“Excuse me, what do you think’s going to happen if you keep doing that?”
An entitled, stocky, well-dressed white girl is throwing dirt and plants over the fence from the garden next door. I happen to be out in the backyard smoking from my smoking kit and tell her there’s people that live here, and to stop. She keeps doing it even when I shut the fence’s windowed door and lower its shades. So I hop the fence and get all up in her face telling her to get out. She pouts all the way back to her tan scooter. I get my phone out and get pictures of her and her license plate, at which point she yanks down her shirt a little bit. I say “come back when you have a better attitude. Thanks for showing me your boobies, that’s always nice.”
My landlord gets called in shortly thereafter and I have to worry about explaining everything to him even though I’m in the right. He’s smelling my smoking kit, and there’s a guy I don’t know who’s complaining on behalf of the woman that I have to sit too close to on the couch. I retell the story and emphasize that the woman was damaging his property.
It looks like two of the cars outside my bedroom window have been sideswiped. I look again later and those cars have disappeared, and I watch as my own truck is sinking up to the grill in the mysteriously liquefied asphalt. Baffled, I visit the coffee shop three doors down. The barista has never heard of such a thing, and I’m worried that people will think I’m nuts.
Stranded on the side of the road in a tropical paradise, could be Hawaii, could be El Salvador. It’s relatively rocky and barren, but since it’s June it’s not too hot yet. I climb over logs and inspect the nature. A public bathroom there has lit-up text on the door when it’s locked. I’m with someone else — a Japanese girl — and I’m not Orin. She manages to flag down a passing motorist, but it’s a large-wheeled 2-seat race-car. She catches a ride promising to come back for me. I’m kinda glad she’s gone since she wanted to be rescued more than me anyways.
In a broad terracotta tile courtyard with modernist angles, underneath the floors of a building, I’m waiting for the elevator to get back to my apartment. The door opens, but opens right into a part of the city’s downtown. I sigh and start running up the stairs the opposite direction, out to the sunny but dry streets that remind me of Florida. I seem to be carrying a dog on my shoulders, and I’m quickly tired.