Post #293
Retro: Adventures on Speedway Boulevard
30th March 2004, late morning | Comments (37)
Tucson, Arizona, USA ~ April, 2002.
Temperature: 95°F.
Tucson is not a place for the pedestrian. Try to travel the length of East Speedway Boulevard by foot and you’ll very quickly realise that you’re an oddity, and an uncatered for oddity at that.
Pavements end abruptly; detours through garage forecourts have to be made; knee-high hedges have to be stepped over. Your way is blocked by signs saying ‘Do not drink from the irrigation system’, ‘Jiffy Lube’, and ‘Club Platinum — always hiring dancers’.
People stare at you as you cut through the front yard of Crazy Bob’s Guns and Beer; children point you out to their parents as you skitter across the entrance to Walgreens car park, Momma, it’s a rac-oon!
That ain’t no rac-oon, Honey. Thas a pee-destrian. Them’s vermin though, just like that rac-oon.
Run it over, Momma!
I’m tryin’, Honey, I’m tryin’.
To get from Bud’s Drapery Den, on the south side of the street, to Furniture-in-the-Raw, on the north side of the street, you must either walk half a mile to the nearest intersection, or brave six lanes of traffic at a run.
The message is clear to those travelling à pied: Buy a car, you shmucks!
If not by foot, then by bus
On Saturday morning I’d ventured out for a leisurely stroll down Speedway, but after three hours of vaulting hedges and dodging cars I’d had enough, and was ready to head on home. I reached my bus stop at 13:09 and found it empty of people and devoid of a timetable. Molly had said the service was pretty sporadic at the weekends, so I sat down to wait, played with my new cowboy hat, and watched people working at the car-wash next door.
At 14:00 a guy carrying a newspaper strolled up to the shelter and sat down next to me. He was mid-thirties, had very blond hair, and a blonde moustache. I noticed he had on and black, Velcro-fastened trainers, and wondered if he had trouble tying regular shoelaces.
- Mr Velcro
Has the bus come yet?
- Dunstan
Nope, not yet. I’ve been sitting here fifty minutes and there’s been nothing. Lots going the other way, but nothing for us.
- Mr Velcro
Oh, OK. Say, where you from?
- Dunstan
England.
- Mr Velcro
Oh, right. I ain’t travelled much, only once been outside of Arizona.
- Dunstan
Oh… well, Arizona’s pretty big. I expect it takes time to see all of it before you can move on.
- Mr Velcro
You got that right. Been here thirty-seven years.
14:20…
- Mr Velcro
You been to France?
- Dunstan
Um, yes, once or twice.
- Mr Velcro
France is nice ain’it?
- Dunstan
Yes, lovely.
- Mr Velcro
Yeah… I ain’t never been to France.
14:40…
A Hispanic man pulled up in a shiny truck and shouted a greeting to us. Mr Velcro went over and talked to him, then came back and sat down as the truck drove off, heading in the direction we want to go.
I wondered why he hadn’t taken a lift with his friend.
- Dunstan
Could he not give you a lift then?
- Mr Velcro
Whad?
- Dunstan
Was he not going in the right direction, to give you a lift?
- Mr Velcro
Oh, he was, but I don’t want a lift from him. I spent seven years in federal prison with him. I don’t wanna see him again.
- Dunstan
Oh.
Crumbs.
We sat in silence for a while. I was wondering how to broach the subject of prison, without getting beaten to death, and he passed the time circling items in his newspaper.
14:45…
- Dunstan
So, was that when you left Arizona? When you went to prison.
- Convict
Yeah, that’s right.
- Dunstan
It must be hard, I guess they can send you anywhere in the country. You could be a long way from your family.
- Convict
Yes sir, that’s true…
- Dunstan
Why didn’t they put you in a local jail?
- Convict
Because it was federal: I robbed a bank, so they put you wherever they want.
- Dunstan
Oh.
Wow! I was talking to a bank robber!
He went back to circling things in his newspaper (probably banks), and I tried not to think about how long I’d been waiting for the damn bus.
14:50…
I turned my head to the right and watched a man staggering up the sidewalk towards us. He was wearing jeans, boots, a rough-silk shirt and his nose was covered by a giant scab. He looked a little worse for wear.
- Scabby-nose
Scoose me sir, isis bzz going to da stashn?
- Dunstan
I’m sorry?
- Scabby-nose
Isis bzz going to da stashn?
- Bank robber
No man, you gotta change for that station bus.
- Scabby-nose
ohshiit.
And with a sigh, the scabby-nose man flopped on to the floor by my feet.
- Scabby-nose
Excyouse me sir, are you from Australia?
- Dunstan
No, England.
- Scabby-nose
AH! I’ve juz come back from Israel — lived there ten years then too many tanks came an’ I hadda leave. Been home one week.
- Dunstan
Really?
- Scabby-nose
No.
- Dunstan
Oh.
14:55…
- Scabby-nose
So, I’m havin’ a really bad come down from acid… Las week I crashed my motorcycle and I’ve been in hozbital… my girlfrenz still in there sir. I keep drinkin’ to try to numb the pain, you know? But it doesn’t help… Drank a pint of vodka thiz mornin’, but it just made my head worse. I got consussion.
- Bank robber
Hey, you lucky you alive.
- Scabby-nose
I am lucky I’m alive.
- Bank robber
You sure are. Crash your motorcycle; you lucky to be alive.
- Scabby-nose
Yes sir.
- Bank robber
Yup…
As he sat on the floor the scabby-nose guy tried to roll a cigarette, and I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone make such a bad job of it before: his co-ordination was on the blink, the tobacco blew everywhere, he didn’t seem to have enough saliva to seal the paper, and when he finally managed to squash the thing into some kind of shape he found, to his dismay, that none of us had a lighter.
Defeated, he put the cigarette on the pavement next to him, where the wind promptly blew it away.
The poor chap was not having a good day.
- Scabby-nose
Sir, I hear the Queen of Ingand died las week. I watched it, it was pretty sad.
- Bank robber
Yup, that’s a shame.
- Dunstan
Actually it wasn’t the Queen, it was the Queen Mother.
- Scabby-nose
Which one’s she?
- Dunstan
Well, she was the mother of the Queen of England.
- Bank robber
Well, she’s dead anyhow.
- Scabby-nose
Yes, sir.
15:03…
The bus!! Thank you Jesus!
It pulled up and we all got on: the Bank Robber first, then me, and finally the Scabby-nose Guy. There was a bit of a delay while our worse-for-wear friend tried to pay with something that the driver insisted “was not money”, but we were soon on our way.
Three hours trail-blazing though Strip Mall Country, and then two hours at a bus stop, in 95 degree temperatures, with a bank robber and a… scabby-nose dude on acid. Was I ever going to have a normal day here?
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