Urban Nomads and Other Stories

CITY BEAT… AGAIN Marvin Milner, fresh out of the New Hampshire School of Journalism, six months into his rookie year as a reporter on City Beat Magazine, staggered out of the latest editor’s meeting, his brain pan sizzling from all of the stuff that Ms. Afrashea Jones-Kaplan had placed on it. “Now you, Marvin. It’s time for you to begin to earn your right to be a reporter on the City Beat payroll. I’ll grant you a couple pats on the head for the last two pieces, but they didn’t really go far enough and deep enough to satisfy me totally. What you have to keep in mind is that City Beat is one of the gold standard magazines of its type in California, maybe the country, and every issue has to be better than the last. I don’t give a shit if we become so good we burn ourselves out of existence. I’m not just talking to poor lil’ Marvin Milner here, I’m speaking to everyone at this table.” Fifteen people; men, women, African-Americans, Euro-Americans, Asian-Americans, and few others of indefinite race and gender, collectively pulled their heads down into their shoulders. It wasn’t what she said, it was the way she said it. The acidic flavor of her speech, the scathing sarcasm, and the rude humor that wasn’t funny to anybody but her. “I don’t care what you think about me, it’s what I think about you and the contribution you can make to City Beat that counts. Everybody clear on that?” During the course of an hour’s meeting , she had managed to alienate, piss off, convert, excite, fire up all the people in the room. She seemed to have a special torch for Marvin Milner, the new guy from the New Hampshire School of Journalism. “Remember, Marvin, we don’t want some sort of generic stuff about Skid Row, stuff that’s already been done. I want you to bring us a piece with the funk and grit of the streets in it. I want you to give us a deep look at the inside of those tents, those favela-garbage heaps that we drive past on 4th Street everyday. I would strongly suggest that you get inside of the situation. You got me?” A “strong suggestion” from Ms. Afrashea Jones-Kaplan was an order. Marvin Milner staggered back to his cubicle and slumped in the hard chair behind his cluttered desk. Skid Row, why me? What the hell do I know about Skid Row? “Awright, White man, come out of it!” Kofi Brice, his best friend on the City Beat staff, popped into his cubicle and perched on the edge of his desk. “What’s up, Kofi?” “Just thought I would check on you, to make sure you weren’t in here slittin’ your wrists ‘n carryin’ on.” Kofi seemed to be able to find a way to humor himself and others though any social problem, around any hard spot. “What gave you the impression that I wanted to commit suicide?” “I think it had something to do with the way your shoulders sagged, the way your eyes rolled back in your head, the way your face turned paler than usual when Sister Jones-Kaplan told you that she was sentencing you to Skid Row for two weeks. The first thing I thought was – hey, this guy is gonna go back to his desk ‘n commit hari kari, or whatever they call it.” Kofi could make him smile about lots of City Beat stuff, especially concerning Ms. Afrashea Jones-Kaplan, and sometimes laugh out loud. “Marvin, what you have to understand about the sister is that she went to a couple of those super White schools and they turned her into a perfectionist. You know, schools like the New Hampshire School of Journalism.” Kofi could joke about stuff from the front, the back and the middle. He made Carlos Castro laugh talking about taco trucks on every corner and finely tuned ol’ Chevrolet cars. “I do want to see a taco truck on every corner, but I do not want to see ancient Chevrolets hoppin’ up ‘n down the street like Kangaroos. Oh, and one more thing, I do not want to be pulled over by a couple Mexican female members of the Sheriff’s Department. They seem to be tryin’ to get back at all the rest of us for the way you guys have been mis-treatin’ ‘em for so long.” Aside from his dry wit, Kofi Brice wrote one of the most read, best written film review columns in the city. He was also a world class chess player. “So, what’s it gonna be, a beer and bitchin’ session down at Sloans or suicide at your desk?” “Kofi, I think you may have saved my life. Let’s have a beer and bitch.” “That’s the spirit, but I gotta warn you, you can only drink so much beer and you can only bitch for so long, you’re still gonna have to take your ass down to Skid Row tomorrow.” “I don’t give a shit. Remember the song by Garth Brooks, ‘If tomorrow never comes’?” I can’t say I’m intimately familiar . . ..” “Well, it’s a long story, let’s go have some beer ‘n bitch.” XXX He made a loose mental outline of how he wanted to approach his subject matter, starting with the time of day. He drove through 4th Street, discretely checking out the weirdness of the scene. Back through 5th Street. It was six p.m. All of this, all of these people, the whole scene looks like something out of a mad house, a crazy place. Insane people glared at him with bloodshot eyes, the streets littered with filth, the dazzling skyscrapers of the downtown area poised above our heads. This is like something out of a horror movie. He drove slowly, carefully, determined to avoid hitting the dirt, grimed-grease smeared people who seemed just as determined to throw themselves under the wheels of his little ten-year-old Volkswagen bug.