Mission Livin 1999

   It's either gonna be an epic, one to write home about, night or... it's gonna be totally FUCKED!
My pocket still has $165 and I'm waiting.   Oh yeah... I'm gonna wait.  It's a warmish, overcast late-afternoon on this burned out, abandoned industrial "neighborhood" streetcorner.  The bums, derelicts, alkys, illegals, dope fiends, and homies all know me down here; but that's not what I'm worried about.  I'm not even worried about what to do if Ramon doesn't show.  Nope.  I have one concern: cops. Especially McMasters.
That motherfucker would leave his son's little-league game to bust a couple boosters at K-mart!  I know, believe me....
  There's an excitement in the air at this time of day - every day.  A constant stream of low-voltage electricity across the tongue, and a faint, dull buzzing just inside the eardrum.... Shit, is that him?  No, one of the parking lights is out.  Come on, man.  A little more time to think....

See, if your hustle is weak that day, and there's no couch to crash on, or whatever goes down that leaves you with nowhere to go - again, then a decision has to be made.  The mission will feed you up to five-thirty, and if you got it like I do then you could get a bed as late as seven-thirty.  (I know you're thinking, "what's early!?").  

There's a Jusuit a few blocks down who gave me a job installing metal platforms because my email address is hobo4jesus@lickmail.com.  The pay is good enough to to struggle with for a few days at a time; enough to keep me well for the day....

Yes...

   

Ramon always shows....  I'm golden.  eighty on black, twenty on white, thirty-five for the room, thirty for smokes, booze, and food. 

I cross the city line from Oxnard to Hueneme; the cops don't know me down here.  So I start heading down toward the Stroll on the boulevard...  This walk is of the gods.  You know the kind?  The distance isn't an issue, cuz you know exactly how you are going to feel at the end of it.  Music going around in your head, whether it's something as cheesy as TLC's "Waterfalls" or as common as Richie Dagger's Crime you're dancing and skipping the whole way.