Plaza

Sunday morning and it rained last night. I like being on the Plaza before it is open for business. Frankie cleaning his tour bus, Martha Wright setting up her jewelry table, Roque just arriving with his carnitas stand and the Indians waiting in line for their daily lottery for a space to sell under the portal.
Walking by Martha I looked over at the Indians queued up and said, “Is that the line for communion?”
Her and her son James laughed and asked what trouble I was getting into. I told them I was starting a boycott of the 4Th of July Pancake Breakfast. This time they don’t laugh even though they get it.
Sometimes I say things for the people I’m talking to and sometimes for the people listening.
The United Way runs an annual pancake breakfast on the plaza that has slipped into what somebody must call…’Project Drift.’ That is, something that is small and good that slips into something big and scammy.
“I gonna go bother Frankie” I say to Martha.
“I thought you were going to bother Cliff.” She replies.
Cliff Mills, another plaza vendor wasn’t there yet but I laughed because I knew what she was talking. I knew about the big e-mail controversy and that Cliff being both a plaza vendor and a wanna-be City Council candidate had used the City’s email list of vendor to send out a post that said the City should abolish the program he was part of. I didn’t care but how did I know about it?
It is truly amazing what you find in the trash both electronicly and in real life garbage. In City Hall there are recycling bins and I having no qualms about dumpster diving find the most interesting documents. Like a complete print out of all city employees; their birthdates; their pay and date of hiring; their home address and their fucking Social Security Numbers. One time, in the recycling bin, I found all the applications for employment to be in the Department that no only had all the personal bio information but also included photocopies of the applicant’s driver licenses.
I had, before, made Frankie laugh when I explained how I had self restraint because I drew the line when it came to reading the un-opened Christmas cards he threw away in those bins when he was a City Councilor. He knew he had thrown the cards away and he I knew I had seen and not read them.
I love Frankie because he’ll always give me the official line. But talking to him is like talking to government…one should never talk to government unless you want to hear the word no or you want to be denied. That is your only right when it comes to dealing with government; the right to be refused in a timely manner.
It is when asking questions of government or Frankie that I get to tell them what they don’t know.
(continued)