Retrow RowA Chapter by Judas Hammer I left the valley and moved in with my girlfriend at that time on the edge of the Gay Ghetto......... Chapter 2 My eyes opened to a bright Saturday morning as Sun beams fought the gloom and made it through my windshielf. It was the same Van Nuys I had know for years. She never changed: maybe a new building here and there but relatively the same. I went inside the store weaving through the pretty Valley people on my way back to the bathroom to wash up. I splashed cold water on my face and wake my physical body and tired soul. My mind was set on pause from the night before. I blocked from anger and revenge from my list of things to do. It was about living and had no desire to return to the streets. I had been dating a pretty psychologist who worked for the prison system. Pretty, light skinned with a crazy laugh and wild eyes. I never understood why the doctors of the mind and the ways of the brain, always seemed to be slightly touched themselves. I traveled from Burbank to Long beach on the metro red to the blue line to see her. I waiting with the Brown and Black urban masses making their way back home to the rough interiors of Los Angeles after hard and thankless toil. Upon reaching Long Beach, we would takes long drunken walks and talk about things that were not interesting, but I knew afterwards there would be decent sex, so I listened as she spewed her masteries of life. I filtered out her cartoonist laugh and stupid celebrity encounters of the second kind with the promise of her lips attached to me later. She lived on 3rd street between Fourth Street, which was known as Retro row, and Broadway, the beginning of the Gay Ghetto. I loved these journeys through the southern part of Long beach at night. We would stroll along the pathway at Los Alamitos beach and to the pier where we would explore the unguarded docks. We would walk out on the bouncy docks feeling the powerful, Harbor see beneath our feet as he cast future wished to the sea. We returned to Broadway and ambled passed the gay coffeehouse and bars hanging the rainbow flags hanging in dark tinted windows. I had seen long beach in a new way. A minor Santa Monica with out the international cache and wayward models strutting the sands, with their Hollywood dreams firmly implanted on their mind. I had lived in North Long beach a year before, across from the park on the other side of multi million dollar homes. The Ferris Bueller house was slightly down the road along with many other multi-level casa’s of the rich. I was living with my child’s mother but we were constantly at war. We didn’t get along and the love was never there. On Christmas she kicked me out onto the streets and I made my way to the Valley. But I’m back Long Beach! I have returned to Third Street! To the taboo! An area I had only heard about through News Reports and whispers in the San Pedro coffee shops and bars. I was back at the city were I used to Substitute teach the heathens. I hardly ever got the softball gigs on the South side. They were for the other type of teacher. I was the type they called for the Westside! They called for the North Side! I knew the Eastside oh so well, but the south was almost virgin. It was soft, sweet and new: my tour guide was a prison shrink from the windy city with big shoulders. The other night she had let me sleep over. I had a confidence feeling if I called she would allow me to stay. I stood in the alley behind the Starbucks and made the call. I dialed the number staring at the clouds. The mid morning Sun stared down trying to read my mind. I told my new girl my roommate tried to commit suicide was captured by the devil and has sent the Burbank boys in blue on me. She pauses concerned, “What are you going to do”? “I don’t know but I might have to leave” “Where?” “I don’t know, somewhere else. Somewhere far.” She paused and demanded everyone leave her office. I heard a door shut firmly. “We’ll talk about it later” The night before I also snatch the key to the mailbox. I had money coming from New Jersey and I didn’t want to take a chance on this chubby addict stealing my funds ensuring him a death sentence. I returned to Burbank and parked the car down around the corner and waited. The apartment was in a rundown section of the glamorous city of Television studios and Tim Burton who lived up in the hills, looking down on the refuse of the SFV. I crept to the mailbox and opened it slow-nothing. I returned to my car and checked my gas tank. I was going to have to race the needle to the Ocean Ave. I jumped into the maroon Sentry and hit the 5 south. That day I moved in the Prison psyche. We talked about it on a street corner in Belmont Shores. She said we could give it a try: if things got bad and we could not stand each other table it and bring it up for a vote. Everything seemed like flowers and sweet candy. We got along well. She cooked and did everything domestic. She lives on 3rd street in a three level condo complex in the middle of regentrifed apartment buildings turned into Condo with flower boxes and call boxes with outside speaker boxes. It was part of the LBC named: Retro Row where the hood of Long Beach and the Hipster community came together in a weird casserole of sub-fringe culture. Gang members, addict, single parent apartment complexes came to an abrupt halt at Temple Street. The semi straight dive bars dotted the right side of the street, as the mulatto children played tag on the gum-covered sidewalks. Liquors store light illuminated the walkway likes bright signs leading to empty promise. Mom and pops eateries from every part of the third world sat with doors open ready to destroy weak suburban stomachs. Suddenly at once all of these things gave way at Temple Ave. On that block sat the Independent movie house, which strove to be a mainstream theater. Every once in a while it played an Indie flick, but the small obsolete theater tried to bang heads with the big theater on the Pike off of Pine. It was locally know for its Rocky Horror Picture shown all evening, every evening on Saturdays. Down the street was everything posh. It was as if a cheaper version of Los Feliz popped up. Long Beaches answer to the studio creepers that patrolled downtown during art walks and everything she-she . Vintage clothing stores held hands with, yoga Pilates studios and fusion foreign cuisine cafes. Wine bars replaced dive bars while pale faced, modern Beatniks replaced the black and brown-faced stepchildren of urban plight. I walked up and down that street frequently, usually at night as the Sun returned under the sea. I weaved into between the homeless and the insane on my way to the fashionable coffee house: the one I had heard about many time while on the North side. I had never explored Broadway extensively. I worked out a couple times at Bixby Park. One time the ex and I took a bucket of chicken there, to the hard cement picnic tables on the other side of the work out area and a block from Ocean Ave with in earshot of the surf. The pre night sky covered us for once we got along. I loved the energy, which warmed my gray heart. One could feel the spirit of the area coursing through their pores. Sometimes we would walk the baby up the street at night. It was a different feeling: new like a sip from a different drink, in a familiar cup. Later I would walk the street with the Chicagoan. She could not feel it like I. She was a Joe nine to five: a clock puncher that waited for retirement and counted the days to the gold watch. The Doc had no spirit. No soul. Dead. The street gave her no sensation as the building and the people were unfinished painted pieces in her water colorless world. I saw its beauty. I witness the adventure. The life. It was a bright, brand new world to be explored. It had everything taboo that tested a man soul. I listened to the whisper as they called me. They had been calling me since the North side. They had been calling me from the boring coffee shop on Atlantic (where I am editing from) and the empty Long Beach Blvd streets. It had been calling me for a year. Calling me during my mid night runs on the beach, as the small waves hit the sand I had a feeling of freedom by the waters edge but the street was still another mystery land. I was not ready to venture to the higher neighborhood. It was not my home. Not yet.
© 2013 Judas HammerFeatured Review
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Added on March 18, 2013Last Updated on March 28, 2013 Author
Judas HammerThe City of Angeles, CAAboutI like to write, live in La and write and make short films. and more..Writing
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