BBQ Chicken

 

She’s pouring bottled water on her car, trying to clean the ash off? Her hair is wound up high on her head in a stupendous braided bun, her green robe dress sparkles in the hazy sunlight. But she’s frowning. It is hard to clean a car in the smoke-filled haze that has filled the sky for over a week now.

            “Good morning,” I call out to her, pulling my mask up and giving her wide berth, marching into the street in my half-moon crescent.

            “Morning,” she answers, dumping the rest of her bottled water on the windshield.

            “How ya doing?” I continue to engage, not sure why. Usually, I leave it at the casual greeting, but there was something alluring about her.

            “Oh, okay….” She sighs, glancing up at me. “How’s it going for you?”

            I am still walking past her, but wave up at the sky. “The smoke seems better today.” I observe.

            She beams, her smile lighting up her face, “It smells like BBQ chicken!” she exclaims, clearly happy about the pervasive smoky scent.

            I laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.” I march past her. “Have a good one.”

            Grinning, her eyes sparkle beneath her spiral hair do. “You too.”

And I walk on, thinking about her association of these horrendous fires with a happy thought of BBQ chicken. Unless you’re the chicken.

            I remember the times we used to grill chicken in my shared yard at 63^rd street in Oakland. Owen Hill would be in charge of the barbeque. I’d be inside monitoring the rice and making salad.  Friends would be hanging out drinking, laughing, chatting about poetry and art and movies and cats.

            It seems like such a long time ago now. And, well, I guess it is. But with Covid, such gatherings seem even more impossible. Like they are all just a dream. That they never happened. That they will never happen again.

            But I have to believe that they will, as I glance up at the sky, seeing chickens dancing in the clouds. They’re cackling and squawking and pecking at the hazy greyness.

            BBQ chicken in the sky? Stranger things have happened, right?

            As I turn the corner, continuing down my street, I see a youngish black masked man talking to my neighbor across the street from me. I wonder if he has anything to do with the Black Cat. Oh, this is a saga, but really has nothing to do with chickens. Though, I’m sure the Black Cat would delight in chasing chickens.

            But I digress. I stop and chat with masked man, who asks if I’m Carol. Am I the one who posted on NextDoor about the missing black cat.

            “Yup, that’s me. Is he yours?”

            “Yeah, he’s very friendly. He just likes to wander about to get pets.”

            “I know! He was super friendly when I was raking up leaves the other day!”

            “I always wanted a black cat,” he continues. “….because they are so friendly.”

            “Ummm….” I never knew that black cats had this reputation. I just associate them with Halloween and Ian’s cat, Huey, who was a Black Panther and while he was friendly to me, he wasn’t necessarily friendly to everyone.

            “Anyway,” Black Masked Man continues, “thanks for posting on Nextdoor. If you see him, can you give us a call? He didn’t come home last night.”

            “Sure, sure, of course,” I nod, thinking how cats are so out of our control. Why do I even like them? Everything is out of my control. My joblessness. The virus. Now, the wildfires.

            The world is going crazy.  

          

  I mention the children’s book, Six Dinner Sid, to Black Masked Man. How the cat in that story wandered around the neighborhood to 6 different houses and ate dinner six times, but then when he got sick, he had to go to the vet 6 times. This kept him home after that.

            Black Masked man chuckles. “No, I haven’t heard of that book. But sounds like Squiggy.”

            “Squiggy? That’s such a cute name!” I exclaim wondering what the hell it means and where it came from but see that the conversation is winding down.

            “Yeah,” he answers, starting to back away from me. “Thanks again for keeping an eye out for him.”

            “Sure, no problem,” I answer.

            Heading across the street a breeze comes up. BBQ chicken. She’s right. Maybe that’s what is luring Squiggy out of his home.

            Because what cat wouldn’t like to help themselves to BBQ?

            The time my DD cat stole the steak off the BBQ and ran with it over the fence comes to mind. My father chasing after her as she drops the steak, before jumping over the fence. He picks it up, dusts it off, and puts it back on the grill.

            BBQs! Cats! Family!

            It’s summer again and while there’s lots that wrong with the world right now, at least I have my neighbors to keep me engaged, offering me a sense of purpose beyond just worrying about what’s next.

Moses

 

“Thou shalt not….mumble mumble mumble….”

What the hell is he saying?  I quicken my pace out into the street for social distance. Is this guy muttering the 10 commandments?  Who gave those 10 commandments anyway? Was it Jesus? Or….who? Moses? Yes, I think so. Is Moses wandering round my neighborhood?

Moses is crouching under the only shady spot for miles, hunkered down on a short garden wall. His dark hoody covers his head, his baggy camouflage pants do little to camouflage him. I think he may be the same guy that I saw on my walk last night, giving him wide berth at the corner of Clinton and 34^th street. A tall, muttering man loaded down with packages. He had the same dark hoody on and the camouflage pants. I tall young handsome masked man had also walked around Moses. (Though last night I wasn’t close enough to understand any of what he was muttering. He had just completely stopped at the corner and was standing there. Motionless)

Young Handsome Man walked a bit ahead of me. Of course, he had on a cool black mask to match his coolness. He had given me a questioning look over his mask. “He’s just standing there,” he had observed.

“Yeah,” I walked ahead of him for a few steps. “I think there’s a situation going on there.”

Young Handsome just nodded. No clarification was needed for what the ‘situation’ might be. We both just got the hell out of there.

So, this morning, when Moses spouts out what sounds like a biblical reference, I hurry by. I don’t want any interaction with him. Yet, as I march across Esmond, I can feel him following me. Damn! I don’t turn around. If I look at him it might make things worse. He might yell at me. Or come after me. Or I don’t know. There is something menacing about him even though he didn’t really do anything. It’s an energy, you know? The poor walking wounded. They are here amongst us during this pandemic and I feel for them. I doubt that he has a mask or any health insurance or any support system. But what do I know?

These are all just assumptions based on his general dishevelment, strange proclamations and now, his following me.

I try to keep the panic down, thinking how he’s pretty out of it. I can certainly walk faster or even run if I have to. I could go and knock on someone’s door if it did get ugly. But would anyone answer in the middle of the morning during a pandemic? I know I don’t answer my door if anyone knocks on it. Not for reasons of virus prevention but mostly so some cute young person doesn’t sell me an alternative energy solution for $79 a month!

A cop car zooms down the middle of the street, screaming past me now. I think, will he even notice Moses following me? He’s probably after someone else.

I turn around to see. Yes, the cop car is stopping. A cop gets out. Strolls over to Moses. Then another cop car screeches around the corner and parks. Then a cop on a motorcycle zooms in, too.

Man! Moses musta done something really extreme to warrant 3 patrol vehicles to surround him.

As I turn the corner at McBryde, I glance down the block. Moses is standing on the sidewalk as one of the cops is talking to him. Part of me feels so relieved. What are the chances that the cops would be called (and a neighbor must have called them from the way they zeroed in on Moses) right when I was feeling threatened?

But then when I think about it, what could Moses have done to warrant the cops being called? Did he attack someone? Did he verbally abuse someone? Or is he just some poor homeless guy, crazy and mumbling, that trespassed onto someone’s pretty garden?

I think about the criminalization of the homeless. About what will happen to Moses now. Will they cart him away and throw him in jail? And then what? What will they charge him with? How long will they hold him?

It’s all pretty wrong, but then again, I am relieved that he’s no longer following me.

Though I’m pretty sure that’s not against the law—following some little old lady in a turquoise sun hat hurling the 10 commandments at her.

As I walk down 30^th street, under the shade of a mighty redwood, I breathe in the hot smoke-filled air. Just another summer’s day in the neighborhood, I think, as I glance up at a murder of crows, perched on the telephone lines, cawing cawing cawing.

Avocados and Pitbulls

 

At first, I thought this walking journal was going to be about avocados. Cuz that’s how the story started. But as I mused about where to start the story, I realized that I’ve got a theme going here: dogs.

            And, so now that you have the theme, let me start at the beginning.

            I’m on my usual walk up and around Clinton hill. I start up the hill around the back side of it toward El Cerrito, under the sweet fruit trees that line the sidewalk on this part of the block. I spy a green garbage bin and a person busy loading it up just ahead of me, blocking my path. I make the requisite half moon walk out into the street for social distancing, but see that the person is a young woman, lank brown hair, tank top and shorts. She’s busy pulling at the smallish (compared to mine) avocado tree.

            I stop to chat.

            “Are you getting any avocados this year?”

            She brushes a stray strand of hair out of her eyes with the back of her arm, “Well, not really. Unless you count these.” She points at the tiny avocados that, now as I look more closely, are weighing down the branches.

            “Oh, yeah,” I grin. “Those count. Are they tasty?”

            “Actually, yeah, they are. But it’s strange how some years they are small like this and other years, they’re large. And then they seem to come at different times of the year. Like sometimes, I’m picking avocados in December!”

            She laughs, charmingly.

            “I know what you mean,” I say. “I think of avocados as normally being a summer fruit, but my tree, too, sometimes offers up the fruit in the winter. A kind of Christmas present, right?”

            Again, her charming laugh. “Yes! Exactly!” she exclaims, continuing to pull at the fruit. I notice now that a white pit bull has entered the scene. She sniffs around Charming Laugh’s legs and then noses the ground, sniffing at the dirt. I instinctively back away.

            But the dog continues to inch toward me. Seemingly benign. Her energy is soft. She moves slowly. I don’t feel threatened.

            Well, maybe a little.

            “Luna! Come back over here!”

            Luna ignores her. Comes up to me and nose out, sniffing, her brown eyes begging for a pat. I hesitantly stretch out my hand to test the doggie waters. Luna sniffs, then nuzzles my hand. I pet the top of her head. She would coo if she could.

            “Sweet Luna,” I murmur.

            “Yes, she’s a good girl.”

            I tell Charming Laugh about my recent experience with the Pitbull charge over on 29^th street. How the dog saw me from across the street. Eyed me for a moment, then raced toward me, paralyzing me for a moment as he ran a big circle around me. Then returning to his driveway.

            Charming Laugh shakes her head, “That sounds really scary.”

            “Yes, it was. I have no idea where the owner was. No one else was around…..” My voice trails off as I think about the close call I had.

            “We have kids.” Luna is done with me and has moved on to licking something gooey off the sidewalk. “She’s very gentle.”

            “Yes, I could sense that,” I answer. “Plus, you’re right here.”

            She laughs again, though this time a little more nervously. We’ve ventured into dangerous territory? Pit bulls have a reputation.

            I continue, “My sister had a pit bull who was just the sweetest dog. She wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

            “Yes, same with Luna.”

            She goes back to scrutinizing the avocado tree. “You’re welcome to take some avocados if you want. There are enough of them.” She goes back to her charming laugh.

            “Oh, thanks,” I say. “I might take you up on that if my tree doesn’t produce any fruit this summer. Or I could always come back at Christmas!”

            This time her laughter enchants me. She tosses back her head, and smiles into the tree. Luna has circled back to her, and is now seated on her flip flopped barely covered feet.

            “Well, nice chatting with you,” I say. “Bye Luna.”

            “Say ‘bye’ Luna.”

            Luna stares up at her, adoration in her doggie eyes. Does not say goodbye to me.

            I head up and around the bend, my walk near its end, thinking about Christmas, avocados and dogs. Oh my!

           

Jay

 

“Are you missing that Hilltop pool as much as I am?”

The voice booms out from behind me as I march up 34^th street for my evening walk. It’s HOT! Still 90 degrees at 7 pm and I’m moving more slowly as a result. I turn around as he comes up beside me, maintaining the social distancing by walking in the street as I stay on the sidewalk.

            I turn to grin at whomever it is. Oh, yeah, That Guy! The one with the super strange stroke situations. First, he gets in and does mighty kicking underwater for several hundred yards. Then he turns on his back and does a similar kicking, mighty and splashing. I marvel at how fast he goes without using his arms at all. Yet another part of me wonders what the hell he’s doing. Why doesn’t he just swim like a normal person?

            Who knows? He walks like a normal person, slowing his pace to keep chatting.

            “Oh, yeah, I imagine so!” I chuckle back to him, not sure how to answer a comparative question that I have no basis of comparison for. But I know what he means. We swimmers are MISSING the pool!

            “I’ve been swimming down at Keller in the bay,” I continue.

            He nods, “Yeah, you’re not the first person to tell me that. I need to try that. I got a rowing machine.”

            I eye him. He is fit. I have to give him that. Tall and lean and muscled in his khaki shorts, a non-descript t-shirt, and I assume music headphones that he has taken away from his ears. I note he has no mask, which at this point in the pandemic strikes me as strange. Didn’t the governor make some mandate recently that we all had to wear masks, even outside, even while exercising?

            But Strange Swimmer Man does maintain the social distance. So, he’s not entirely unaware of the protocols.

          

  I think about the rowing machine and how Owen Hill had one for a time, which I thought was funny. I mean, Owen likes to walk, but exercising? Not so much. Though he was a member of the Berkeley Y for a time. I remember this cuz I often went as his guest to the pool there, which I hated: cold and mean.

            Today I would kill to swim at Berkeley! And funny, Strange Swimmer Man goes on now about how he used to swim at Hilltop on the weekends and then Berkeley during the week after week. I wonder what kind of work he is still doing. Or maybe he’s not. I don’t ask. But bring up Berkeley Y instead.

            “Wasn’t Berkeley gonna reopen?”

            “Yeah,” he shakes his head, “but that was before the second wave of cases. They had a plan all worked out, but it never came to fruition……At least not yet.”

            We both walk in silence for a bit. I wonder if I will walk with him for my entire walk. Part of me wants to. It’s nice to have some company, esp. another swimmer. But another bigger part of me is nervous cuz of his lack of a mask. And while I have my pink poodle mask on, as Liv pointed out the other day, the elastic is wearing out. “Do you need another one? I could make you some more. I’ve developed these strings of fabric that adjust instead of the elastic.” She had stopped me on my morning walk this week, back from the farmer’s market at the Richmond Public Library. She tries to keep her askance glance at bay about my mask wearing out, but I feel sheepish and ashamed to have let it go for so long. After all, it’s been 5 months since she made me this one. I take her up on her offer to make me some new ones. Promise to donate to the Richmond Food Bank again instead of paying her.

            Maybe I should mention Liv’s mask business to Strange Swimmer Man?

            But I don’t.

            We are coming up to a parting point at the corner of Clinton and 34^th. I try to gauge which way he’s going, thinking how I want to continue on my own instead of swimmer chit chat with a man I don’t know. Though I kinda do. He’s one of those swimmers whose name I don’t know even though I’ve been swimming with him for years.

            So when we part ways, he continues up 34^th, I turn left on Clinton, I ask him his name.

            “Jay.”

            “Jay….” I think how very strange. My father’s name was Jay and it’s the anniversary of his death. How many Jays does one meet? I only know of 3 now. This Jay. My father. And Jay Fulbright. Yes, that Fulbright of the scholarships. Last I heard he was fat and owned a lettuce farm in Arkansas.

            “I’m Carol,” I tell him, turning and waving. “Bye, Jay!” I call out.

            “Bye, Carol,” he answers, “Stay safe and healthy!”

            “Yes, thanks, you too!”

            He puts his headphones back on and quickens his pace.

            I stroll past the Little Free Library and think of my father, wondering what he’d think of this pandemic and all of its ramifications. All I can come up with is that he’d just shrug and say, “Let’s order some pizza. Eat some See’s candies and Little Hershey Bars and watch a James Bond movie on Netflix.”

            Well, maybe that’s what I’d like to do with him.

            Jay Robert. I miss you so. But I’ve met another Jay and he’s a swimmer and there are still  surprises in the pandemic, in my imagination and in my neighborhood.

Terror and Glee

We lock eyes from across the street. Checking each other out simultaneously. He’s stocky and intent, his gaze never leaving mine. Sure, I might outweigh him by 20 lbs, but he’s all muscle and verve.

            I glance up and down the street. No one is out. The pandemic forcing everyone back inside with the latest surge in cases? Or everyone just back at work? Or, maybe just inside watching The Price is Right?

            It’s just the two of us. Definitely no one is in charge of him. He stands at the end of the driveway, stocky and ready to go.

            I quicken my pace, trying to keep my panic at bay. If he senses this I fear I’m doomed.

            I keep my eye on him, but it happens so fast, I’m powerless to do anything but stand my ground. He takes off from his starting point, his stocky legs powerful beneath him, from 0-60 in 3 seconds. I brace myself for the impact, every cell in my body suddenly poised for the attack.

            And then, just as he’s almost upon me, he veers around, like a lasso’s invisible circle, running at full speed.

            I stand and watch in amazement as he finishes his circle around me, his mighty legs skidding along the concrete, before he turns and races back to his driveway starting point.

            Relief spills out of me. I laugh out loud. Suddenly it’s all a cartoon, a big joke. He was never a threat. He just wanted to show me who was boss. He had a job and it was rounding me up. I complied, of course, what else could I do?

            Hurrying down the street, I don’t turn to look at him again, knowing that he’s back at his driveway, in his sentry position waiting for the next walker who might appear.

            Remembering the times I’ve been bitten by dogs, I know that running isn’t an option. The time I was hiking with Lori T and Joanna Banana in the San Gorgonio mountains, a scrappy little beast had appeared out of nowhere, nipping at my heals as I ran as fast as I could away from him. He bit me and then retreated, his job done. I ended up in the emergency room, or I assume I did. Today, I have no recollection of this; I only remember the terror of being chased. My current wariness of dogs a direct result of this attack.

            So, today, when Stocky Racer came at me, I just froze. Was this the right thing to do? Evidently. Nothing happened. He just ran a big circle around me. Why?

            Who knows? Dogs have a purpose and work to do. This one obviously had to encircle me with his running speed. His brown and white thickness belying the speed that he came at me with.

            Where was his ‘owner’? I always wonder this when I’m out walking and I see a dog out without anyone around. No leash. No person. The dog is his own dog. I suppose this would be fine if we didn’t live in an urban area where people walk, esp. during the pandemic when this is our only outlet.

            Yet, today, I’m not mad at this one’s lack of a guardian. Without such restraint, I had a moment of panic, but then a moment of glee.

            Dogs can do that, right?

            Terror and joy! That’s a dog’s life! And ours, too, during this ongoing Covid Crisis’ horror, frustration, and loneliness that only walking can alleviate. For a moment….