the slack daily

The Bucket List.

I nosed my car down the driveway and behind my fourplex when I saw the man digging through the trash. Hobo sightings are status quo for our backyard, so I began to rifle through my grocery bags looking for something I could offer him. 

A knock came at my car window. It turned out the guy rifling through our garbage cans wasn't one of our friendly neighborhood hobos, but the neighbor of the Questionable Yard Sale.

I got out of the car. Hey ___, how are you? I asked in that I'm asking how you are just to be polite so the only appropriate answer is I'm fine how are you?

I'm in some trouble, he confided.

That's too bad, I replied, and leaned in the car to retrieve all six of my grocery bags. I didn't want to know if I'm in some trouble meant I threw out my electric bill or I dropped a clown nose stained with a murdered boy's DNA in the garbage can by mistake so I didn't want to chance two trips.  Good luck with that, I said as I struggled down the driveway, laden with packages.

I'm missing my bucket.

Maybe it was the tone of his voice, that slight, plaintive tremble that suggested the sting of tears wasn't far behind. but against my better judgment, I turned to face him.

He continued. It's grey, and it says ____'s Bucket on the side.

Oh pretty smart. But I'm sorry, I haven't seen it.

There's a reward, he tells me, so keep your eyes peeled.

I'll ask Will, I promise him, maybe he's seen it.

Thanks.

When Will comes home from work that evening, I tell him we have a new mystery to solve. But the case is short lived, as the bucket shows up the next day, unharmed. Maybe it was on a bender. Maybe someone took it on a joyride. Maybe someone found it and received their reward. We'll never know. The important thing is that it's safely home, with its rightful owner.

The 24-Hour Hobo Fitness.

It began with a barbell.  A solitary rusted-out barbell that sat under our neighbor R.'s white pickup truck with the faked "Delivery Vehicle" placard (there so he could double park.)  I wondered if it was leftover from his Garage Sale days.  Every Saturday, R. would haul out odds and ends - a white pleather sofa with cigarette burns, a lone bicycle tire, a side table missing a leg.  It wasn't until we saw the selection of little boys' clothes and board games that we became concerned.  There haven't been children in this building for over 40 years.  Y'know how there's always one person in your apartment complex that you think sure, he could be a serial killer...well, in our complex, we have more than one.  But this guy topped the list. 

Will asked R. point-blank where the clothes had come from, and he told us that he had been dumpster-diving in Beverly Hills.  Someone had told him that Garage Sales were where the money was at, and he was certain rich people in Beverly Hills threw away perfectly good stuff.  We were thankful that we weren't going to have to bring in the police to find a stash of boys' underwear under his bed, but everyone in the building came to the same consensus: moving trash a couple of zip codes doesn't make it treasure.  The Garage Sales  stopped, and R. returned to doing whatever it is he does. 

Which brings us back to the barbell.  It rolled back and forth between the cracks in the driveway, shedding flakes of rust like a snakeskin.  I've lived here long enough to know not to touch it.  Clearly someone had a plan for this barbell.  I just had to wait it out.

Sure enough, a few weeks later I pulled into the driveway to see another neighbor, P. working with the barbell.  He was alternating biceps curls with swings from the bottle of Stella that sat on the bumper of R.'s white pickup truck.  If the number of empty bottles were any indication, he'd been through a regular Ironman workout. 

I climbed out of the car. Hey, P.

Y'wanna work in? he asked.

Nah, I'm good.  The beer's a nice touch, though.

It's what Hulk Hogan does.

I couldn't disagree.

Over the next few weeks I noticed other people had joined him.  Our neighbor G. added a rusted chair for dips, and the guy without teeth who doesn't live here but who always hangs out in our backyard is always handy with a spot.  Morning, noon, and night someone's out there throwing around some iron, swigging a beer, and washing themselves off in our hose.  Instead of going around the building to his side door, P. climbs in and out of the open window of his apartment to adjust the music and fetch another six-pack.

The biggest excuse for not going to the gym is that it's not convenient.  I have no excuse.

There's a 24-Hour Hobo Fitness.  In my own backyard.

More on the hobos here.

Hollywood Hobos.

As some of you may know, we have a hobo problem in our neighborhood.  We have white hobos, black hobos, young hobos and old hobos, hobos with dogs and hobos with shopping carts filled with recyclables ad blankets and hobos who rail loudly against an unjust (and unseen) oppressor. 

But lately there's been a new breed of hobo in town.

Saturday night, Will and I walked up to the Starbucks at the end of the block.  I watched Daisy while he went inside to fetch our drinks.  (Yes, I made him order me a grande white chocolate peppermint mocha, no whip.  Now no girl will ever hit on him there.)  Daisy and I waited about ten yards away from the store and I watched as a man wearing an ironic t-shirt, sportjacket, and black rimmed glasses snuck behind the dumpster.  I could only see him from the chest up, but there was no mistaking his furtive glance right, then left, then down as he presumably unzipped his pants and relieved himself on the asphalt. 

A Hobo Hipster.

As I drove home from work today, I noticed an unkempt gentleman seated on a low wall in front of the apartment building across the street.  He had what looked like a white sheet spread in his lap.  Intrigued, I parked the car, headed inside our apartment and watched from the picture window.

He took what I can only imagine was a chipped china bowl from a grocery bag, retrieved a small box of cornflakes and some milk and proceeded to make himself a bowl of cereal.  But that wasn't all. No, Daddy Hobobucks reached back into the bag and pulled out a small container of strawberries.  He cut them up over the bowl and then tucked part of the white sheet into the collar of his ragged shirt so as not to spill and began to consume his breakfast.  II thought about my cold Luna bar and the bottled water I shoved in my mouth while driving home from work and was slightly ashamed. 

Hey you damned Hobos, get off my lawn!  You're making me look bad.