August 3, 2014; A last day in Seattle
This morning, like most of my mornings began before 0500. Brian is
asleep across the bed and I am waiting for it to be closer to 0600,
so I can go get my morning coffee. This morning I took a shower to
remove the dampness. The humidity has increased over the last
several days.
The trek up the hill to the coffee shop was
uneventful. The young black couple are sleeping on the porch of the
Seattle Vineyards Christian House.
Because it is 0600 before the Starbucks opens there is a wider array
of people out and about. I was the first customer this morning but
soon other followed. The location of this Starbucks, a block from
the University attracts numerous odd characters, from the man that
sits at the base of the light pole just outside the door on the
corner, with a sign that says, "Need Food," though I saw him
yesterday morning give a young man a credit card with which to buy
him a cup of coffee, to the scraggly and odoriferous youths with
skate boards milling up and down the streets. They seem to travel in
packs, like wild dogs, or maybe even feral cats. One wonders what it
is about University environments that attracts these young, and not
so young, vagabonds. Here in this area of Seattle it can't be the
cheap housing, because such does not exist. Were they once students
that somehow managed to never finish school and never leave the
city? Are they current students, poor as students are, just hanging
out in Seattle for the summer? Bigger cities do attract a wide range
of transients that flock in during certain times of the year. Some
stay, trapped by their poverty but others manage to escape to other cities.
There are also the customers that come in and buy their morning
drinks then head off on their business. There young girls dressed in
morning hair and whatever turned up from the floor, that wander in
with sleep still in their eyes.
As I arrived at the Starbucks,
there was ,standing on the edge of the sidewalk an anxious looking young
man with what looked like knife scars on his left cheek. He was
taking a picture with his cell phone of something. Later, after I
had sat down to read and drink my coffee I noticed that he would
walk out into the street and look down the hill, as though waiting for
someone, someone that was late, to arrive. He seemed a bit agitated, not as
in angry but as in nervous. Soon, a young black kid on a bike, with
the seat set low so that his knees were above the handle bars arrived.
What transpired appeared to be some kind of drug deal. Not being my
business or concern I refocused on my reading. Later the young black
kid on the bike came in the door and leaned his bike against one of
tables and commented, "Is was already getting hot." He
disappeared toward what I assumed was the counter to order a
morning drink. He had still not returned to get his bike and leave 15 or so minutes later, which I thought odd, so I assumed he had sat down to enjoy his
morning drink. By 7 am I was ready to leave so I put my trash into the
trash container and walked to the counter to order another coffee to
go. No kid was to be seen. Apparently he had come to use the
bathroom, for whatever purpose and and had been in there some time.
As if to emphasize the seediness of this particular Starbucks, which
rather seems genuinely unwarranted, there is a spiral of flies in
perpetual motion as you enter the door. You have to bat them out of
your face and keep your mouth closed, lest you swallow a couple.
They don't seem to pester the customers at their tables, but
occasionally one needs to be swatted away when ordering at the
register.
The young black couple were gone by the time I walked by the charity
house. Yesterday morning, when I came up the hill, the girl had gone down the alley to use
the "facilities" and was returning to her porch bed when I walked
by. She seemed pleasant enough and with an embarrassed smile she said
good morning to me - alley bathrooms are not ideal places for young
ladies.
No comments:
Post a Comment