To continue on with the crime theme, a bunch of kids were shot and killed around Philadelphia, one in broad daylight at the El station at 52nd and Market, which is very near to where I do my banking.
So shortly after learning about this, I go to do some banking, eying the area more uneasily than before, thinking that maybe West Philly beyond University City is just not a good place to be at any time of the day.
While taking the 21 bus to 54th and Chestnut, I feel this tap on my shoulder; turned around and this little old lady said, smiling, in words I could barely understand, “Look at [unintelligible] sitting all proud in your wheelchair.”
I smiled at her, nonplussed; I’d only been looking out the window, checking out the various cool old buildings in various states of decay. Then there was a long sort of conversation in which she said a buncha things I couldn’t understand and I nodded and smiled and she nodded and smiled back.
I’m reading one of the alt-weeklies and startle half the bus by hee-hawing when, while reading a restaurant review, I unexpectedly come across a description of salad dressing that employs a metaphor of the semen of Peter North.
Some ten minutes later it’s my stop and I turn around to the nice old lady and I say in a blast, “Nice talking with you!” But after the words are out of my mouth I see that behind me are two different old ladies, and although they look nice and all, they give me a look that is clearly, Who the fuck are you?
A few blocks south of Chestnut on 54th I find myself behind a group of four to six boys, maybe, ten-twelve years old. They are just goofing down the street happily. But then one them runs into or pushes a really big garbage can off the sidewalk into the street and it goes clattering around. The kid cheerfully sez, “My bad,” and I’m like, hmm, is this some fucked-up-ness with which I have to deal.
They’re walking more slowly than I’m wheeling, and finally I just say fuck it, come up behind them and say cheerfully, “Excuse me!”
One kid turns around, eyes me for a millisecond, and then sez urgently to his peers, “Get outta the’ way! Get outta the way of the lady!
The group splits to let me through and they all say, “Sorry! Sorry!” I tell them it’s no problem and go my way.
Then I hit a streetlight and they catch up with me and surround me.
One kid sez, motioning to my wheelchair, “Can you lift that up?” I half think huh? And half think that they are going lift up the chair with me in it and carry me around West Philly like a queen on a dais until they reach some location wherein they proceed to strip my chair of saleable parts, or something.
The kid sez, “I have a friend with one and he can lift it up.”
Oh. He’s talking about wheelies. Fuckin’ wheelies, and here I thought it was some preface to an assault. I demonstrate a couple. They are lame, and I apologize for this.
The light turns and I tell them all to have a great day. All the kids break into a chorus of, “You too, miss! God loves you! God will help you!”
Philly: Brutal and sweet.
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