Wednesday, July 19, 2017

And Then My Friend You Die Mannnn

I saw a security guard pumping the man's chest while I saw another telling him to "not leave us right now"just as the ambulance was pulling up. The medics hooked him to an EKG  put a pumpable breathing mask over his mouth and he was aliveish when they took him away soon after; uncovered with chest spontaneously moving. Whether it was an OD or simple heart attack I don't know though given the brevity of his resuscitation I would guess the former.

I had seen my grandparents slowly fade from cancer in their eighties and then my cousin from the same at much younger. But I had never before seen a non-elderly person (the man looked to be in his forties) on the frontier between death and life to maybe go either way. And I had just read a very emotionally affecting comic book about dogs trying to survive the human post-apocalypse in the Denver library where all of this went down. The combination made me lose my composure in a way I never do; openly weeping chanting Hail Mary's and just publicly acting the damn clown in sum.

And yet why the hell do I write of myself when my heart hasn't stopped lately? I usually only read the top three or four articles in the Denver Post and if the man died it would have made page eleven or so. If he had lived it would not have been mentioned at all. Justt another day of homeless junkie shit at the DPL. So your guess is as good as mine.

I seem to recall the nineties spike in heroin use (if that was even real instead of a moral panic) was more amusing to me than this one, probably because my own death was of course more distant. Here I've seen a man carrying a foily of brown about this very same library. He lacked for a lighter and was willing to share with anyone who had a Bic. It happens that I had three but generally reserve the right to use for tobacco trades. I've also seen a skater kid openly hitting a meth bubbler in the park across. The quasi-girlfriend I had and seems gone now quasi-bonded with me over a shared luck in dabbling in heroin and managing to avoid needing it after.

You've probably heard the same noise I have about white people doing more heroin. I cannot speak for whether this is actual or anecdotal. You've probably also noticed the obviously-not-incidental softening of normative attitudes towards addiction. It is oft-stated but still true that the high from mainlining must be truly wonderful for all that.

I've loosely associated myself with a loosely associated group of buskers, train hoppers, hippie-punk hybrids, heads. One train-hopping kid was stuck in Salt Lake in six months, a fate I fear more than death. Last night someone stole his pack with cold-weather jacket inside. He claims to have once chased a public domestic abuser for half a mile for the chance to serve him in kind. This strikes me as self-mythologizing but we've bonded even so.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Denver Notes

She loitered in the McDonalds with a crew of train-hopper sorts. The prototype of blond hair and blue eyes, dilated by drugs or the high plains summer sun or both. I confess to viscerally finding her state Just Worse because she was beautiful. The meth sores about her arms & face and general air of anxious poor health. I confess to being more afraid that she may die soon as the impersonal concept of female beauty than as the person she is and I know that I'm bad for this. If I spoke to her this would probably change but no excuses.

The partner I've happened into on these streets is also blond, a bit older at forty. Her name is Kelly.  She's a bit more bold than I am about pissing in public bathrooms then buying nothing while I'm a bit more bold about pissing outside. We're a gender-traditional couple. She regrets not having kids and claims to have come from a well-off Pittsburgh area family that went bust with industrial decline. Maybe so. She is prone to conspiratorial rants and ranting in general, reminding me of my stepfather in the way she gets intoxicated on her own voice not in spite of but precisely because I do nothing to prompt her. We're probably not going to last, though we may slough off to LA together. Lately we've been doing our seperate routines during the day than maybe finding each other to share a blanket at night. It's better this way. Even sweet.

I spottily search for a source of cash. A sketchy day-labor place on East Colfax said I might be used to clean up after a Rockies game crowd if I showed up early enough on the Fourth. I showed up at noon to find thirty men calmly waiting outside the unopened office in ninety five heat. I left and got high on leftover joints from the previous night's Civic Center fireworks show instead. On the Craigslist for Denver gigs I saw someone offering weed farm work for anyone willing to work 12+ days six days a week or sometimes seven. I frankly suspect the post to be a sex slave front or perhaps a cannibal front. Or good weed isn't quite so important as all that even if it is legitimate. Normative quality has already reached a point where two hits of flower can be quite overwhelming. Or perhaps that's just the still illegal-state amateur hour in me talking.

I honestly fear for this city's economy once legal weed eventually does become the norm nationwide. In industrial districts and historic minority ghettos there are weed stores next door to weed stores next door to bars next door to weed stores. An outfit called Green Dragon has already gotten into the Walmart predatory capitalism game. Forcing Mom & Pop joints under through underpricing both here and in the mountain resort towns.  The technical law against public smoking carries less weight than laws against Bokononism in Cat's Cradle. Pipes are out and proud at every bus stop. It is somewhat cliche but still true that one can glean the culture of Denver by simply noting its place on the national map. The Midwest and California had a baby. Except now they've gotten divorced and the city has moved in with cool dad Cali. For as long as I've lived the conservatives about me have openly feared a bohemian bleedover spreading from here onto the Plains and now their fears are indeed become, sort of. Though White Midwestern quietude mildness of personality and fixation with civic respectability still hold great power behind the yoga and the grit.

I've had a nineties-key lime pair of shoes that I was coming to love stolen from me in my sleep; also a pair of shades that were quite handy in the bone-dry UV blue of Piedmont July. Though I've also found a pair of sandals that I may come to love in turn. The possibility of being of a chain of stolen shoes leading to stolen shoes leading to stolen shoes is one I am fully aware of.

There's a park across from the library where I write this now. A few days ago I was compelled to use a port-a-potty there; used needles scattered across the enclosure like dead bugs; a cup filled with dope residue blood and water, an impossible cocktail of shit vomit and blood in the bowl. I can reasonably hope for a night's sleep without dreaming of the scene on some night before I die. Until then my appetite for food has been lowered a bit, which is good for my budget and the summer heat both alike.