Seattle at Night

Dear Friends,

After a summer on the road I’m finally allowing myself to relax. Interesting - the whole point of the summer trip was to relax - find a beautiful Canadian campsite and hang there for a week or two, on my way to Montreal. Easy chair in the shade - work on my novels - take long hikes. Lose some weight. Eat pan-fried trout smothered in fresh vegetables. Drink a couple beers. Wonder why I’m not losing weight. Take siestas. Maybe two a day. Nice plan, but it never happened. Never entered Canada. Mostly I drove - stopped at bookstores or coffee shops with wifi and wrote blogs. Stayed with friends - camped overnight now and then - but mostly slept in the back of the SUV, or in a motel when I needed to shower. I just kept going. My name is David and I'm a recovering do-aholic.

So after a few days in back in Seattle there was this moment . . . I knew the exact moment. One moment I'm perfectly healthy and then the next . . . I felt this little worm with an electric feather stand up in my throat . . . and he just started waving that frickin’ buzzing electric feather around like crazy - like a wild crazy possessed worm on Red Bull. I started coughing to try to make him stop - but he wouldn’t - and I couldn’t . . . stop coughing. One moment I’m this healthy natural remedy guy, and then I’m this DayQuil and NyQuil and Ibuprofen junkie, gulping it down because without it I was just ripping my throat and chest to smithereens. The next day it turned into some sort of flu and I just couldn’t get up. Two in the afternoon and I’m still in bed. Unbelievable! Then the next day I was fine . . . a few hacks here and there . . . but strong. And the nuttiest thing about it . . . somehow all that hacking and sugary shit made my torn rotator cuff better. I am truly baffled with life.

I’ve been staying close to home, so last night I decided to get out and roam around downtown Seattle. I really like this city. It's vibrantly alive. At 8 pm stores are open, bars and restaurants are thriving, anything you want, people of all colors, shapes and sizes fill the sidewalks. Pretty girls. Gay boys looking dapper. (not that I notice) Beautiful rich women strutin' around spending money. Businessmen looking for martini’s or sushi, maybe both. Neon Deja Vu, young love, holding each other, looking for the one, wanting another, a 500 pound woman pontificates next to an alley. Someone is actually listening. An intoxicated native woman stands at the entrance to Nordstroms and screams “I hate my people. They are all Motherf@#$#%^&er’s!” OK. Next to Starbucks clusters of multi-racial teen tribes gather. Pierced faces. Strange tattoos. Black lipstick. Dreads. Excitement. What are they seeing? Planning? Wanting tonight? Some are homeless and have signs . . . Hungry $1 . . .competing with the street vets - old dudes in dirty clothes planted under Macy’s. Street Music. Guitars - open cases. A trumpet fills the air with expectancy. Hip-hop guy with six plastic five gallon buckets bangs away in the Pacific Place echo chamber - setting the beat . . . of cars and trucks and humanity all moving, going somewhere, going nowhere, blending color, sound, blood, breath in rhythm, the pulse . . . of downtown Seattle, on a Thursday night.

A couple middle-aged long-hair American Indians approach me on the corner of 1st and Virginia. “Hey brother. We’re hungry. Can you help us out?” I stop and look them both in the eyes. They weren’t drunk . . . probably hungry - not looking for cheap wine. “Sure. How about five bucks?” I hand the first man the money. “Thank you so much,” he says. “You help restore our faith in humanity. We really appreciate it.” “No problem.” I'm not sure why I'm surprised with how clear and bright they are. Beggar stereotyping. “Can you pray for our brother?" the other man asked. “You know - the one who was killed.” “I know,” I answer, aware of the young Native woodcarver who didn’t put down his carving knife when the officer told him to, (why would he?) resulting in six point blank bullets into the heart. “We don’t know how to stop killing Indians,” I offer as a way of apology. “They’re not all that way,” the first man says, holding up the five dollar bill. “This is going to get us two burgers and fries. Bless you brother.”

I relax in Borders for an hour or so - until 7:30 and then go back out to find something to eat. So many choices. Mostly I just like walking, watching, standing on street corners . . . waiting . . . letting the crowds file by . . . the signals change . . . other people come and go . . . I'm waiting . . . for nothing. This feels good. I decide to walk maybe ten blocks to Belltown.

8 pm. Just the beginning of the night.

A black man - maybe a street hustler - OK, a street hustler - 50ish, Suave. Debonaire. Handsome. Slick. I stop and lean against a street lamppost. He's singing Motown. Two blonds in black dresses. Long legs caught in his web. “Tears on my pillow,” he sings a capella, looking straight in ones eyes, “Pain in my heart . . . over you . . . watch this! . . . over you - ou-ou-ooooou.” Then breaking away, dancing on the sidewalk, then coming back inches from her face, “Earth angel, earth angel, oh, oh, oh, oh, wah-ah-ah, oh, oh, oh, oh . . . Will you be mine? My darling dear . . . love you all the time. I’m just a fool . . . A fool in love with you . . . oh, oh, oh, oh, wah-ah-ah, oh, oh, oh, oh . . .” He moonwalks back, does a few quick dance steps and then slithers up in the other blonds face, “Oh darling, please believe me . . . I’ll never do you no wrong. Believe me when I tell you . . . check it out . . . I’ll never leave you alone.”

I’m thinking, “oh brother.” Now the hustle begins . . . with whispers in their ears that I can’t hear. They leave. He walks the other way, and then returns to his corner. Me and a few black hustlers under the street lamp. I give my compliments.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Sometimes it just gets me in trouble.”

“You were really doing a number on those two blonds. I loved it.” It was like rich chocolate - an exquisite taste of life in the city.

“Yeah, I’m going to meet them in the alley in an hour. We’ll see.” (it never happened. The girls were at a bar where I had dinner and went off with some tall white dude). “Hey brother. How ‘bout I sing you a song?”

“You’re not going to be romancing me, are you?” We laughed.

“No way. You’re not my type. Hey . . . (here’s the hustle) me and my buddy need a couple slices of pizza. You like oldies?”

“Sure - give me five bucks worth of oldie.”

“You got it. (he starts right in - looking me square in the eyes) Here’s my story, its sad but true. It’s about a girl that I once knew. She took my love, then ran around - with every single guy in town. Hayp hayo whoah ooh - I should have known it from the very start. This girl will give me a broken heart. Listen people what I’m telling you - a keep away from a Run Around Sue. (he yells that line real loud as a good looking black girl walks by, ignoring him) She likes to travel around, She'll love you but she'll put you down. Now people let me put you wise. Sue goes out with other guys. Here's the moral and the story From the guy who knows - I fell in love and my love still grows. Ask any fool that she ever knew - They'll say, a keep away from a Run Around Sue - Stay away from that girl. Don't you know what she'll do now? Whoah . . .”

The entertainment was worth every dime. Me and the black guys do the hand shaking thing. I got it right. We bonding.

“Thanks for the money, Brother. Hey what you doing with those notes?”

“I’m a story writer. I’m writing about this.”

“You make sure we’re in your story. Write good things about us, hear?”

“You got it.”

I had dinner a few cafe’s down from his corner. It wasn’t crowded and the food there wasn’t very good, but I was totally enjoying life. Alan came to join me, and by 10:30 the place was filling up - a Brazilian band was about to play. Looked like some dancers in the crowd . . . but for me it was the end of a good day, and I was ready to go home.

Blessing and love always,

David Dakan Allison