If- Nina G. Jones Page 0,2
way of experiencing the world that was different from most other people. It used to be a gift I cherished, but when I gave up my old life, I had surrendered much of that, too. And yet this girl was rare, with her deep red explosion of curls. When the wind picked them up, they floated behind her like flames on a chariot. Her long legs, her kind hazel eyes, her full lips, her freckles over lightly-tanned skin; she was the best of what nature could offer. A mixture of everything beautiful about womankind. But it wasn’t the things everyone else saw that troubled me.
It was the way she always had a halo of lavender around her, the way her laughter flashed before my eyes and sent waves of heat from my neck down to my fingertips, where I felt fuzziness, like the coziest blanket. My world had been colorless and dull for over a year now, like everyone else’s, but she was a walking aurora.
I tried not to look at her whenever she’d walk by with her friend, but it was impossible not to. How do you not look at a person who glows, who makes the piss-stench of Skid Row disappear into something faintly perfume-like?
This girl, just by the simple act of walking by and smiling, was forcing me to reclaim the gift I had surrendered. She was shoving it in my face like a piece of cake to someone who was on a diet. Every time, I would shove it back. Sometimes the desire to grab that fucking cake and shovel it in my face was so strong, I had to leave my post on Skid and wander for a bit. Go back to a world of mostly ordinary color. A world where I only tasted food, heard music, and could only feel on my skin what I touched with my flesh.
This girl didn’t know I existed, and that was perfect. I had no chance of knowing her and that’s just the way I liked it.
BIRD
SKID ROW IS a term synonymous with dejection and broken dreams, yet I had to walk through it to try and achieve mine. Whenever I did pass through, I would try to look straight ahead, not acknowledging my fears and doubts about why I moved to LA. So much of that already existed from the outside world and I didn’t need to pile it on myself.
And, just like the way Skid Row shatters the perfect image of the sunny beaches and hilltop houses that one imagines of LA, the fact that my disfigurement halted my chances of getting work became a sobering reality shortly after my arrival.
My walk home through Skid Row, also known as 5th, was like walking through a giant metaphor. Sometimes, it felt like my parents wished this place into existence to intimidate me.
Yet no matter how hard I tried to look ahead, to not acknowledge the reminders of despair, I always noticed this one guy: alone, quiet, hunched, always looking down, as if he couldn’t be bothered with the world around him. I could swear I felt him watching me, but whenever I would slyly dart my eyes over, he was always looking down. Whether he was standing or sitting, his eyes remained focused on the ground. We never spoke, we never locked eyes, but I always knew he was there, and I had a feeling he always saw me, too. He wasn’t in his spot every day. I might see him for days or weeks at a time, and then he would disappear. After a while, he would be there again, like he had never left. He always seemed to wear the same white T-shirt, dulled from days of wear on the street, jeans with tears that revealed his skin underneath, and boots whose thin soles told of countless journeys. Despite the beard, I could tell he was young. Far too young to have given up.
We were just two people, unconnected except for the same street we occasionally shared for just a few minutes.
That is, until that evening I walked alone from the bus stop instead of taking a cab.
I had made it about halfway home, feeling less anxious with each step closer to my destination. The walk was quiet. Most of the homeless were under their makeshift tents or somberly sitting in the shadows. I passed the occasional person on foot who was also making the short journey through this hell from their relatively comfortable lives.