You from the south?

No.  Really, that’s what he’d say to me.  Never could figure that out.  Same guy.  Every Sunday.  I liked to pick up the Sunday Los Angeles Times from the man 4 blocks from my loft.  We were on Broadway, above a second run movie house known for b-westerns, art films and the homeless.  He was ensconced like a lamppost east of me where the flower district budded.  He’d engage me in conversation, but at the time I wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

Sound like you’re from the south.

Nope.  Colorado.

Sure about that?

My family was in Tennessee for a long time.  That was quite a while ago.

Knew it.

It was the 1700’s to 1800’s.

What about your girl?

She’s not my girl.

Don’t want to be linked with a girl color of dirty caramel?

He said “dirty caramel” “ditty cah-mel” wrapped it around his tongue, thrusting it out as if he had a caramel in his mouth but forgot to take off the wax paper.  Seemed to be something he’d prefer not to say.  Either he had disdain for me for not admitting Sheila was “my girl” or that she was with me at all.

Probably best to take a step back here.  Sheila was not Sheila.  I called her Sheila because Salvadora Ines Clodovea Calderon was too long and hard to truncate into anything pleasant.  She didn’t care, or if she did, never said a word about it.  A lovely woman just past the age of 22, she and I met in a spat over whose four quarters owned the green felt at Al’s Bar a long Friday night/early Saturday morning a few months before everything turned.  I laughed at her amazing method of calling shots after they went in, she laughed at my embarrassing ode to fashion.  The ’80s, so there I was donning a jacket and pants dental white, two-tone grey and white leather loafers and a bright salmon t-shirt.  I was a casual Colonel Sanders at a place where a small rainbow plane landed safely on its facade.

No sir, I told him, I love being with her.  Look at her.

Sheila did a comely twist at the hip, turning her eyes towards us.  Her gleaming white top hugged her torso as the semi-translucent ankle-length rose red and yellow printed skirt flew out to greet us. Very Marilyn without the colorful array of uppers and downers.

But she’s not your girl? He asked.

In spite of her obvious slip in mental stature culminated by a decision to be seen with me, she was her own woman.

Grizzard took another dollar from a young executive on his way to who knows where dressed in a suit on a Sunday morning.  When I think of it now, there wasn’t a church, mosque or synagogue within a five-mile radius. Suitcoat took to diving further into the flower district, but I couldn’t see him popping out with flowers for anyone, unless he was buying them for himself.  He walked against traffic.  A cab, swerved and missed him.  Suitcoat didn’t even startle.  Cabbie screamed out

Cabrón!

And kept speeding down 5th.

I called him Grizzard.  He was supposed to wear a nametag, but you could see he was not about to do so.  His Los Angeles Times-issued smock, or union-issued, I wasn’t too sure, hadn’t seen the inside of a washer for, well probably ever.  I had seen the smock enough times where every moment various details of the faded sports section that made up the graphic along with the large scripted “Los Angeles Times” emblazoned in now-faded Dodger blue were seen.  The headline, was not close to be discernable by passersby or those like Suitcoat who picked up a paper, handed over the dollar and never looked eye-to-eye.  I speculated Suitcoat didn’t buy from a coin-operated newsstand since he’d have to look the bin eye-to-slot to get the coins in and actually touch the bin to snag the paper.

I apologize.  No really I should. Digression is something I do everyday.  Keeps me from dwelling on a miserable existence, Sheila being salvation, when I allowed.  Putting this encapsulation of a serious event together does not stop digression.  Whether this digression is a sharp turn or a gentle curve before you realize you are off-track is up to you to determine.

photo by daniel agee. all rights reserved.

Grizzard would nearly always give me this look.  You know the one, where a person tilts their head and looks at you cock-eyed like a confused mutt.

I don’t know what you said, son.

Two joggers went by.  The male dropped a dollar into his hands as the female grabbed the Times.  One may find it funny joggers would pick up a Sunday paper while out for the jog, but this is Los Angeles.  Scenarios like that don’t really boggle the mind.  Takes no longer than a year to get used to such.  Both stayed in jogging mode, knees up running in place more than if they were moving forward, they waited for the light.  Ms. Jogger, I will call her Bianca,

You didn’t have to laugh, but thanks.

Bianca tucked the plastic-wrapped two-hours of Sunday reading under her right arm like she was Marcus Allen.

Once a half-block away or so, Grizzard furrowed as he looked at me again.

However, I think I catch your drift.

Lakers win Championship; Magic plays Center.  That’s what the headline said on Grizzard’s chest, once you got through the rubbed-in newspaper ink, general downtown grime and dried ketchup or barbecue sauce.  Most people, if they got through the grime, would nod their head and go on.  The Lakers had just won another NBA title with Magic and Kareem about three months ago.  However, the key word is “another.” A roundball aficionado like myself understood Magic didn’t play Center unless Kareem was ailing.  Magic played Center in one championship game, his rookie season against Philadelphia.  Being this was 1987, the smock was seven years old.

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