9.27.2010

when you're down on your luck

This is the There-But-For-Fortune flophouse, a place to hang your hat when all systems fail. It sits across the street from Camilla's house, and it is fascinating to watch the black-and-white parade of prostitutes, addicts, ordinary old people, police, ambulance drivers and mysterious strangers come and go. They watch us, too. One helps direct my parking as I back into the lot. (Backing not my forte.) "She have the baby yet?" another asks.
  Lives are lived out in the street—the phone calls arranging to meet johns at a certain parking lot, the drug deals, the domestic disagreements shouted from curb to window. They do all the same things we do—be born, grow up, pair up, have babies, buy microwaves, party, break up, die—only louder, faster, more desperately and in a Rhode Island accent.

8 comments:

Bo said...

...have a deservation?

anointed by luck
with some in reserve
'duke a needed buck
and try to deserve

neruda said...

now that's some fancy bit of writing there...keep it up and I might think you know what you are doing...doesn't sound like such a great place to hang your hat...or anything for that matter...not the Rhode Island I'm familiar with....

Anonymous said...

Location, location, location...

Anonymous said...

Burn it down!

Phill said...

Do they say '4' with 2 syllables: 'fowah'

Claudia said...

And they say "bubblah" for water fountain. And they drink coffee milk.

Phill said...

And when you want to format a paragraph so the words appear in the middle of the page you select 'scented'

Claudia said...

In the Every Person Has a Story category, this beautiful story in the St. Petersburg Times at

http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/hit-and-run-victim-was-quiet-and-dependable-co-workers-say/1124721#tpcccf