The suite I occupy is located off the main street, next to painters, welding shops, a sign shop, a billiards/pool table supply and other contractors.
As "back streeters", we don't have nice store fronts... just a "man" door and a roll-up door. A place for a sign if we want the public to know we exist. Most of us don't...
Here, advertising is more than just an expense you incurr for a tax writeoff.
It can invite more trouble and more loss than you can absorb. Nice, huh?
Advertising... to the mind and focus of the ''street vermin'' ...says that your stuff can get them their next "fix".
I have, over the years, unwittingly and certainly not by active choice, enabled many a drunk and drug addict to continue in his (or her... but probably his) preferred choice of self-destruction.
Like many who earn their keep with tools of a trade, I've awakened to discover a break-in ...OR, have been awakened BY the noise created during the event, itself.
Excitement ensues.
Trade tools are easy to "fence" to someone else for "a few cents on the dollar".
There is a painfully expensive story behind each break-in.
Sometimes "the law" is called.
Mostly, the flashing lights and uniforms... when and if they show up... are just another layer of frustration.
Not worth your time or the expense to taxpayers.
I'm not anti-police. Glad they are out there.
They have to take care of the bigger stuff.
They cannot be bogged down with hour after hour of petty break ins and theft.
Insurance, you say?
I've found insurance (homeowners & equipment protection, primarily) to be a different, more sophisticated form of theft.
They collect premiums ...and squirm out of covering 'loss'.
When there's a carcass to be feasted upon, ...vultures, flies ...AND maggots barely pay attention to each other.
They are there, either side by side or come to the feast once another has cleared out.
One is usually better dressed.
The insurance guy gets his fill before it's a carcass.
Then turns his nose up at you during the nasty aftermath...
You get hit in the original incident, known as a break-in.
Then you get worked over by a guy behind a desk, known as a 'claims adjuster'.
Both events hurt.
Only my opinion, AND my experience, of course...
Some other time I'll relate stories of:
"the shovel in the windshield"
"the van goes for a Sunday morning drive... without me"
"my dodge springs a leak"
"the case of the rocking van"
"the case of the rocking pickup truck"
"the morning surprise, on my fender"
"sorry, Captain, no cookies for the 7 firemen"
"the sentry dozes off"
"somewhere, there's a well dressed homeless guy"
"surprise! a homeless guy sees my 9mm"
"backwards, St-st-steven Richardson"
"panhandling with a bad line"
"the homeless meteor wakes me up"
"feral cats and guinea pigs" ... and many other adventures.
*****
There's an unofficial 'chop-shop'... creating low rider cars that do the bouncy up-and-down thing. I always wonder about the goings-on down at that end of the building.
It's rare that a truly spectacular car is here. Most are marginal works-in-progress.
One night my van got broken into and I lost, among other things, a brand new compressor.
A certain type, model, color and style.
I was stunned to see a compressor, exactly like it in the chop shop, days later as I walked by.
I hadn't marked or engraved my compressor yet... so asking where they got it might have led to more trouble for me.
Hey. There is one of me....
...and there's a constant flow of tattooed "toughs" around, mostly working at night.
...All night. I never see fewer than 3 when they are "open for business".
My 'scrapping and duking it out' days are well behind me.
My dad loved the fisticuffs.
He would come home with shiners and bruised lumps on his cheeks clear into his 60s.
I am too good looking for that sort of activity.
There's enough pain in life without seeking out more.
I already stirred the bubbling cauldron of trouble here, early on, when I went down to their shop to discuss ...bathroom etiquette... with the 'boys'.
It seems we Americans have differing standards than the Third World.
I knew that, of course but thought the Third World was someplace else.
I only saw it on TV and it was somewhere else on the globe.
But not in the 'Common' shared toilet facilities all our shops have a key for.
Recall your most horrifying public toilet experience and then imagine it on a regular basis.
Daily....
If your story would be "oh, no. there's no toilet tissue, again." Please... you and 'your royal highness' types just go away.
You will not relate.
It's one thing to clean out the family chicken coop, or shovel pig and cow 'plop'.
Or even scoop used dogfood 'landmines' from a lawn with a variety of long handled garden implements..
I've done that. (I have NOT however walked a dog ...and used a rubber glove or baggie to comply with a city ordinance. Not gonna happen. I don't care how rich or good looking the dog's owner is.)
Taking my morning "Constitutional" ...an old school term for the right we have to make that trip to the 'privy' or outhouse, is much more complicated, here.
It's a real flush toilet but when you walk in, you better approach with caution.
I had to invest in a 5 gallon bucket, a toilet snake, a plunger and some 'tongs' to carry back and forth on my walks of 50 feet to the toilet.
Almost every damn time.
If you need to pack 'tongs'... just so you can relieve yourself, you either need a lot more fiber in your diet or, it's time to exercise some diplomacy and discuss a couple things with fellow tenants.
There are some things to do, to get ready, for this "meeting".
How you handle this is up to you, but if you are gonna "get in someones face" ...be prepared.
-One should be in an even temperament.
-One should be polite. Smile.
-One should be conversant in the language of the people you wish to engage.
-One should maintain a calm voice.
-One should bring a pencil and paper or calender to work out details and a possible schedule for sharing the bathroom "tidying up" responsibilities.
-If a 'welcome to the neighborhood' gift basket should be employed, a toilet plunger amongst the goodies should be a new one, price tag still attached.
-One should probably not bring your bucket and it's contents down for use as evidence. Even if the evidence is dead cinch proof... linking it to the fine citizens you are addressing.
-One should not use any profanity or profane terms describing events which have lead up to this meeting.
This is because you are going to be negotiating toilet usage and proper etiquette and hygiene with people who came from another culture.
People who may have lived in adobe huts and a bathroom facility consisted of a hole in the ground ...or a low horizontal tree branch.
Personal cleanup was either a handful of leaves or a corn cob.
Typically, some of these Third Worlders arrive in the First World and appear to NOT grasp the mechanics of a flush toilet.
The enameled or plastic lid and seat must be a puzzle to them.
Otherwise, how does one explain always finding shoe marks and dirt ON the seat... where they stood precariously positioned and squatted.
Their marksmanship or bombing skills show a need for improvement.
Sometimes a putty knife is needed to restore the seat to it's proper availability.
Toilet paper?
These people appear to be as entertained as any toddler with a roll of paper.
Most is un-used but on the floor laying haphazardly where it spooled off.
Of course, it's mostly un-use able.
More often than not, I've used the tongs or the 'snake' to retrieve Spanish language newspapers, paint rags or grease rags plugging the hole.
Once there was a sock.
A real surprise once, was to discover a very full shopping cart in the room as I flipped on the light, one night. To my surprise, I had awakened a homeless dude asleep on the floor. I left and drove to a fast food joint just down the street to take care of my business. When I came back, "Dude" was gone but he left the cart and a lot of trash.
Back to negotiating with multiple "car dismantlers/fabricators" at night....
If you feel inclined to deal directly with them: ...be diplomatic, not wimpy. A wimp would most likely just keep cleaning up after them and not make a scene ....like their oppressed barefoot women and madres.
A diplomat will work all kinds of suggestions into the chat hoping these guys are good natured enough to reciprocate in some way.
Or, you can be the "tougher than they are" type and do some insisting.
Wearing a firearm, ammo belts crossed over your chest and shoulders, "Bandito style" is a nice touch but should not be considered, as this can set a certain tone for the meeting. Your attire might remind them of an early childhood family outing with all those uncles and family friends. A sombrero would be nice but might be a bit too much.
In your conversation, try to work in the line ..."Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"
This will show them you are familiar with their culture and 'down' with the lingo.
They will respect that.
I overlooked this small detail while trying to get my point across, encircled by 7 or 8 smiling guys. All younger and tougher.
When I yelled at one guy for peeing on my van wheel I knew I had waded in too far ...and needed to back out.
Even my spoken logic that he should pee on his own wheel was not very convincing.
My arsenal, in reality, was in my gun safe 70 feet away.
I was living by my wits... and that is not a comforting feeling. Not for a dumb ass like me. I guess every man who finds himself carelessly walking into an ambush must feel this way at some level.
Oscar, the tallest guy, was cool about defusing the situation. An uneasy peace was declared.
Manuel and Oscar decided that a bathroom key would be hanging up at their shop. OKaaaaay... This wasn't much of a concession for me. ACCESS to the toilet was about a 3 percent problem. Hell, homeless guys with NO key, slept there. A key? But a diplomate will seize upon anything and see it as progress.
Time for Quid pro Quo.
I very generously offer a toilet plunger for the room. This created no visible response and I realize they probably don't even know what that is. The need for one never came up as they were sitting on that low tree branch. If a toilet plunger magically appeared in their village it might become the village leader's scepter.
Their offering of an available key never materialized. The toilet plunger soon disappeared. Who collects used toilet plungers?
My toilet facility bucket gained a new plunger for my own use, rubber gloves and various disinfectants.
But my van wheel wasn't a target anymore.
On "Tamale/Taco Night" or "TTN" as I refer to it, ...there may be a dozen cars, two dozen of East L.A. type brothers and the occasional girlfriend ...cutting, welding, grinding, painting.
Test flights of welded-on hydraulics are interesting.
Some nights there is 'musica allegre' (That's 'lively music' for the unschooled in Spanish lingo) to be enjoyed by all... whether you like it or not. Rarely... there is the crash of a beer bottle.
*****
Out front, along Kansas, there's a motel, a restaurant, a great sandwich shop, tire and custom wheel shop. It's an older part of town, a bit rundown but mostly, we are all working stiffs, chasing the buck.
At night on Kansas, things change from an older, light industrial area... ...into a 'busy-meth-addicts-riding-bikes-around-talking-on-cellphones-looking-for-vehicles-or-places-to-break-into' area.
Oh yes. I could describe more than two dozen incidents in... ...wait...
Don't get me started.
Two blocks away, on Needham ...you can see workers of the oldest profession known to man plying their trade. Sad.
Every one of them is, or was, someone's daughter.
