On Telegraph, I claimed an empty vending space beside Hilda the Cleavage Queen, because there weren’t many options and she’s an attractive woman who always wears something low-cut and loose-fitting. Today she was also wearing a skirt, up high to the thigh. That’s better than working next to Jasper.

We said good morning as I was setting up the table, and talked off and on during the day, more than we have in the past. A little after noon, a male customer was over-obviously leering at her, and she told him to fuck off.

After he’d walked away obnoxiously laughing, Hilda began complaining about men in general. She couldn’t complain to the man on her other side because he didn’t speak English, so she complained to me, saying something dismissive about men, as if I’m not one of them. As if I hadn’t been sitting in the sunshine and wearing shades, slyly watching her while also, slightly, reading a book.

None of that did I say, of course. I simply nodded like an understanding gay buddy, as she went on and on about how she hates it when men look at her the way that man had.

Unsure what I was supposed to say, I boldly went where no man named Doug had gone before, and said, “Have you ever considered, uh, a baggy sweater and slacks?” This was a calculated risk, a dance over the line of good male manners, and it could’ve redirected her rage at me, but it didn’t.

“Yeah, I do dress up a little when I’m selling on the Ave,” she said. “It helps sales — but I still hate guys like him.”

“I suppose men bother you everywhere, whether you’re dressed up or dressed down.”

“You got that right, brother.” Oh, we’re siblings now?

“I’d hate that,” I said. “I always prefer being left alone.” She said nothing, so after a moment I finished my thought: “If I was a pretty woman, I’d get a big purple prosthetic scar and glue it to my cheek every morning.”

She looked at me like I’m crazy, which of course I am, and didn’t say much the rest of the afternoon.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Some homeless jerk, smoking a cigarette and babbling incoherently, was loitering around my table. He was near enough to be a nuisance, but not near enough for me to shoo him.

Then a lady stopped to look at the fish and blasphemy for sale, and the bum came closer. Was he another masher, like the man who’d bothered Hilda? No, he was talking about the aliens that recently abducted Chelsea Clinton. You heard about that, right? Yeah.

I sighed and got out of my chair to walk around the table and try verbally nudging him elsewhere, but before I got there or even said anything, he asked the lady for a light, and she reached to share a flame. Then they stood at my table, blowing noxious fumes at each other and me, and discussing what the aliens’ intent might’ve been, and whether Chelsea will be OK.

There wasn’t a trace of wind all day, so I had to ask them to back away from the table, please.

♦ ♦ ♦  

On my BART ride home, I sat in the front car, and as we pulled into the 19th Street Station in Oakland, something thudded loudly, and the train slammed to a halt so quickly that my backpack toppled off the seat.

We were inside the station, and through the windows I watched people move toward the front of the train, toward me — a marvelous view of everyone holding their hands over their mouths, looking down, seeing something or whatever was left of someone under the wheels.

After not long watching this, it was too many faces wearing the same face, the same stare of despair, so I read a zine from my backpack, but soon the lights went off.

The train’s engine had stopped, leaving us in relative darkness and eeriness, with nothing to do except watch out the windows as cops and paramedics strolled too casually through the station. If it was an emergency they would’ve been jogging, or at least walking fast, so… this wasn’t an emergency.

It was ‘all systems no’, to keep from frying the corpse underneath us, so the air conditioning had gone off with the engine and lights. The air in the train grew warm, then hot, then hotter. Now and then came the staccato of electric feedback, and after some while (it was too dark to see my watch) the driver made an announcement over the somehow-still-powered public address system: “Uh, folks, we’ll be off-loading shortly.”

More time went by, and again she said, “We’ll be off-loading shortly,” and added, “as soon as I can pull the whole train into the station.” The back-end cars were still in the tunnel, apparently.

Eventually, the lights and a/c flickered on again, the engine hummed, and the train inched its way forward, very slowly. We stopped, the doors whooshed open, and—

“Off the train! Off the train! Everyone off the train!” It wasn’t our driver; it was over the station’s PA system, and instead of the driver’s calm voice, the station agent sounded downright frenzied. “Off the train! Get off the train!” This was the voice you’d use if you wanted to provoke a panic.

Sensing and seeing no danger, I let women and children off first, but stepping through the doors I half-expected to see flames, or at least smoke. Nope. There was nothing to see, certainly nothing to justify the frantic tone of the station announcements.

And there we were, stranded where nobody wanted to be — downtown Oakland. I wandered around on the crowded platform, and stopped to eavesdrop as a man told a cop what he’d seen.

As the train had arrived, he said, a woman had hurled herself off the edge, and laid down on the track. The train, of course, had already slowed coming into the station, and we’d been nearly stopped before the jump and thud — and the thud hadn’t even been her. The witness said it was some heroic yuppie hurling his briefcase against the driver’s window, to alert her to slam on the brakes.

The woman who’d tried to kill herself had only scrapes, cuts and bruises from the fall, and the police had already arrested her and taken her away. Honestly, it was a little disappointing that nobody had died, or even been seriously injured.

Not much blood. No dead body. No excitement, really; only a long and stupid delay, as more and more passengers descended to the platform to wait for trains that weren’t coming, because our train was blocking the way.

“Platform 2 is now closed,” came another, calmer announcement over the station’s PA. “Please exit Platform 2. All trains will arrive on Platform 1 or Platform 3,” which wasn’t enough information at all. Were we supposed to go to Platform 1, or Platform 3? Hundreds asked, but just like God, the voice from above wouldn’t answer.

As I rode an overcrowded escalator up, the train I’d come in on pulled out, with only the driver and a couple of cops on board. Presumably, it was an express run to the mechanics’ shop, where guys in overalls and lawyers and detectives would examine the damage done by a briefcase.

The voice in the ceiling told passengers bound for San Francisco to wait on Platform 3, so the multitudes headed that way, me among them. Perhaps 45 minutes had passed since the thud, with no trains coming through. When one finally came, it came to Platform 2, where we’d been instructed not to be, and foul language flew up at the speakers in the ceiling.

“Your attention please,” said the voice. “Westbound passengers to San Francisco should wait on Platform 2. Repeat, Platform 2 is now open.” The grousing multitudes then trod toward Platform 2, from whence we’d come ten minutes earlier.

Soon the concourse was so crowded it’s a surprise nobody accidentally fell over the edge and onto the tracks. Elbow-to-ribcage-to-elbow were were packed, and I smiled at my victims during several minutes of a delightful fart spree.

When the next train pulled in fifteen minutes later, hundreds of short-tempered people got aboard, but I was not among them. It was gonna be standing-room only, and I decided I’d rather wait for a seat on the next train.

With the farting and all, I had rather a good time, but still, I got home more than an hour later than I should have. And most of the BART system runs through 19th Street Station, so it wasn’t merely hundreds of people inconvenienced, it was thousands — trains were backed up all along all the lines, maybe except trains from San Francisco to Fremont.

All those people were late for dinner, missed happy hour or the first three innings of a ball game, just because someone wanted to kill herself and couldn’t even do that right.

It’s not even a joke, only common courtesy, to say: If you want to kill yourself, please suicide alone in your own home.

The knocking woke me this morning. It started at the crack of 10AM, with a couple of loud knocks down the hall, followed by a brief and annoyed conversation between two male voices. Then a few footsteps, and more loud knocks.

I was groggy and grumpy and immediately in a bad mood. Someone was knocking on every damned door, and the knockings were coming closer. At 405 and 404, the knocks and conversations were enough to piece together what was happening, which only made me grumpier. 405 even let the the bastard inside. 404 didn’t answer, so the landlord unlocked that door, and both men went inside.

403 is me. I was next.

Knock, knock.

“What!” I yelled loudly at the knocking door. 

“Health inspector.”

“I’m healthy!” I shouted through the door. “What, are you here to make me turn my head and cough?”

“We need to inspect your room,” said the voice, and I responded with the loudest silence ever. A different voice I recognized as Mr Patel said, “He wants to see if your room is OK, or if you have any complaints.”

“Oh, I got a complaint,” I yelled, through a door closed and with no intent of opening it. “Some fuckwad ‘health inspector’ is pounding on all the doors.”

“Sorry,” said the inspector, quieter, and I may have heard Mr Patel chuckle, or may have imagined it. A moment later they knocked on the door next door, so they’d given up on me, thank your Christ.

What was that about? I’d never heard of health inspections at a hotel, but here comes the benevolent government to protect me by inspecting me. The term ‘health inspector’ sure sounds like he’s inspecting people, not rooms, doesn’t it?

And even if he only wanted to inspect the room, well, I live here so that’s really inspecting me.

At someone else’s doorway, the inspector said the inspections are “for your own good,” that he was there to make sure the windows open, the sink isn’t leaking, the baseboard heater heats, and he’d write a violation is there’s evidence of roaches or rodents. “I’m on your side,” he said to someone else at the last door down the hall, and in theory, OK, maybe — but still, No.

On Telegraph Ave, all the vendors get the clipboard treatment, but nobody’s ever tried clipboarding my damned apartment before. Do you want a city official taking notes in your bedroom? If he sees marijuana seeds on the table, does that get jotted down, too? If he sees skid marks on your shorts, pornography at the bedside, if your room is a pile of dirty laundry and old books and stale food, like my room?

No, man. The inspector isn’t on your side. I could rant about this all morning and I gotta get to work, but here’s the most obvious thing in the world: If the inspector is on your side he wouldn’t pound on your door unexpectedly — he’d make a damned appointment.

Whatever the inspections are really about, they’re also about hassling poor people, and harassing landlords who rent to poor people.

Do you think middle-class apartments full of white people are subjected to unexpected knocks from a city inspector who wants inside? No, and by no I mean Hell no.

♦ ♦ ♦  

After that came a grumpy shower, a grumpy train ride, and a grumpy day on Telegraph.

Jay’s the boss, so today the fish-stand started selling noisemaker nuns and honking Buddhas, and a few other mildly sacrilegious toys and knickknacks.

The only addition that I slightly like is a half-size squeezable Holy Bible that squeaks. Something was stacked on top of the squeaking Bibles, so as I pushed the goods toward Telegraph, my cart squeaked rolling over the bumps along the sidewalk.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Two cops on ten-speed bikes rounded the corner of Haste, headed the wrong way down Telegraph. It’s a one-way street, but they’re cops, so of course no laws are applicable.

As they rolled past me, they slowed, eyeballing a 30-ish couple sitting on the sidewalk by the book store. People get ticketed for sitting on that sidewalk, right at that spot, but only certain kinds of people — street waifs, hippies, the homeless, and the otherwise undesirables.

It took the cops — and me, too — a moment to decide what type of people these were. They were dressed shabby, one wearing a faded punk rock t-shirt and the other in jeans with a rip. The man’s hair was shaggy, and the woman might’ve not been wearing makeup. Their shoes were new, though, and the peace sign dangling from a chain around the man’s neck was too shiny to be sincere; must’ve been a souvenir, not a statement.

They looked bemused as they looked at the cops looking at them. The man waved, and the lady took a picture of the smiling cops. They’re tourists, I decided, and so did the cops, so they rolled away.

Maybe where that man and woman live, cops don’t patrol on bicycles, but they were laughing and talking, pointing at something else, and clearly didn’t understand that they’d just been through a trial and found barely not guilty.

They were within the sound of my voice, so I sounded off, “Those cops aren’t really for taking pictures, you know. They were sizing you up. You came close to getting two $110 tickets, for the crime of sitting.”

They looked at me, wearing that same bemused expression as when they’d looked at the cops. The lady even started fumbling with her camera, so’s I could be in their California freakshow slideshow too, but I didn’t smile nor did I say cheese. Only shook my head and walked on.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Way back when I had a real job and occasionally money, I gave some to Food Not Bombs. They serve hot, free, vegetarian meals to anyone who’s hungry, no questions asked.

That’s beautiful, so they’re often hassled by cops and sometimes arrested, because they don’t have a permit from the city. As if the city would issue a permit. You serious?

Officially allow feeding the homeless? Why, that would attract undesirables to the park… or to the city, or to the planet.

When I was regularly sending FNB twenty dollars in the mail, I didn’t know that I’d eventually be in line for lunch myself. They serve daily at People’s Park, only a block off Telegraph, and at least until tomorrow, payday, it’s the lunch I can afford.

Vegetarian chili with warm bread — it tasted good, and better for pissing off people in power.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Philosophically, selling Bibles that squeak seems kinda trashy. I want to be the fish guy, not the squeaking Bible guy. Gotta say, though, when I put the new merchandise on the table, people insisted on buying it.

Ran a load of laundry, and then had a peaceful lunch at the park, not even minding the dumbass teenager listening to present-day rock’n’roll on his boombox. His radio was loud enough to register on the Richter scale, but the music was OK so I didn’t complain. Except then a commercial came on, and he didn’t even lower the volume. Kids today, Itellya.

It was an ad for Blockbuster Music, an entity I’d never heard of before. Presumably it’s owned by Blockbuster Video, the #1 video chain in America, where I’ve never been a customer or even browsed the aisles.

For many movies, studios make one version for theaters, and a milder cut for television, where ‘R’ becomes ‘PG’. For movies rated ‘R’ or beyond, Blockbuster carries only the neutered version. The Bad Lieutenant, for example, is an ‘NC-17’ movie about an out-of-control cop, but reliable sources tell me that when rented from Blockbuster, Harvey Keitel is less out-of-control.

I don’t want to be all sanctimonious about movies as art, because movies are mostly commerce. It’s an odd ‘art’ that can’t exist without being pre-approved by men in silk suits, who worry only whether each movie might earn back its investment. Every movie playing at every theater has been through that silk-suit process.

Once a movie has been released to theaters, though, if you rent it at a video store, it ought to be the same movie. At Blockbuster, if it’s something challenging, something for grown-ups, it’s either not there at all, or it’s been trimmed.

And now, Blockbuster Video has spawned Blockbuster Music — do you suppose their rap section might be somewhat abbreviated?

If you’re looking for Body Count, Jello Biafra, or something with lyrics more thoughtful than “She loves you, ya ya ya,” approach Blockbuster Music with trepidation. “Sorry, we don’t carry that,” will be their mantra, and if they carry bands like Public Enemy at all, it’ll be a ‘special’ version — albums with a missing track, lyrics rewritten or bleeped out, perhaps with a less shocking photo on the cover.

And if Blockbuster Music makes enough profit, soon you’ll be able to find watered-down best-sellers and abridged literary classics at Blockbuster Books.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Taking a late stroll through the neighborhood at night, a beggar came at me with a wacky attitude. “I got nothing,” he said, posing with his arms at odd angles like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

It made me smile, and once I’ve smiled the rule is, I gotta hand over some change. Reached into my pocket for a few coins, and just as I was slipping ’em into the guy’s hand, I saw that instead of the expected  assortment of pennies, dimes, nickels, and the occasional quarter, I’d given him a handful of mostly quarters. Damn it, my leftover laundry money from this morning!

I’m still a little ahead from working at the bar a few weeks ago, but I can’t afford to be that generous. Jeez, I must’ve given three dollars to that bum! No take-backs, though, so it’s a pre-paid and guilt-free “no” for the next hundred panhandlers.