“Did you see that?” I asked Tom as we were driving around a few weeks ago.
“No. What?”
“A woman was sitting on her porch with no top on. No top and no bra. Just shorts. I swear it.”
“Old or young?” he asked sort of wistfully.
“Young. She was sitting on a chair on the front porch with her dog. She looked sleepy or hungover or something. There must be something wrong with her.”
Tom sighed, obviously disappointed that this Kodak moment had been wasted on the likes of me.
“Go on. Drive around the block. I don’t care,” I told him. And I truly didn’t. My Penthouse centerfold days are long behind me. Okay, okay, I never had Penthouse centerfold days, but if I had, I’d be retired by now. Anyway, he drove optimistically around the block, but when we came back to the house on the hill, the young woman was gone.
“Sorry,” I said, rather insincerely. Because the fact of the matter is, this kind of stuff is just not that unusual around here. The drama in this area is so pervasive, someone should be walking around with an armload of Oscars, handing them out on a daily basis. I’m sure there will be another topless woman in Tom’s future, just like there was the masturbating woman he saw at the post office a few months ago. That one broke his heart.
“We all just stood around and pretended she wasn’t doing it,” Tom told me. “It was so sad.” It sounded sad, too. The woman was out of her mind, and was asking confused questions of the postal worker at the counter, none of which had anything to do with the U.S. mail.
All of this came to mind earlier today, when I walked out of Walgreen’s. On the walk to my car, which took all of thirty seconds, I saw the following:
- A woman who appeared to be in her sixties was yelling at the wind, or God, or the
ghost of her dead husband Floyd, I guess. There was no one standing in the direction that she was shouting.
- A humongously round man who was trying to figure out what to do with this toddler, who was screeching at the top of her pink-shirted lungs. The poor fellow was immobilized; he was carrying a big satchel, and couldn’t pick up the kid. Every once in a while he’d try to budge her by pulling her up by her arm, but she wasn’t buying it, so he sort of dragged her a few inches, let her sit and screech, then repeated the process over and over. I figure they should reach their destination some time tomorrow afternoon.
- Four women standing under a tree next to a convenience store, fighting. There were two main fighters, a pretty young black woman and a harsh-looking middle-aged white woman who sported short, crayon yellow hair and a big white t-shirt. The black woman was on a tirade– I don’t know what the other woman did, but it seemed that the general consensus was that she had this speech coming to her. The young woman screeched and ranted while the others softly chimed in and nodded their agreement. The older woman was agitated– “I done told you I was sorry,” she yelled, puffing on a cigarette.” She wasn’t going to be let off so easily.
“Well you shouldn’t have done it in the first place!” The other woman screamed. She was angry, I tell you.
Whew! I got into my car. I didn’t even want to see what else was going on around me.
And the Oscar goes to…hell, I don’t know. How does all of this happen? I’m just telling you about this one little space and time, but it goes on constantly– it seems that when the weather’s pretty, the streets are packed with people, and you can see their relationships playing out in living color — some are holding hands, some are making deals, some are talking to themselves or stripping, riding bikes, or walking big dogs. Others are just being neighborly, and some are wearing boxing gloves. Sometimes there’s gunfire.
It’s not all of Dayton– the closer you drive to suburbia (not that suburbia is all that appealing either), the calmer things are, but this area that I’m living in gets a little insane. It’s crazy and colorful, and often sad and scary. I wish I were a super hero. “Never fear–Dayton Girl is here!” Of course, I’d be built a lot like the woman pictured above, and blond to boot. I’d fly around the city, handing topless women shirts, conversing with lonely ladies who talk to themselves, helping fat guys calm their toddlers, busting up fights, and hypnotizing people into believing the whole “hugs, not drugs” thing. Maybe something less shmaltzy. “Hacky sack–not crack.”
I don’t imagine that the antics that go on in this area are necessarily that much crazier than what goes on behind closed doors in many houses in the burbs. Maybe it’s the fact that the houses are smaller around here that so much of the drama goes on outdoors. Maybe this unnerves me so much because I’m from the south, where people tend to keep their alcoholic tirades genteel and air their dirty laundry in their own back yards. In whispers.
There are good aspects to this town and good people in this neighborhood. I’m making new discoveries and meeting some great people. I plan to write about some of this in my next post or two. I truly don’t mean to whine or complain. It’s just that when I see some of this stuff, I don’t know what to do with it yet. I’m learning, but in the meantime, I’m dumping it here. Sorry, you poor readers.
I’ve just never lived in a place like this.
Don’t apologize! You write so well, very lively and engaging and your Dayton-Girl life is FASCINATING.
Thanks, CuriousC. Well, at least it gives me lots to write about, huh? Maybe if it were duller around here, my posts would just be about how bored I am.
No need to apologize for telling truth. The truth helps us all to see the world as it is and not how we would like it to be. Thinking little helps though. If we all just do little things, make contact with the marginalized when it’s safe, smile at a struggling parent to show empathy. Who knows you may be saving a life with the smallest kindness. The world is saved one person at a time.
Okay, RM, I’ll quit apologizing. I do try to do the things you mentioned, and I did give an empathetic smile to the guy with the toddler. Anyone who has kids has faced similar situations. I agree about the small gestures of caring.
It’s easy for me to say this because I’m not living in a combat zone teeming with danger, but it also sounds extremely interesting. In a diary-of-an-American- journalist- stationed-in- war- zone kind of way. Reading your list of the snippets you mentally recorded during a 30 second walk to the car is, to me anyway, like just one eating potato chip. I’m all, “More! Then when happened? Did you make eye-contact? Tell me exactly what they said!”
Also, your Hacky Sack — Not Crack! slogan is excellent. Put it on a bumper sticker.
LWB, there’s a part of me that always thinks that way too. I want to carry a camcorder with me everywhere, and interview people and ask questions like, “Who exactly are you talking to, ma’am?” or “Excuse me mister, but could you tell me the history of all of those tattoos, and where you got that mullet?” I’m kidding, in a way, but I really do want to talk to some of them, and take pictures of this fascinating scenery.
I’ll have 500 bumper stickers printed up immediately.
There are two things I can count on over at this blog: that the post will be excellent, and that I will be so excited I’ll type mistakes in my post. If you were mean — and you’re not , thank God — you’d keep a running tally.
I didn’t see any mistakes. But, year-to-date, 11.
Hacky sacks – not crack. You need to trademark that. Brilliant.
Sigh…maybe I could sell fifteen million of them for a buck apiece, and start actually making an income!
Until you mentioned Dayton, I would have bet serious money that you were talking about Berkeley. :shrug:
By the way, Life with Buck, another thing that we can count on is the sheer density of these posts. Most bloggers would have turned this into, oh, ten or twenty posts. Each “drama moment” cited here would have warranted a series of two or three, possibly a week, of ruminations. Bravo!
Is Berkeley this way too? Wow! Who’da thunk?
I was just talking to Tom about how amazed I am that people actually read my blog, because my posts are usually so much longer than the average. I think I read somewhere that 100-150 words is a pretty good length. I can’t even imagine being that succinct!
I’ll be writing one hundred times on a sheet of notebook paper…
K-vegas ain’t so bad.
K-vegas ain’t so bad.
Or, “Hell ain’t so bad…”
Hi
What a great site you have and what interesting content. Certainly puts mine to shame. You write so well. thanks for providing such interesting content. Cheers
the radical blogger
your site has been reviewed and can be viewed here:
http://myradicalblogs.com/?page_id=24
Congratulations: your site was nominated as the best site reviewed today. Well done.
Thanks, Les- what a great idea! And a great honor! Come back soon.
i was too young when i went to america for a visit and my visit consisted of places like the disneyland and hollywood. so it’s not like i am a poor reader when i have to read this in your blog. cos you paint the picture so well, it almost feels like i was visiting america again, only this time i was visiting a part that seems a lot familiar. the chaos part happens in my capital, in different flavours, though.
and gosh! congrats for yet another recognition! you deserve a whole lot more!
I’ll bet some of the stuff I’m seeing here is tame in comparison to what goes on in your capitol. Thanks for the congrats!
You are an excellent writer. Reading this particular post made me think of David Lynch and Raymond Carver. Those scenes you mentioned witnessing on your way to your could make very interesting short stories. Seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_You_Please_Be_Quiet%2C_Please%3F
Wow. I love Lynch and Carver, so this is a very nice compliment. Thank you.
And I forgot to mention, the stuff you and your husband have managed to witness out on the streets sounds like what I saw on Flatbush Avenue the other day.
I don’t remember all of the details, but I was standing at a bus stop along with a few other people… the weather was warm, but not HOT, you know. I think I was wearing a light sweater or something. Anyhoo, this young woman comes strolling down the street wearing her shirt with it folded and tucked under… essentially exposing her belly, which appeared to be housing a child… except her belly looked soft and saggy… but it was huge (like when a kid drinks way too much water). Anyway, she looked a little perplexed as to why all eyes were on her. If I had my camera, I would have totally taken a photo.
But I did take a photo of this mess I saw on the bus in Miami recently. It’s almost like the lady at the bus stop… but with opposite parts of the flesh exposed. Don’t worry, nothing x-rated. Just scandalous: http://wowee.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/look-what-i-saw-on-the-bus-in-miami/
I don’t think that what I’m witnessing is that unusual to a lot of city-dwellers, it’s just new to me. The picture you painted of the big-bellied woman is sad and surreal. And the photo of the girl in Miami– oh my GOD! Where are her nipples, anyway? Never mind, I don’t really want to know.
100 words?????? I could never do that. Some of my titles alone are more than 10 words.
You guys are the best good adult reading like ever! I am in tears!
this page is so goooooooddddd!!!!
Thanks, Ana!