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25 September 2014
It was like old home week at the park. Friends I hadn’t seen since last year were there. Every one wanted to be outdoors to enjoy the warm Fall weather.
Shark said, “I’m trying to walk off this water I got on my knee.”
I asked Little Jake, “How are you feeling now?”
“A lot better. I’m over the walking pneumonia. My AIDS doctor gave me a new prescription for some kind of steroids. He said they’d take some getting used to. He said that I’d be moody, but I don’t have to see him again for six months, that’s how good I’m doing. I freaked out the other day. I had to go sit by myself at the fence. I’d pissed everyone off. I guess I took too many of those little white pills.”
I asked, “How about you, Mariah, are you feeling better?”
“I’m getting there. My body is completely out of whack. I’ve had my period three times in the last forty-five days. Some days, I feel so exhausted that I can hardly stand. Today I’m fine.
“Joy was going to come down today, but she wasn’t quite up to it. She walked to the Metro and back last week, but she had to be off her feet for a couple of days. It took that much out of her. She wants Big Jake out, but there are still a few things she isn’t able to do for herself. He gets his cast off tomorrow. He said that it’s really itchy.”
I said, “I didn’t know he was in a cast. What happened?”
“He was at his parent’s cottage and fell off the roof. He messed up his good hip. Now his bad hip is his good hip. He also broke his arm in three places. I asked him, ‘What were you thinking of? You’re in a wheel chair, you can barely stand, and you decide to climb a ladder?’ He said that his parents needed some work done on the roof and he was trying to get back into their good graces.’
“Wolf was down here, but he had to meet someone who had a new cart for Shaggy. Did you hear how he lost the cart? He came home drunk one night — so drunk he could barely stand let alone walk. Some of his neighbors helped him and Shaggy up the stairs and left his cart in the lobby. When he went to get it in the morning, it had been stolen. He hasn’t been down here much since that happened. It’s just too long a walk for Shaggy.
André said, “When he gets the new cart he wants me to overhaul it. I’ll put all my bicycle repair skills to use. Behind me is a bike I just fixed up. I even got a cart to give my cat a ride.”
Buck and his dog Dillinger came along. Dillinger growled at the cat, peeking out of the cart. Buck pulled out of his backpack a frisbee. He’d throw it and Dillinger would catch it in mid-air.
Debbie asked, “Dennis can you spare a couple of bus tickets. I have an appointment to go to. Usually I jump on by the back door, but they’ve got a campaign on now trying to catch people not paying the fare. The transit cops issued over a hundred tickets in one day, nineteen of them were for drinking on the bus.”
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Streetsister 