remember having ever been in one before.  I didn't even know the city had such a thing.  But there it was in big letters boldly announced by the Proper Authorities.  I chuckled thinking of someone looking for the free prostitutes, maybe stopping to ask someone where they were, wondering if I could get my own little hometown to post some of those happy proclamations as well.

When I reached the far end of my journey, I turned around to walk the mile or so back to the car.  Once, coming back to the road from behind a crumbling building, I ran into a rough looking girl with a dirty face and some ragged clothes.  We made eye contact, and she started to say something, but then she shook her head and walked on.  When I got back on the sidewalk, she was talking to a tall Black fellow who had been following me down the street.  The two of them stood and talked for a minute.  If I had any balls, I thought, I'd go talk to them and try to get a photo, but though my balls have grown longer, they have gotten no larger, so I continued on my way.  As I was often pausing to take pictures, the Black fellow casually overtook me.  He had a bright face, dreads that looked well-tended, and an overcoat that looked fresh.

"Are you a photographer?" he asked as he approached, a good smile on his friendly face.  He wasn't homeless.  I wondered what he was doing.  Was he a social worker?  A "man of the cloth"?  

I looked at him with a wry smile and a shrug.  "I've got cameras. . . ."  

He laughed.  "I guess that was an obvious question," he said and passed saying, "Have a nice day."  When he was gone, I thought that I wasn't doing a very good job.  I mean, I should have engaged him a bit, found out a little about the place, maybe have taken his portrait.  Well, I consoled myself, you're just getting warmed up.  You'll get there.  You'll get better.  

When I got back to where I began, I passed a white guy, homeless and beat for sure, and with barely a glance he said to me, "You better put those cameras away.  These niggers will kill you for them."  That's when I realized a fellow across the street, part of the screaming parking lot crowd, was shouting and gesturing in my direction.  O.K. O.K.  I've taken enough photos, I thought as I slipped my camera back into its beautiful and elegant bag.  I wasn't in a place where I was going to get any help if the shit hit the fan.  I could feel my step quicken.  Just a block to where I turned by the Crack and Vagina Hotel, then a few more blocks.  I passed a group of fellows hanging around a garbage can without meeting their eyes.  Shit, I thought, I should be packing.  Just a little .22.  Nothing that would kill, but a deterrent nonetheless.  

Back in the car, the world seemed strange.  I sat for a moment before I started the engine.  Yea, I thought.  Yea.  

Heading back home, I drove through layers of increasing influence, abandoned buildings giving way to neighborhoods with broken cars, then the homes of more affluent working class, past the country club and onto streets where long legged young women jogged in halter tops and running shorts or walked their spaniels while talking on their cell phones.  

Little Kit Kat was waiting for me on the deck.  It was time to feed her and head over to my mother's for dinner.  I was hungry.  I was spent.  I grabbed a bottle of cold white wine.  I was ready to eat.  

But when I got to my mother's house, several neighbors were there.  Two women were talking in the driveway.  Their dogs were playing in the yard.  While they chatted in low tones to one another, I poured two glasses of wine and told my mother what I had just done.  

"And the white guy was pleasuring the black guy," I told her.  "I think I'll have nightmares."

"Me, too, just from your telling me," she said.  

When the women finished up with their hushed conversation, they came over to chat.  It turned out the the younger of the two had complications from her case of Covid and had to have her implants removed.  That  is how she explained it, anyway.  The women chatted about that for a few minutes, then my mother said, "My son just had an interesting day."

"No, uh-uh," I said to her.  WTF?  Mom wanted me to tell a cock and balls story to the neighbors?  No, no. . . uh-uh.  

I have to say, though, that my mother's neighbors tend to stay when I come over which is irritating to a hungry fellow.  All I wanted to do was eat dinner and get home, but the women stayed on.  Then, the woman who had just had her implants removed told me she needed someone to massage her breasts!  She is a woman in her forties, not unattractive, but I don't know her that well, and I was shocked.  My mother simply laughed, but I don't think the woman was kidding.  

"Well, ma. . . I think we ought to get those pork chops on," I said getting up from my chair, the neighbor women giving me the wistful eye.  

My mother had a good laugh about everything over dinner, but I can tell she thinks I need a girlfriend.  

I changed the subject.  

"You know I haven't eaten corn in like ten years since I had the case of diverticulitis.  But I ate that creamed corn at Thanksgiving and the next day with leftovers, and I didn't have any trouble.  So today, I went online and researched it a little bit, and everything I read--and I read an actual study, not just a report--said that popcorn did not have a detrimental effect, and, indeed, the study showed that people who ate popcorn were less likely to have bouts of diverticulitis.  They speculated that it was because popcorn is high in fiber.  So. . . I bought some popcorn at the grocery store today.  And remember the reports that claimed microwave popcorn caused cancer?  I researched that, too, and the harmful chemicals that were lining the inside of the bags have been removed.  I read about which brands of microwave popcorn were healthiest.  So tonight. . . ."

It was quite thrilling.  I love popcorn, but this would be my first taste in a decade.  I put the bag in the oven and listened to it pop.  It wasn't like massaging titties, but I have to say I was pretty darn excited.  

It had been quite a day, from Q to popcorn.  Not bad, I thought, for someone who spent most of his day sleeping.