Strange Beings

1.

We used to call the people who live on the street behind Vons homeless but that’s not the right word anymore. Someone decided un-housed was better but it’s not. Tent people, walkers, dwellers. We sometimes call them zombies, especially late at night driving slowly past figures bent at the waist, arms and hair hanging down. I wonder if I was going to put them into a story, would they be the ones who see all, or would they be the ones representing the darkness of our times, I’m not sure.

Not long ago, I drove down this short-cut side-street late one night and I heard a man crying. Because of the cobblestones and the empty buildings the sound echoed. Usually hearing such a sound would be disturbing, but this was more of a loud Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa followed by a deep intake of breath followed by another Waa, and on and on. He was lying on his side with his knees drawn and his hands under his armpits, crying from the depths of his soul. I kept driving. As soon as I started to feel strange about it, another part of me rushed in, “…he’s mentally ill! he’s on drugs! it’s his choice! what am I supposed to do about it?” And then another part of me rushed in and turned up the radio.

I remember once when my daughter was little, only 3 or 4, we were at the park and another 3 year old fell off the end of the slide. He cried and screamed and even as his mother held him in her arms, he kept crying, he couldn’t be soothed. Every one of the other kids walked over to him and stood staring, a group of tiny people gathering around him in a circle. He eased up a little, though in truth it could have been because he was self conscious. Then one of the kids said, Can I pat him? and I think about that all the time.

I’m not saying I should have stopped the car and asked the guy if I could pat him. In fact if I had thought about it at the time, it probably would have made me laugh. But I can’t help wondering if there had ever been a time in his life, even if it was long ago, that it might have helped.

2.

The crows near my house are as big as footstools and shiny black, gorgeous, bossy and cool. They hang out at the edge of the woods at the top of the hill where they can survey and take note of everything. When I pass them in the early morning with my dog Nino, I hear their random caws and I am pretty sure they are having a few laughs at my expense. The other morning I noticed they weren’t grazing in their usual spot but after we passed, I heard them up on the wire, first one and then a group, cawing like crazy. “What the heck you guys,” I yelled, and when I turned to look back, I saw 3 coyotes in formation, hunched down, stalking us. “Hey!” I yelled and though usually that’s enough to spook them, they just stood there with their heads still low. Nino almost pulled me over trying to chase them and I thought for half a second of letting him go, though the odds were not in his favor. I picked up a rock and threw it over their heads and they took off at the thunk. After that I decided to cut the walk short and head home and I wondered what the crows would have to say about all that when I walked past them tomorrow.

3.

There was a guy on a bike and he rode it everywhere. I’d see him all over the neighborhood. He never learned English; he proudly never learned it. I always loved how he held his head so high and smiled while riding the bike, he always seemed so happy and confident. He would pull up in front of our house and ask me in Spanish if he could take some lemons from the tree. I think the only word I understood for sure was limón but I knew what he was getting at. While he picked the lemons, he’d talk to me, on and on, about this and that, and so forth and so on. And I’d say yeah, uh-huh, true. And I always loved those exchanges. I felt something happen, an understanding of each other that, if we had been speaking the same language, might have gone undetected.

4.

Sometimes in the afternoon I see the coyote who sits in the patch of sun on the hill across the street. I happen to know, because I’ve stood on that hill myself, that you can see all the way to Hollywood on a clear night and when the sun goes down you can see the colors spread, orange and pink and sometimes lavender. It’s really the best spot to sit and take it all in. This coyote sits with his eyes half closed and the sun on his face, a king. I know that if he ever met up with Percy, my neighbor’s cat who visits me almost daily and who I consider a good friend, that he would tear him in half, but I don’t think about that, how can I, when he is living life how it should be lived.