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| The day started
on a surreal note, with a large craftsman house being moved across Fremont
to a newly vacant lot just up the alley from us. It should have arrived by
7 am, but it didn't come to rest until well after 11, which was good because
we'd slept in. After the house's final position was confirmed with a rock
tied to a string, the engines shut off and the neighbors who'd been watching
all morning applauded. We handed Steve the owner a bottle of champagne and
said, "This was a work of imagination. Have you seen
Fitzcarraldo?"
He got the reference and laughed.
After a bowl of Mac and Cheese the
fun really began. Sarah and I rode to Capitol Hill, pausing at Urban Surf
where we saw Igor returning the paddle boards we'd rented yesterday. The
Burke-Gilman
between Fremont and U. District was uneventful as usual--which is one of
its charms--although I do miss the
Kalakala.
The
bridge was up as seen from a distance but by the time we got there we
just rolled across. It seems every time I ride on Eastlake Ave I tangle with
a bus; nothing bad, just ballet. After a pass through the epic
Colonnade, we
got on the Melrose Connector, a bike shortcut which runs parallel above I-5
North. I wished Dan Mourek could have been
with us.
My job was to assemble a spiral out of 1,200+ traffic-flattened cans I've picked off the streets since 2005. Previous spirals were fragile and ephemeral, this one might as well be permanent; each can is nailed down with a 3/4 inch galvanized roofing nail--stout shaft, broad head, won't rust.
There's a saying in the construction
biz: "Head down!" That means you're working, not idling or looking around.
I was moving as fast as I could, selecting, placing, hammering each can down,
one by one, at the rate of about 5 per minute when I was cooking (but a lot
of the time the burner was off or merely sputtering along). When people asked
dumb questions, I'd answer politely but couldn't always afford to look
up. The dumbest I heard was, "Is this your parking lot?" Sounded like just
another burnout. Turned out to be a cop. Actually, three cops. On bicycles.
Backlit by a sliding sun, beckoning from the sidewalk side of the chainlink
fence. One was nice, one was neutral, and the one who did the most talking
was an ass. He suspected me of mischief. "We've got to ask when we see someone
desecrating a parking lot...." "You call this desecration?" That
conversation really went nowhere.
Afterwards, one of the good people who'd started to gather on the sidewalk for the arrival of the 6 o'clock soup kitchen mimicked the cop and asked me, "Why are you desecratin' this parking lot?" A wandering musician with a guitar strapped over his shoulder jumped in with, "Yeah, they don't have anything better to do than hassle artists!" It was nice to have their support.
The soup kitchen was just a pick-up truck, two folding tables, a propane burner and some pots. "Who wants a hotdog? How about some soup?" They also gave out tiny cupcakes. Anyone could eat. As they were packing up a couple of hours later, I asked why they were doing it, expecting some group affiliation, but it turned out to be only a father and his grown son and the son's wife, feeding anyone and everyone at the same spot every Sunday and Wednesday from 6-8 pm. The son said, " You don't have to be homeless or poor; you just have to be hungry." One of the wisest positions I'd heard in a while. True charity.
I only made it about halfway through
the assembly process, still had a heavy bag of flattened cans and nowhere
to store them for the night. I figured I'd have to take a couple of buses
home--kind of a hassle after a long day crouching in a sunbaked parking lot.
But lucky for me a reader of this website recognized the cans and chatted
as I packed up. Mark
is a fellow bicycling enthusiast and was one of the people who got the Colonnade
project (above) rolling 15 years ago. He kindly allowed me to leave my things
at his place a few blocks away. As I walked my bike
down Broadway with the heavy bag balanced precariously on the top tube, I
somehow dropped the sunhat
John had left at
our wedding party
and which I'd borrowed for the day. I backtracked to find it but it was too
late; there are many scavengers on Broadway. |
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