The Next Morning

That Monday I learned a little more. Class was in session....

The Next Morning

 

Long Beach Transit Journal

Written on 103 Bus to The Blue Line: Via Cell Phone

 

I woke up next morning. The event from the weekend still hadn’t sunken in. I was on the leg extension machine at the gym: the one on Carson and Orange. It was leg and shoulder day and in reality: I dreaded leg and shoulder day.

My dreadlocked, thin friend Danny called me around eleven thirty and asked me about my weekend. I gave him the Cliff Notes version and the, ‘I am ashamed of myself speech.’ He listened for a few minutes; being the great listener he was. Prior to that day, we spent many alcohol inspired hours on the phone talking about God and my Nigerian foe we both knew yet I loathed. On that afternoon, he informed me our mutual friend Lamar’s mother had died and he was at the coffeehouse: the one we had all met at during the summer.

"I'll be there at two o’clock."

I didn't make it until three. I caught the 103 to Atlantic and ambled to the shop. My buddy Pete was outside drinking a cold tea and taking deep drags from a cancer stick. He was a nurse at an old folks home about a mile away. He insulted my newbie handlebar mustache as I approached. The cigarette smoke burnt my nose.

"Were is Mar at?"

 

Written on the 61 bus to Downtown Long Beach: Via Cell Phone

 

Just as I asked he came around the corner looking tired and sullen. He had a salt and pepper beard and seemed smaller than the massive frame that was his trademark. We sat on the small wall dividing the sidewalk from the parking lot and he asked me about my weekend. I told him about my 'would be' assassin. He shook his head as worry entered his brows.

"Dave Dave Dave. I think you got yourself into some stuff."

I had felt that but I asked him anyway.

"Why do you say that Mar?"

"I think someone is watching you. I think you're in the middle of something you don't even know."

 

Written on the 111 Bus to Downtown Long Beach: Via Cell Phone

 

He asked me a series of simple questions that ranged from did I rub anyone the wrong way to if I had any enemies in that part of town.

Pete chimed in saying that neighborhood was cool. It was on the edge of the Gayborhood and trouble down that end of Broadway was rare.

I told him about a few run ins I had had with some guys during my time in Long Beach. To a shoving match in a club to a full out donnybrook with two tatted up gangsters from the San Gabriel valley.

Pete went on to say there was a race war working itself to the beaches. He said back in the days the blacks terrorized the Mexicans in the streets of LA now it was payback a generation later and everyone was included: gangster, working class, bums, athletes, ministers everyone was fair game.

Worry didn’t cross my mind. I was trying to figure out the: who, what, where but not the why. I didn't cat about the why. The 'who' was weighing on my mind and I didn’t mean the rock group. I was thinking about the group of Aztecs that wanted me to check out.

"You got a call."

I thought I knew what he was talking about but I had to dig deeper.

"You mean a warning?"

Mar stared ahead like he was watching a mental movie: it was a sad one. He had just lost his mother and now this. He peeped my future and it didn’t look bright from where he was sitting. Peter reminded him of the time, because he was taking Mar to work at LAX.

"Man if I was you I would lay low and keep your circle tight.”

 We hugged and he was off. I watched them drive away in Pete's black Honda accord. All the sudden the levity of that weekend sank in.

 

Edited at Green House café, East Village, Long Beach and Village Hotel, Lakewood, Ca

 

 

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

I woke up next morning. The event from the weekend still hadn’t sunken in. I was on the leg extension machine at the gym: the one on Carson and Orange. It was leg and shoulder day and in reality: I dreaded leg and shoulder day.

The flow of this thing is fascinating. the mix of story and the narrator's inner voice. Well done.

[Judas Hammer]

Thank you!

[roarke]

Strongest stuff I've seen you write in a long time Judas. Interesting interjection of the non-linear/non-related writing locals. Strangely it adds to this cerebral musing.

[Judas Hammer]

Thank you so much for the read this inspires me to go further. This means alot