Trader Joe's inside the Five Points Senior Center is where I begin and end each day. Located on Main Street a block from Beach, in the Five Points Shopping Plaza, the store wakes me up in the morning with its 17 cent bananas and free coffee. But it is the sunset of each day that I enjoy most.
There is an endless parade of flip-flops or flats flats who hobble back to their black SUV's laden with bags of wine, cheese, meats, frozen fish and veggies and just about anything you can think of. There is no football game today outside the Sushi restaurant so I settle for my lawn chair next to Trader Joe's.
A wooden lawn chair is where I spread out and allow my feet to relax after a day of chasing buses. I am happy that Mel is inside the Huntington Beach Hospital on Beach Blvd. I am overjoyed that the Huntington Beach doctor got to the core of his problem" conjunctivitis, and a bladder infection to be exact.
This evening, one of the two slanted chairs was taken, and I recognized the thin man. It was Carlos Griego, who I had met at Wal Marts when I first moved to Huntington Beach. That was when I drove my car there for a ninety cent coffee. He recognized me and allowed me to sit next to him.
"How is it going Carlos?"
"My buddy at the Gothard Shelter got me $160 of food stamps. So now I have enough wine to last me to the end of the month. Found a good place to sleep, in back of the baseball field on Talbert. Only trouble I have is with the mosquitoes. The police don't bother me since I put everything in the trash and keep my little spot clean."
"I treated myself to these strawberries. Have one?"
"No, just eaten...tired of these young kids taking all of these drugs. They are filthy!
"Why don't you get Social Security? You've got to be over sixty five."
"Wished to live day by day so took some out. Now I can't get any. But my health is excellent and I don't need much to be happy, just a little wine at night. But those dam mosquitoes and lizards bug the hell out of me."
"Can't be a pound over one hundred a five."
"Actually one hundred and ten."
Just then I heard the second siren of the night headed down my street while Carlos stood and left. I remained watching the Gap shoppers buy last minutes item while another skateboarder whizzed-by. It was going on seven and I decided to go to the fourth floor to play the piano.
Music has filled my life with joy and was a good way to relax before I headed to my room to listen to the Dodger game before dozing off to sleep.
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