16th and K

Yes! I'm back at it again. Two days in a row. I am doing so good. I think I'll just tell stories that were told to me or that happened to me, but later, maybe, I may tell a made up story from scratch. For today I will tell you two anecdotes from my experience.

When I was living in San Diego I would walk from my apartment on 16th and K to San Diego City Community College. On 16th street there was a homeless shelter and since I had to walk that street I would often see homeless people on my walk to and from the college. For the most part the people I came across were harmless and they would barely acknowledge my existence so I never felt threatened. In fact, most of the people I saw on the streets sleeping I saw regularly so it was a bit comforting for me to see familiar faces in a town where I didn't know very many people.

P.L.L.
The person I remember most from this time was the parking lot lady. Yes, I know I am a terrible person for never asking her name, but you have to understand this about her; she had demons inside of her. The thing about parking lot lady was that I don't believe she was actually homeless. I once saw her get dropped off from a car one early morning when I looked out my bedroom window. She got out of a car and then she walked over to the parking lot and took her regular post. Anyway, parking lot lady or PLL for short, would sit on the sidewalk all day and say "Good Morning, baby, you got a quarter?" and then I would either giver her a quarter or say no and be off. Now, it did not matter whether you gave her a quarter or not. If you gave her a quarter she would either say "Oh, thank you baby!" and perhaps give you a hearty chuckle and you would be on your way OR she would say "MOTHERFUCKING BITCH, BITCH-ASS, FUCK YOU, FUCK. AINT NOBODY NEED YOU! BITCH!GODDAMN" The first time I heard her string of bitch fucks, I thought she was cursing me out and I felt very threatened, however as she spit out her words it became very clear that she was not talking to me. I soon realized that she was just cursing out the demons that resided in her ample body. Each "BITCH" and "FUCK" would lurch a small part of them out of her body. This helped her to heal. Soon enough, I was used to her cursing and I did not feel threatened by her cursing towards me anymore.

Puta Lady
One morning, as I walked to school, I saw a woman on 16th street having a particularly intense conversation with herself on the sidewalk. She looked very upset and at that point it had been my experience that people who talk to themselves must be left alone to work out whatever it is they need to talk about. Since she was leaning up against the wall, I thought I would give her some more space and started to go to the right side of the sidewalk so as to not run into her.  As I got closer to her I could see that she was looking at me. Now, again, my experience has been that if a person is talking to themselves and seems to be looking at you they are actually looking past you. They have transcended time and space you are but a nothing to them. She soon started walking towards me, or so it seemed. As she walked towards me I could here her say "Yes, you puta!" I tried not to look at her because she wasn't talking to me and it is rude to eavesdrop so I looked down at the sidewalk. Soon after though, I felt my peripherals catch that she started to walk faster and what seemed to me more decisively towards me. At that point I stopped looking at the sidewalk and looked up. The whole time she is saying "You better not fuck with my man PUTA!"As I looked up I really felt that I too had transcended time and space. Like that scene from the Matrix, I saw it all in very slow motion. I saw her face scrunch up and her arm swing back to cock her fist. Then she very carefully and purposefully guided her first through the heavy air and begin her strike towards my face. As she made the passage from the air to my face I looked at her her wrinkled sunburned face, her blonde dry hair, her grimy white peasant top. I looked at the clear blue sky and noticed that the Goodwill store was about to open. I could hear the cars on highway 5 in the distance and then I looked at her fist again, now more than midway through its journey to my face. At that moment as I looked at her fist inching closer and closer I thought about life in general and how its not fair that some of us our lucky and some of us are putas. I blinked and when my eyes opened again the first was about 2 inches away from my right cheek I looked to my right and watched the fist zoomed past me. I had avoided a fist to the face. As I watched the fist miss its intended target time quickly returned to its normal speed and I quickly took a large step to the left and quickly walked away from her.

Later that day, I called my mom back in Dallas. I told her what happened that morning. I told her that I had seen this lady before but she never even looked at me before. Puta lady used to sleep on the side of a thrift store in a little nook. I always saw her asleep covered in her red blanket until that day she tried to punch me. My mom told me that next time I saw her I should throw a lit match at her while she was sleeping. I didn't do that because I'm less of an asshole than my mom is, I guess. Plus lighting her on fire would be a pretty extreme measure to get her back for almost punching me.

That's all I have for today. Please join me next time, hopefully tomorrow, for another story.