Sometime during the night, well after Ken had left, a female zombie wandered through the parking lot, screaming unintelligible gibberish, and decided to set up camp across from the shop here. The damned thing would not shut up, and I woke up at 8 due to the noise it was making. I had a little more to drink and went back to sleep until 2.
I got up at 2:15 or so and cleaned up and was out the door at 2:25 or so. The zombie was still there, of course, but it had run down a bit and was less noisy.
I went to the bank and put my two paychecks in, and went over to Whole Foods and got walnuts, almonds, and a beer. Then I went over to Dai Thanh and got a few things. Zombies everywhere, needless to say. There was a crazy ones dancing around on the corner but I parked the bike well away from it and any trouble it might make.
I went to the Amazon hub for bubble mailers and there's something new there now: a sort of booth on little wheels where a gal greets people; a sort of concierge. In fact, this sort of job is becoming common now. Because of wartime conditions concierges are needed for the most mundane things like a market or FedEx or just about anything.
I had plenty of time to go to Nijiya for some things, but not dried mushrooms apparently as those were all gone. I got a chashu don and some fish cakes to go with my beer, and sat and ate at the Issei building. It's nice and peaceful there. I got feeling really bad, though, for my parents, who even though they'd moved to Hawaii could never be happy. And with no Bon dance this year there's not a thing I can do about it. I was having a good old cry in my beer when I heard a flute.
I'd eaten by then and was all packed up, and walked the bike up to the corner. An adult or two were having their(?) kids dance a sort of routine to music on a boom box, and it was pretty neat. I Slav-squatted on the street like a good gopnik and clapped to the music. Who knows if the "take" with my clapping will be the one they keep.
I'd noticed the Kogura store has been brightly lit and doors wide open and this little hole in the wall place that sells local crafts was open with a Plexiglas teller window sort of set up, and I got talking with the lady. She hadn't heard of the police standoff at all. She wondered if places are open, and I noticed and told her that Shinimori Optometry was just closing and 6PM is actually pretty late for an optometrist. By this time Kogura's was closed but I need to go over there and get one of those bead things we Buddhists wear when we go to church. I had a dandy one but had donated it with a lot of other stuff to the temple's rummage sale long before this virus came along.
I got back here and Ken had dropped off a bunch of stuff to list on eBay. I called him and he told me about some of the stuff, and he told me that he'd had the water heater go out at his house and so he'd had to drop the things off during the day, at just about 4 to be precise, so he could go pick up a new water heater. If I'd down I'd not have left a pile of dirty clothes out on the floor etc.
The zombie was still there, just run-down and hardly noisy now. I took my "tunker stick" and a flashlight to check, because I figured one thing I could do is pick up the junk the zombie had brought and chuck it into a dumpster. It was still there, though. "Echh", I said upon learning this.
I'd asked Ken if he'd noticed the zombie and he had, and said No, it's not Renee who's an old regular here. I emailed a report to the San Jose homeless concerns email address, which generally results in a police pass-through or something.
I decided a zombie that isn't screeching might be an unhealthy zombie, and we can't have the damned things dying around here, so I took a bottle of water and my last two slices of cheese and went out to see what condition the zombie was in. Well, it's obvious how Ken figured out it's not Renee, because it's a black lady, dressed nicely and doing fine, and wearing a damn rhinestone tiara or some shit. I got no thanks for the cheese and water, and some semi-intelligible tirade about her husband or something. Fuck all street people, just fuck 'em. They're all selfish shitheels. I'm coming more and more around to the belief that anyone who's out on the street has put themselves there, and are so bad at being a human being that they deserve to be out there. I don't expect thanks for cheese and water from a squirrel or a feral cat, but normal human beings are social and thanks are normal. I'm proud of his thankful I was for 11c or just people hearing me out when I was out there.
Ebay and things in general are fucking up, more and more by the day. I've got about $4800 in the bank (I consider this rather theoretical as only coins/bills I can hold in my hands are real) and need to pay my taxes but as I'd told Ken last night I feel like Professor Jastrow in Herman Wouk's The Winds Of War, where he's sitting in his Italian villa, working on his book, "A Jew's Jesus", and figures he's OK, he'll be fine, but if you follow this excellent made-for-TV series, he dies in Auschwitz because he didn't jump when the jumping was good.
I've found my bike riding time is a good time to practice singing. Why not? It's not like anyone gives a shit.
No comments:
Post a Comment