Part 4 - Mandy...my street corner girl...

A few steps from my new Army soldier acquaintance was Mandy. Mandy looked about 17 and she was quick. I don't think it was the camera, but she seemed to walk ahead of me with a slow provocative walk and a turn just as I reached a few feet from her. How the heck did she know where i was in proximity to her turn...That was a good trick. Anyway, she asked me if i wanted some company, i asked her for what (I suspected she was hooking), "for a date" she said "I've been trying to get a place to stay out of this weather or make enough money to get a place for Christmas." I asked here where she was from and she played it off and changed the subject, choosing instead to flirt and see if she could get me teased into opening my wallet. I did get out of her that she was from the Midwest, she had left home because it was "lame back there". She was underage, but she never said how old. Feeling a little nervous by then (guilt by association and all), I said my good byes and moved on down the road on Commerce. I did think as i walked away how sad it was that this young woman had a family back somewhere and yet circumstances had come to pass that she was walking the streets of Tacoma. WA willing to sell her body for cash or a place to stay for the next few days.

I use to see this stuff when i lived in Los Angeles, CA. I left LA because it was way too much of that type of stuff. I hope we don't forget our young as we see our way through these troubled financial times. The Mandy's of the world will become tomorrows law enforcement customers and the tip of the spear of the next crime wave if we don't pay attention.

Part 2 - Ken on the rails

Next, I boarded the rail car and met Ken. Ken had a long salt and pepper beard, wore glasses with warm looking yet well worn clothing of the salt of the earth variety. He wore a neck brace which drew my attention to him as I scanned from the rail platform trying to decide which door to enter the couch from in the first place. He was speaking in a very familiar manner to a rough looking man who I assumed to be a friend of his. They sat across the aisle from one another so I squeezed into the seat behind Ken and we all sat up at the front in the north bound direction.

To make myself interesting, I begun to take pictures out the window at the crowed lined up to catch the Sounder train up to Seattle for the Seahawk's game. Sure enough, Ken turned sideways and asked me what I was doing? I struck up a conversation and told him I was taking pictures for my blog journal. I asked him if I could take a picture of him and he willingly obliged and posed a great smile.

We started talking in earnest and I asked him how he had spent the last week out in this weather. He shared much. He said he was getting tired of the cold, but having a few beers every few hours and riding the light rail all day was keeping him "warm and comfy". I asked what happened to his neck. He said he had a sprained neck and contusions over 65 percent of his body. Apparently the previous day, he had been challenged by a group of 18 - 23 year olds to go inner tubing down one of our very steep snowy hills we have around here. Know Ken looks like he is deep into his 50's and not a specimen of fitness either.

He had taken them up on the dare and found his way down a steep road, spinning out of control with feet dangling at a high rate of speed as he described the experience. He eventually was bounced up into the air and was stopped by the grill of an oncoming truck trying to make it up that Hill. The driver of the truck stopped to check on him and well, Ken earned a trip to the emergency room. As he put it, the nurses were nice and the doctor was pretty funny. He got a warm bed and a good meal out f it he said. He would be riding the rails for the rest of the day however since his camp and tent had been snowed in when he went to go check on it after he was discharged.

By this time I had reached the Convention Center Station said my good byes and Merry Christmas and prepared to hoped off. Ken and his buddy wished me well and told me to keep it real... I sure hope I can Ken old buddy, but please, stay off the inner tubes, that's like me going skiing.

Part 5 - The Club

My final essay I care to share in this post thread of Essays is not about a person (although I met five additional interesting people on this walk), it is all about a place one of the other five i met tipped me off to. It was a place I named 'A TWO VIEW STUDIO WITH A STOOP', to do it justice, I wrote a poem about. Before i share it however, let me give you some background on this place.

Before, the City of Tacoma decided to clean up and reclaim the downtown area and Theatre District around Commerce and 9th, it was one overrun place. The homeless, street sugar and the basic street life common to any major to midsized blighted downtown area of a reasonably popular American City ruled the roast. This time period found the old guard homeless with prized and choice hangouts. Places like the old Bridge Clinic building on Market Street which I will write about one of these days and others like the small little covered back doorway where today the Light rail line comes to its end just feet away.

As Checo, my impromptu tour guide described it with deep passion and a certain excited nostalgia "It was ours for years. Only the birds shared that roost". To me looking at the place with 2008 eyes and having known a dive or two in my 40 years, it looked gray, a color that took in the rain with a sour mood. Checo went on to say to me..."Bennie bit it there, Chucky shaved his head for the first time since Nam right in there, with a bottle". I could see its strategic value. It deepened my sense of affection for the homeless. Sure, I remain detached in so many ways, acting just as an observer, but when a man of unknown experience tells you a story with that much nostalgia, it takes you back to the stories of Army's who invaded far away places. It gives provides you a third person witness to a battle that was waged on an urban battle field. These guys were fighting for their lives as they saw it. The livelihoods they new. It was a strategic effort with look outs and raids, with casualties and enemies, with profound sadness and a sense of victory when they succeeded in protecting their home out posts on the street.

The sense of the best history these people made was right there in front of me. For Checo, it was the best of times and the worst of times...


A TWO VIEW STUDIO WITH A STOOP by Rohn T. Amegatcher

A two view studio with a stoop.
A two step walk up open to the air.
Cardboard floors over plywood backer.
A planter, scalloped views at the top.
Stair stepped views at waist height.
For charm, please appreciate tubular handrail.

It rents out by the night
To the first come or the first to fight.
Its got sweet sounds of the light rail,
A freezer shelf but without the rack.
Your beer will stay cold thou, up against that wall.
We just call it pad the club
It even has its own stamp.

Vinnie and Jonny, Candice and Doris,
Four in the sack, til Mattie ratted us out.
5-0 , I know, I owe 'em my last dough.
They chased us out many times, but we came back.
Its still the site, It gets jumping way late at nite.
Believe me bro', the block still has flow.