Drive-by Meet and Greet

The rogue WiFi signal coming from the Day’s Inn was booming that night.  I was laying on the bed of my camper taking advantage of the normally fickle signal.  Relaxed by a half a bottle of cheap pinot noir and a wad of Grizzly straight chewing tobacco that delivered warm nicotine from my gums directly to my heart then back to my brain.  That’s when I heard, “bang, bang-bang bang, bang, bang-bang!  Anyone else would have been surprised, would have known, not me.  I thought the shots were fire crackers.  You see, I was new to Chula Vista.  In Oaxaca, Mexico, where I came from, where I had been living for the past year and a half, rude explosions throughout the night were the norm.  In Mexico there is no such thing as a city ordinance against noise, or fire crackers-and let me tell you, Mexicans take advantage of that fact.  It wasn’t until I saw the blue lights bouncing off the walls of my camper and heard the sirens that I realized those crisp explosions were gun shots.
 
    I jumped into my dirty jeans and slipped on my fake crocs to go outside and investigate.  I walked through the trailer park, Fogerty Brothers trailer park on Broadway and E street towards the blue lights.  My neighbors were already gathered together on Broadway gossiping and pointing, a motley crew.  As I found out that night, nothing brings a trailer park together like a drive by shooting.  There were about seven cop cars lined up across Broadway, in front of a Mexican restaurant, their lights were flashing like blinding blue lightening.
“What happened?” I asked Bruce, the boyfriend of the Park’s manager, Michelle.
“Just a drive by,” Bruce said with his normal grin.
“Anyone hit?” I asked trying to be as nonchalant as him, a longtime veteran of Chula Vista and the trailer park.
“Nope, I think they tagged that Explorer though, I think I see some holes in the side panel there.”
Embolden by the pinot noir, I left my pack of neighbors and headed closer to see if I could get substantiated information.  I stopped about ten feet from the supposedly wounded Ford Explorer.  I couldn’t see any holes in it at all but a man was lying in the back seat and a cop was scribbling on his clip-boards.  I asked one of the cops what happened.  He ignored me.
“Can’t tell me anything, huh, ongoing investigation?” I asked.
He nodded, and walked away from me.
I walked back to my group of neighbors and they all wanted to know what information the cop gave me.  I was an anomaly, nobody had even considered walking up to the cops to ask what happened, a lot of the people in the park have good reason to stay far away from the police, but I have nothing to worry about, I have never been caught.
We all stood gathered together and I shook hands and introduced myself to some of the neighbors that I still hadn’t met.  The drive-by was like a meet and greet.  Stories were recounted of past drive-by shootings and the party lasted about half an hour, the blue strobe lights were still gleaming when I said goodnight and headed back to the camper, the rouge WiFi, my pinot noir and Grizzly straight.      

Homeless, Hungry and Horny

This morning when I was walking down the street looking forward to my morning coffee, I ran into a group of homeless folks.  Not an uncommon occurrence in my adopted city of Chula Vista.  After a few months of  riding my bike around and then a couple months walking around (my bike tires got stolen) you start to recognize the local riffraff.  There is the guy that is always hanging around 7-11 who asks for change.  I often see that grizzly old man when I go to pick up a movie from the Red Box vending machine.  The last time I saw him he said he was hungry and asked if I had any spare change.  I was in a good mood because my body was still full of endorphins from the gym so I emptied my pockets.  Then we both walked into 7-11.  He didn’t even try to hide his lie and I spent 10 minutes waiting behind him in line as he counted out change for his Steel Reserve that he would soon be “eating.”
The other day I was on a pay-phone outside of Chevron with my bank.  I was on hold a long time.  That’s when a group of homeless ladies came walking by.  I tell you what, there are few times in your life when you get to feel like a rock star but that group of inebriated women walked by me and gave me so much attention I felt like Mick Jagger.  Well, actually maybe I should say like Eminem because that is who the said I looked like.  I wanted to run away but I had been on hold for almost 20 minutes and I would just have to wait again.  So I stood there, the phone to my ear, a shy smile and took in the compliments.  They even got a little physical giving my butt a slap.  They eventually started to move on but one of the women turned around.  The others teased her but she wanted to talk with me some more.  When she was alone with me the flirting turned to crying. She told me in an incoherent way about her awful life.  That was horribly depressing.
Today my encounter with the homeless inspires the title to my Blog.  I was walking behind the new tamale shop where I encountered a group of four women and one older man, a diverse group, White, Black, Hispanic.  They were passing around a Colt 45 and I don’t think it was their first of the morning.
     They asked me, “Hey buddy can you spare any change?”
     "Not right now," I answered in a pleasant demeanor.
“We are homeless,” one of them said.
“I live in a trailer,” I told them shrugging my shoulders.
“You cute,” the black lady said.  She had on a tight, pink shirt and obviously wasn’t wearing a bra.
Apparently I am very attractive to homeless women as this has been happening a lot.  I kept walking.     Then the old man said.
“You can’t even spare a dick?”
     I kept walking when the black woman yelled out one more time.
“Come on we are homeless, hungry and horny.”  Then she reflected on what she had just said. “Damn that would be a good title for a book.”
I turned around and said, “yeah your right!”                          
“Thanks,” she said with a smile.

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