****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS*****
We go to #1 for breakfast where they are kicking ass at oatmeal. It's especially good so I inhale two bowls like nothing. Crochet Buddy gets Tailia out of his locker for us. KL and I sit outside with the box that holds Tailia's remains. I try to get a tub of rice pudding to stay on the box using yarn. It doesn't want to work but I'm not giving up either. Some guy we've never seen before sits by us making the both of us uncomfortable by trying to butt in to our conversation and acting creepy. We continue on simply ignoring the creeper man.
"You never give up on anything do you?" she asks.
"No." I say wrapping yarn around the box for the ten billionth time.
"You make shit happen. You're one of those people if someone tells you you can't do anything you'll do it even if you don't want to just to prove you can."
"Pretty much." I smile.
The creepy man keeps trying to interject himself in the conversation and we keep ignoring him. Finally, I get the rice pudding secured on the box so we try to leave but he starts following us. I immediately run inside, trying to drag KL with me. The guy screams at us saying, "Nice try but I'm not like that." Neither of us have any idea what he means. I tell the receptionist that he is following us. He trails in behind and grabs the form you do to get a doctor's appointment.
Receptionist Lady tries to call up to Beard Man but she doesn't reach him. She says it looks like Creeper Man is staying put but if he tries to follow us she will call someone. We leave looking behind us to see if we are being followed.
We find Houdini. The three of us go to put Tailia in her final resting place. Getting down to the water is a troublesome task so we decide to drop her from under the bridge. I hand her to KL who holds the box for a few seconds as if unsure then leans over the railing and lets go.
The rice pudding jostles off and to our surprise floats. The box lands in a way that not even half of it gets wet. As a result it also floats. Our idea of a rice pudding weight is a total flop, literally. We watch both the pudding and Tailia float side by side. KL says she can't stand to watch it so we go sit on a bench further down on the water front.
Houdini keeps looking back at the box and says he sees the rice pudding floating by with the box following it. "Tailia is chasing the pudding." KL says.
In total there were three days between putting her down and putting her to rest. A day and a half she was carried around with me. Another day and a half she spent in Crochet Buddy's locker. It's a lot morbid and it's a little bit funny. CB actually told Flippy Hair Guy about the cat in his locker. Flippy Hair Guy responded with, "I don't want to know. I don't want to know."
Lunch is once again salty grilled cheese. Ugh! I didn't even know it was possible to screw up grilled cheese but if there were Olympics for messed up grilled cheese #1 would totally win it. KL showers while I harass Beard Man to make sure he gets her clothing vouchers. He tells me he's good at his job and to leave him alone. But hey, she's my friend so it's my job too.
I want cookie dough so I decide to walk to Fred Meyer's where they have better cookie dough. Pot Head asks me to smoke a bowl with him. I figure why not? The poor kid has been trying for a month to smoke with me and right now I have no reason not to. And let's face it, I could use some pot in these circumstances.
We go a few blocks down and sit by a clinic. #1 has a two block rule where you can't do any drugs or have sex or do anything stupid basically within two blocks of the building. Hence, going a few blocks down. He pulls out the smallest pipe I've ever seen. he packs it, hits it, then hands it to me. We pass it back and forth until I see a police car coming. He's holding the pipe when I see the car approaching. I hit his hand into the bushes behind us, "Cop."
The cop drives by without even seeing us. Pot Head thanks me for saving both our asses. He lights two cigarettes, Red Marlbrol. I take mine and continue on to cookie dough. He goes back to #1. The cigarette tastes so gross I butt it out on the bridge.
When I get back Kitten Lady is passed out on the bench outside. Her mouth is open so I play with her bottom lip. Not even that wakes her. When she finally does wake she looks like the walking dead and Godzilla made a baby. She's wearing a face mask that has dried and cracked on her face. It's even green. She is so groggy she sways on her feet and she squints her eyes. Her mouth even kind of hangs open.
"Rice pudding," is all that she says.
Dinner upstairs is once again lasagna. It has to be the third time we've had it this week. We are fed it multiple times a day. KL shovels it down her face anyways. #1 staff yells at her because it's almost closing time. She lets them know she doesn't give a fuck. That girl can eat.
When they finally kick us out the three of us go to the water front. We find a tree to lean against. KL lays in Houdini's lap to sleep while I write in my notebooks. Houdini and I are talking when all the sudden he starts yelling, "Sprinklers!" I look up and sure enough the sprinklers have started.
We hurry to grab everything as fast as we can. The first thing I do is shove my notebook in our plastic bag to keep it dry. We run off the grass just in time to jump back from getting blast with a stream of water. "That really would happen to us." I say.
We sit on a bench away from the sprinklers. I continue writing. Houdini asks me the time. I can't find my phone. We search every bag multiple times and both he and I make two trips back and forth between the bench and the tree. No sign of it. I swear I checked the time on it while we were sitting there but we are really left with no option but to see it was left somewhere.
We cut through the park that is the famous site of the Occupy Portland movement. After Occupy the park was completely bulldozed and destroyed. They fenced it off and had police patrol there for months. It's open once again now with a fresh lawn and new bushes. It's probably better now than it was even before Occupy. Still, that's a lot of the 99%'s tax paying dollars to pay for the Occupy movement. I still don't know which side I'm on there.
As we're walking I see the shape of a square in the bag Houdini is carrying. I try to decipher if it might be my phone. I pull it out feeling pretty fucking stupid. It's almost time for shelter anyways though so we walk the rest of the way and go to McDonalds to sit.
On our way we hear loud blasts. All three of us scream. We all think it's a drive by shooting. KL's boyfriend about jumps on the ground. KL throws herself over me. I grab her. We are all screaming.
It turns out to just be some jackass on a motorcycle. When it happened I though KL threw herself over me like that the way Tailia would jump on her when she was scared. I thought she was coming to me for protection. In reality she had thrown herself over me to cover me completely from the nonexistant bullets. She was trying to protect me.
No one can say this friendship is one sided.
At McDonalds I buy us a medium fry, sodas, and cookies. It's been so long since we've had fries that you'd think they were crack by the way they disappear. When it comes time to go up to shelter we get up without drama. This is a good thing. I'd have no problem throwing a fit if I need to but I'm not in the mood to do it if I don't have to.
Dinner is again lasagna. Surprise, surprise. I'm hungry and I don't want PBJ or ramen so it's another lasagna for me. I play Scrabble with a group of guys; it gets pretty raunchy with beaner and cunt making it on the board. I could have done "whore" but someone stole my "ore" to make "sore". Bitch.
Blue Eyed Staff Man comes over to check our board. He loves Scrabble and is our walking Scrabble dictionary. He knows almost all of it by memory but we often make him look things up in the official online Scrabble dictionary to be sure. Our Scrabble games last for forever because it is actually two bags of letter tiles put together. We have more letters than we have space on the board.
We give up after an extensive debate on IQ. I don't feel like showering so I go to bed committed to waking up in time to grab a shower in the morning. I fall asleep thinking I would be perfectly happy to never see a lasagna again.
--mm
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