No Thanks

I street-park my car at work. There’s no lot, and the office is sufficiently on the edge of the downtown area that abundant street parking is available. I generally park about a block and a half away from the office. This morning I parked in my usual spot and started walking down the sidewalk with my computer in a bag hung over my shoulder and my bag lunch in my left hand. I noticed two people crossing the street in front of me, a man and a woman, both white. They stopped in the middle of the street in order to get her cigarette lit. At that particular moment there was no traffic, so it wasn’t especially dangerous, but it was a little strange. Stopping to do anything in the middle of a main artery is. The man, who appeared to be in his early 30s, had a shaved head and a long beige coat. The woman, who appeared to be in her 50s or possibly older, had straight, flaming red hair down to her waist. She wore buckets of makeup and very tight clothes. She was completely covered, perhaps even conservatively, but everything was extremely tight. They seemed oblivious to me for about 30 or 40 feet of sidewalk. He seemed to be gently coaching her along. They turned left, exactly where I turn left to get to the office. We both walked ten more feet of sidewalk in tandem. Then they realized that I was behind them, and politely stepped aside and smiled. I walked past briskly, smiled and said, “Good morning!” in as chipper a voice as I’m capable of doing. Chipper really isn’t my thing. I passed, and ten more feet of sidewalk passed. Then I heard a meek voice say, “Hey there!” and trail off. I tried to ignore it and keep moving. Almost immediately afterwards, a stronger voice reinforced the first, and repeated, “Hey there!” I stopped and turned around to find that the woman was right up behind me, the man standing about 15 feet back on the sidewalk. She was difficult to understand, but said, “Hi! You’re down here a lot, aren’t you?” I replied, “Yes, I work right over there.” Then she asked me a question that was feebly quiet and indecipherable. I said, “I’m sorry…?” She said what sounded to me like, “Did you take the train?” I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it, but it was definitely a question. So I said, “No. I’m sorry.” I’m pretty sure that, whatever she was asking, “no” was the appropriate answer. Then she smiled and said, “All right. Have a good day.” I said, “You do the same,” smiled back and went to work.

Street Parking

There’s free parking at my office. Rather, there’s abundant street parking nearby. The best place to park is on Penn Avenue. From where I park, it’s about a block and a half to the office. I leave my car down at the far end of the block because there are some row houses at the close end, numbered 2902 through 2908. There are just four small houses there, next to a compact industrial park with high cyclone fencing and razor wire. I park a substantial distance away from the houses, down by the razor wire, not because I’m afraid of the people in the houses or because I like razor wire, but as a courtesy to the people living there. They’re nice people. They have cars too. They also need places to park. The fact that they can’t afford to live someplace with a driveway or designated space doesn’t mean that they’re not entitled to park in front of their place of residence. There are often broken beer bottles on the sidewalk, likely from the bar across the street. There are childrens’ toys strewn about, and flyers with scantily clad women on them, advertising shitty clubs featuring music by shitty club DJs. Living there must be rough. It’s got to sting to have affluent Caucasians commute in from the suburbs, park their expensive luxury cars in front of your house, and take your space so they can have nice short walks to their well-paying office jobs. I appear to be the only commuter who has thought about this and deliberately decided to park far away, futile as that effort might be. The spaces in front of their houses are almost always filled with the very new and expensive cars of other commuters. The ironic thing is that my car is not a car that you would covet or envy. It’s seven years old and has over 100,000 miles on it. It wasn’t that impressive when it was brand new. I doubt that it would engender much resentment beyond the inconvenience that it would create by occupying one of their spaces. Regardless, I’ll continue parking at the far end of the street, leaving their spaces open, as I like to imagine they appreciate the gesture. They probably still resent me, though, and rightfully so. Who could blame them?

Bridge Angel

When you’re coming into town in the morning on the Ohio River Boulevard, and you take the Fort Duquesne Bridge, it’s quite congested. There’s lots of traffic spread out across four or five lanes, all going the same way. People are switching lanes and aligning themselves with whichever ramp they need to use to get to whatever part of town they’re destined for. The deck above moves in the opposite direction. I come into and out of town on the same bridge. In the morning, on the way in, light plays into the sides of the lower deck. As the lanes all split away in their various directions, the same morning light comes down in beams between the upper deck’s various ramps. It looks beautiful. This morning, as I took the far left ramp, towards the 10th Street Bypass, I saw an angel floating slowly down through the ramps of the upper deck, through the beams of light. I had never seen one before, so I didn’t know how to react. Impossibly slow and gently rotating, it was incredible. When I got closer, I could see that it was a giant sheet of newspaper, semi-crumpled, floating on its way down to the river. As I passed it, I looked in my rearview mirror and watched it descend below the rail between the divergent ramps. Bob Dylan kept on coaching me via the stereo. “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting’ there…” I drove on to work, and thought about my angel and my life and my place in the larger picture. It occurred to me that maybe the crumpled newspaper descending the decks of the Fort Duquesne Bridge on its way to the river wasn’t actually an angel at all, but instead a piece of toilet paper falling through the bridge’s crotch. Maybe the bridge was wiping its ass, trying to clean itself of us all.

Chevy S-10

There’s a Chevy S-10 crashed through the corner of a green rubberized cyclone fence that was rusting away through its chipped green rubber coating. There’s a little Chihuahua running around the truck, yapping victoriously at it, like he just kicked its ass. Quickly approaching cop lights and sirens light up the early dawn, amplifying the morning’s redness. Everything is a strawberry burn. Everybody is defeated and going to work.

Almost Woke From My Nightmare

Within my nightmare, I dreamed that I had awoken from it. It was a dream inside a nightmare. I dreamed that I was everything that I was supposed to be. I had lived up to my potential. All was right in my world. Not the entire world, just mine. I dreamed that I did something meaningful for a living and that I didn’t hate my job. I wasn’t backed into a corner. I wasn’t responsible for, or to, other people. I wasn’t a coward. I dreamed there was no mountain of mundane tasks. In my dream you were there with me. We were friends. It was great. I dreamed that I didn’t worry. It all came very easily. There was no alienation or strangeness. I dreamed there was no mistrust, no misgivings. I dreamed that I could sleep through the night. In my dream nothing was broken, and nobody was sick. There were no tumors and no need to be strong.