Archive for December 18th, 2023
An evening scuttle
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another short walk day was upon me, and honestly – one wasn’t ‘about’ shooting photos on this one. The weather had been fairly ghastly for several days, and according to the TV weather people, the sky was about to offer another multi day cycle of cold and wet in the coming week.
I took the T streetcar to the south side of the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, and stuck the headphones in my ears. This time around, it was music, in particular a playlist that features every Black Sabbath album which I own.
One hit ‘shuffle’ on the Ozzy and Dio rich playlist and started scuttling, following whatever direction my toes happened to be pointing towards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge pictured above. While walking, I was thinking. A lot. It ranged from when I would next be doing the laundry all the way into springtime, and which part of the region I was planning to explore next was ruminated upon. Eastern Ohio is being considered, as is a day trip down to West Virginia.
It was late in the day, about an hour before the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was going to dip below the horizon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking along, I became the focus of attention for a junkie whom (I’m pretty sure) was being employed to deliver ‘bindles’ of narcotic powder to various customers by some dealer. Dealers will often use the street people for delivery duty, letting them catch the jail time should the cops clip them. A bindle of the powder is thereby won for their efforts, as a salary. It’s a living, I guess.
One probably would have been in trouble, if I hadn’t clued in to his particular vibe. Junkies and street people always talk to me, and sing their songs. I once talked a Jehovah’s Witness into dropping his Watchtower magazine stock in a garbage pail and drinking whiskey with me at a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, as amicable and convincing conversation is one of my super powers.
I think this young narcotics enthusiast was trying to figure out if I was a cop, and also likely fixing to take the camera from me if opportunity arose. Always keep moving, I always say, and if they want to talk to me…
My narrative stylings went ‘hard Brooklyn,’ and we chatted about gangs, and turf, in Pittsburgh. I regaled the kid with tales of all my loser friends in NYC, all the times they went to jail, and that led to conversation about doctrinal differences, here in Pittsburgh, between people who wear red, or blue, or leather, or just ball caps with denim jackets.
The pale enthusiast soon broke away from me to ‘go say hello to that guy,’ and I subsequently disappeared into the street grid using a reversed variation of a sector search pattern that the Coast Guard utilizes during searches for missing mariners. It’s handy knowing things like this, I say.
More tomorrow.
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