I like to water the plants on the balcony in the morning before the sun turns the corner and starts to beat down on them. I forgot this morning, and stepped out into the blazing sunlight to see if they were unhappy. On the street below, a nondescript gray car was stopped in the middle of the intersection with both front doors open. There are only two roads in that intersection; Clay disappears into 14th, which in turn rounds the bend and is swallowed up by Market. It’s a confusing spot, but there’s not usually much traffic, so a lot of people make U-Turns there.
A man got out of the car and started to run like hell down the hill. I noticed the nose of a police cruiser parked around the corner of the building. Two more cop cars came tearing around the corner and followed the man down Clay. A woman cop approached the stopped car and ordered a woman to get out of the driver’s seat. The cop secured the woman’s wrists behind her back and took a dark object out of her pocket and placed it on the hood. What looked like a city maintenance vehicle pulled up and another cop got out and kept an eye on the woman while the other cop pulled on gloves and checked the trunk and glove compartment.
My inability to see was really cramping my ability to gawk effectively, so I went back inside. Imagine how dull Rear Window would have been if Jimmy Stewart had cataracts. When I looked out a few minutes later, the street was empty.
I lazed around and did some housework until 2;00 or so, when I went out for a walk, with the vague idea of getting coffee at a café I like in the Park Blocks. I walked past the Episcopal Church across the highway from my apartment. There was a door on the side of the building with a pair of golden wings painted around it. The feathers look exactly like bananas. Above the door were the words
He will cover you with his feathers
and under his wings you will find refuge.
Ps. 91.4
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It’s one of the more comforting psalms. Sinead O’Connor took the name of her first album after it. “You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra…” This is not the vengeful G-d but the kindly, protective patriarch, though the author –said to be Moses- can’t resist slipping in a few lines about the wicked being punished. When I look up the text online, my reading is interrupted by a pop-up ad for pickup trucks. Just the kind of vehicle Moses would drive.
The area around the church is littered with sprawled bodies. It’s getting hot out; a man asks if I have any water. I don’t but I should start carrying some. Around the corner is a cluster of conjoined tents in front of which someone has written in chalk on the sidewalk
Why are we so sad
Why do we wake up wanting
to go back to sleep, dream
of a new life, one where
we stay young and free
no one to tell us no or what
to do We are
lost
I continue to the coffee shop and sit outside and watch the blurry students walk by. I try to write but I can’t think of anything worth saying. Everything is vague or smudged or rubbed out. I have nothing meaningful to say. Just more gibberish, more babble. I wonder if that guy who ran from the car got away, if he’s still out there crouching in the bushes somewhere, hiding. High above me, the leafy canopy of the elms stretches over the street, the wings of some giant green bird, smothering me, keeping me safe.
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