Terminus: Snapshots off the Memory

A series of wrong turns off Whitechapel took me deep into unfamiliar territory within the city's southend. This was yesterday, late afternoon. I was navigating by camera, letting the shots call 'true north' and doing my best to keep up with them as they vanished under the shifting light or fading from the momentary accident of perspective.

Of course the best shots were the ones I couldn't take:

- The old midget with a James Brown pompadour (wig?), laboring uphill over the tracks. He wore all black, from a pot-bellied parted vest to heat defying long slacks. He had on cowboy boots that matched perfectly his pugilist's snarl. His body marinated in a sheen of sweat that glowed a dull gold in the last hour of the sun. I considered catching his picture but as if having heard the thought he turned to me and shook his head 'no'.

- Not five minutes from the CNN Center, over by an abandoned brick building I was shooting, two guys burst out of some brush by the chainlink fence and came at me in a dead run. Both were afroed in matching khaki outfits and were barbarian screaming in their charge. I figured, in a split-second, that they were either coming for me or somebody bigger was coming for them. It didn't matter because with a speed that even surprised me I was remounted on my ride and half-way up the hill before risking a glance to see their charge had sputtered out with both men falling back to laugh and holler at my retreat.

- Mechanicsville. Residential area. I'm corner perched answering a text and refueling with swigs off my water bottle. Across the street a heavy set man blasts leaves off his lawn with a backpack mounted air-blower. You can tell by the thickness of the arms through the flab and the broad chest hoisted over a huge gut that he was once a 'big man'. Suddenly, the street reverbetates under an unremitting bass drum. Next thing you know this lime green mean machine of a car pulls up into the man's driveway. The top's down and a young man with wrap around shades, a tight mohawk and an elaborate pattern shaved into the side of his head is behind the wheel. Young man kills the volume. Old man kills the blower. Young man taps three off the horn. In return a door opens on the old man's home. Young lady in a skin-tight red one piece that vanishes mid thigh. Sharp heels, hair done and make-up glow. Young man nods appreciatively.

Old man hollers - "Aw hell no!"

Young lady - "Daddy!"

Old man shrugs himself out of the air-blower, letting drop to well manicured grass of his lawn and marches over to his daughter. The two begin a heated exchange. Young man says nothing. Even when the dad gestures violently towards him.

This goes on for a minute before another car slows down... a kid, couldn't have been more than ten or twelve, hops out of this gray bullet looking Dodge or whatever... runs up to the air-blower while dad and daughter are arguing, nabs it before running back to the car. He hops in with the blower and the car screeches off.

Dad catches the tail-end of the theft go down. He shouts uselessly. Tries running after them but only catches them rounding the next corner in a screech of brakes. Dad starts screaming obscenities while the daughter shrieks and...

... the young man behind wheel of that lime green mean machine pulls his ride out of the drive way like a sword from a sheath and backs up to the Dad's left in one fluid motion.

Dad wastes neither time nor the opportunity. He hops shotgun and the two take off in pursuit, bass roll resuming to create an impromptu chase-scene soundtrack.

I'm fucking stunned, me.

I look back over at the house for some sign of proof that this didn't all just happen in my head. The daughter stands on the edge of the curb watching her 'beau' and 'old man' take off and disappear. The she notices me watching her, her home, her life - "What're looking at?"

What could I say besides the obvious.

Taking a guess as to which way led home, I took off in the opposite direction as the chase, our stories untwining from each other with each second pedaled forward.