In Another Life

You may have figured out that the Olympics turn me into a 14-year old girl in a Verizon commercial. "OMG! They're so cute I could just die!"

I look at these guys and I have to take their enthusiam and brio and talent and try to let it color the glasses I wear when I peer out in the world.  This morning I couldn't help but notice a  latin "homie"-- shaved head, mustache, looking exactly like so many of the guys I was in prison with--cleaning out and organizing his car, parked on the street.  It was a little odd that he was here at all, but the Armenian junkie/dealers I have complained so much about have been vamoose for an entire week now.  I would like to think I won the sign wars and this is the reason for their absence, but more likely they're doing a few weeks at County. In any case, this guy would normally be considered on someone else's turf, and I doubt would have been engaged in such domestic housekeeping if the homeboys were hanging about.

You could tell he was high as a kite, but in that "good" way I knew well but less and less often as the years went by.  The endorphins and the speed were meshing in such a way that he felt really good but really industrious. He knew he was a little too lit up to drive but wanted to feel productive, like he was doing something purposeful, so he pulled everything out of his aging red musclecar, and cleaned and repacked it, in a way that made me think he imagined himself on camera as he was doing it.

I first saw him from the other side of the street, and was carefully not to check him out too closely even though I felt his eyes on me.  I wasn't yet sure whether they were hostile or friendly, but I think they were just curious. Picking up trash while walking the dog still appears very bizarre to the uninitiated. I'm sure. I went around the corner, filled and tossed another bag of trash, and eventually had to cross back next to where he was, rather close to my building.

He had tossed a plastic cup full of torn up pieces of paper, which I didn't mind picking up, because he said "Hey, dawg" as I passed, and it gave me a gesture with with to punctuate my return "good morning."   Then he said, all friendly-like: "Doin' a run?"

Street slang and prisonese is full of vague expressions to cover all sort of things.  "A run" is normally used to mean going to get or sell drugs, which clearly I wasn't doing, but was the only word he could find to connect us.  See, he was cleaning his car and being friendly, I was cleaning the street and another nice guy, he could tell, so we had common ground. I know this was how he felt, because I know that high so well. It's great for a little bit, then turns sour, because in about an hour his teeth will be grindy and the neighborhood won't look so interesting, and when he tries to recapture the high he won't be able to. He'll feel the tiredness under the surface from having been up all night, feel the guilt from having disappointed someone, probably a girlfirend or a child.  If I walked by again, he'd be more likely to think "faggot" than "friend."

There's no Hollywood ending here.  I responded by redefining run: "I just clean up a little in the morning" to which he nodded sagely, as if he did exactly the same all the time.  I couldn't keep the conversation going even if I wanted to , because as bad luck would have it, I woke up this morning with a case of the runs, and had to make very quick time back to the apartment.

I was glad I didn't cross the street to avoid him though.  Even one moment of connection with a stranger is a moment of connection.

MCO 2008.