It’s mid-July in the Antelope Valley and it’s the kind of
hot you get used to like a spot in your vision. I’m standing in a makeshift
line in Circle K, stuffed between snack shelves, watching other people arrive
at the front of the register and looking back to figure out where the line
starts. At the front of the line I see Chuck purchasing a Tall Mickey’s and a
Hurricane. I know Chuck’s name because he’s a regular and I hear the clerks
addressing him, and I guess in that way I’m almost a regular myself. Chuck’s a
black guy in his forties with a shaved head and tattoos. He’s always dressed in
new clothing and gold jewelry, but his body has a malnourished frame of an
anorexic boxer, with broad shoulders and a sunken in chest. He buys the cheap
stuff, and whenever I hold the door open for him, I never see him walk to a
car. I can understand priorities like this.
I’m
buying an eighteen pack of beer cans to take home for the evening. You don’t
buy in bulk unless you’ve got somewhere to hang the weight and keep them cold.
Chuck’s going to come back for another purchase at some point in the day.
Chuck
jokes around with the clerks, and tells them to have a blessed day when he
leaves. I buy my beer and feel encouraged to have the same jovial attitude, but
my reservation makes the exchange brief and less personal. The clerks like me,
but that’s why they don’t know my name and call me Chief. I never liked when
someone calls me Chief or Boss, but I guess it’s better than a stranger that
calls you buddy like an asshole that comes at you for a handshake with their
palm facing downward.
When I
drive home right down the street I stop at an intersection and look over to see
Chuck at the bus stop drinking his Mickey’s and wiping his forehead, and it
looks as natural as drinking water to stave off the heat. He stuffs his open
can into a plastic bag on the ground, and I lean into the cold box of beer and
turn on the air conditioner. The intersection is near a mall, and was designed
for an early 90’s population, so it takes a moment to wait for a green light. I
look over and see Chuck bent over and gagging behind a short hedge in plain
view to the street. He’s having a hard time keeping down what little he just
drank, and the reason for his unnatural skinny frame becomes clear to me.
Soon
after, a white haired old woman comes walking by. She looks to be in her
mid-seventies, moving slowly and decisively toward the bus stop benches. She
hears the gagging a few feet away from her, and gets a much better view of
Chuck than I have and promptly steers her head back toward the benches.
This
woman is one of those people that came to live in the Antelope Valley at a time
when it was a lesser Palm Springs: A warm and inexpensive place for old people
to retire.
Nowadays, far from this retirement
dream, it has become a place for the beached riffraff that’s been cast out from
one of L.A.’s many polluted waves. Today, there aren’t as many retirees that
haven’t moved away or died, but when I do see one of these rare hermit crabs
peek out from their shells, I feel pity for them when they see how much the
world has changed since the last time they took a look.
Chuck
finishes and returns to his plastic bag, the Lady sits on the bus stop bench,
and the light turns green.
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