Parking lot in back at 3rd and Burnside(Photo)
"Have a good day.", the girl at the bus stop says. Bill says, "You, too." She's waiting for the 20, "I, just saw the 19 go by." She twists a lock of her hair between 2 fingers of her left hand. The bus pulls up, Bill boards. It's Portland, 23 July 2009. Everybody's out. Bill misses breakfast at the Mission, he's sleepy and 6:30 passes by and he's still in bed in his motel room. He heads for the Senior Center and coffee and donuts. Quik called this morning, they want their money.
The Alaska journey is off, this year. Bill hopes he's fit and well, enough, next year to do it. It will take several months to pay his loans. Or he'd consider New Mexico, this winter. It appears he'll be in Portland. He's stable on meds, last hospitalization in Quincy, last year, only ER. He's writing to Sue, again. The JWMatch girl in Washington. There is a thread started by a new-comer at MeetUp, re which translation of the Bible is best. Bill fears this settled feeling, he will regret it. Time passes, too quickly.
Charlie Median and more so, Jerry Barnett resented my being more moral, than they and smarter in school. They were both 2 years my senior and I hung around them, anyway. They were Jehovah's Witnesses. I was 12. Jerry used to physcally abuse Bill. He was getting his first semen ejaculations, when Barry McDonald, the bookstudy conductor started hounding him to keep up with the ministry on weekends. We moved and Bill abruptly loses his connection in the Lennox community.
The Hawthorne and Yukon Intermediate school experience was different, less harassment, they didn't know me, I wasn't established. I took to liking and spending time with a girl in homeroom, Lorrie Hendrix. It was the year Kennidy was killed. I continued and finished Seventh Grade in Rialto at the junior high school. I was isolated and disoriented then and stopped meeting attendance. We returned to Hawthorne and Lennox and Bill's Father leaves. We moved to Westminster for a year and back to the Rialto area, Colton. While in Redlands, Bill returns to meetings.
