Sometimes my neighborhood feels like a college campus. I see the same faces every day. We have experiences together. We have conversations and debates, sometimes the same ones, on a regular basis. We don’t know each other’s names, but we are friends.
The guy on the bike, Hola: This guy is probably around 35 or so. He has twin boys and another son who sings at Mexican rodeos. I see him in different parts of my neighborhood and I have no idea what he does all day. The thing I love about him is that he always speaks to me in Spanish. He doesn’t even try to half/half it like a lot of people. I have no idea what he’s saying and he knows this, and doesn’t care. Once I was outside on my front steps and he was on his bike across the street. Still straddling the seat, he walked over to see me. He started in on something or other, and I just said oh… Yeah… Sure. He asked me some questions and I just nodded my head smiling, my mouth open. Then he pushed away and pedaled down the street still talking loudly over his shoulder. Ok! I said. No problem! In ten minutes he was back with a huge and empty laundry bag. He laid his bike down on the sidewalk and walked over to the avocado and orange trees on the side of my house and started filling his bag with what was strewn across the ground. Oh! I said to him yes, go ahead. Gracias he said.
The homies: These guys, there are 4 and I think they are brothers, sit across the street all day. Sometimes they are belligerent (once saw one of them slap the back of a car and throw a can at it when it tried to turn around in a driveway) but most of the time they just sit quietly, almost meditative, and watch the weather. They are not gangsters like Carlos and his fam down the street but they know how to keep it on the lo. One of them has a chihuahua. He (the guy, not the dog) has teeth like a shark. Every single one has been filed to a V/point. I don’t know if he did this to himself on purpose or if he has an unusual set. More likely he had them all capped gold and then had to sell the caps. He always says hello to me and asks me about my dogs (“my babies” he calls them).
Cleopatra’s Parents: I know them as the couple who own the Great Dane that lives around the corner. They are in their 60s I think. She writes for the Style section of the L.A. Times and he writes for something else. He went to Harvard and all their cars are green. They eat breakfast out on the front porch in the morning and once they had a birthday for Cleopatra and all the dogs invited had to do a trick. My dog Lester’s trick was to show his underbite.
