The cross streets of Vernon and Hoover are always
busy. A four way intersection ordered by traffic lights. No green arrows, just
yielding to pedestrians who drag their feet when making left hand turns. The
fire station on the Northeast corner sees lots of activity in this
intersection. It is notorious for car crashes; my brother being in two of them throughout
the years. The screeching of rubber and loud bangs are common. Me and my
siblings would run up to the living room window on the second floor of our
building and stick our heads out to see. We held our breaths and watched.
There was always something to see on Hoover street.
In 1984, just a few blocks away where Hoover meets King Blvd., the world’s
greatest athletes came together at the Los Angeles Coliseum. My mother bought
glass coke bottles, and commemorative spoons. To her, it was a glorious year;
it chronicled the birth of her first born and son. The fire from the lighted
torch dimmed after that, but the activity never fully rested. Now, overweight
ladies walk across the coliseum’s parking lot with their kids, the lights above
them a beacon of safety in the repurposed arena. Single mothers fighting like
gladiators to find time for themselves.
My mom, my two brothers, and my sister live on
Hoover St. I visit on weekends as I live in Irvine; I call it my home home. We live in the Southeast
corner on a two story building next to a 7-11. The 7-11 calls to the homeless, the
liquorless, and has given rise to an influx of mid-afternoon naps taken along
the grass of their parking lot by the same. 15 years ago, it was a desolate
place; an abandoned lot with tall yellow foliage. My siblings and I would go
downstairs and play in the abandoned lot, sneaking to the back alley and
inching as close as possible to the white plastic sign that read,“Nevermind the
dog, Beware of Owner” with a large icon of a hand pointing the end of a six
piece revolver right at you. Sometimes, just the glimpse of the sign would turn
our skin clammy, and we’d scream for mercy and run through the lot, the
thistles of the bushes catching on the exposed parts of our socks. The intercom
of the fire station would come on and an announcement would blare, “Get out of
the lot. You are not allowed in there.” The fire station was apparently not
busy all the time.
The building on Hoover street is pink and white, for
the most part. It has two apartments on the second floor, and four businesses
on the first. The businesses swap around like swing partners, adding to the
activity of the street. The left most locale is called The Water Spot. It is
owned by a Christian man afflicted with vitiligo. He talks too much with his
customers, and my mom can get trapped down below for an ungodly amount of time;
upwards of twenty minutes. He talks mostly about his other business neighbors,
and my mom refrains from asking him what she always asked me when I sinned by
gossiping, “A donde van los chismosos?
Where do the gossipers go? To hell.” Mostly because she also wants to chime in.
The penultimate locale on the left now houses a
salon in the day and a Zumba dance studio in the mornings and at night. Before
that, it was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting room, but they have since moved to
the right most locale, locale number four. The AA people are a friendly bunch
that my mom avoids regardless. For so much activity, no one really connects on
a personal level. You say hi when you have to but you help when you can. When I
superglued my hand shut in an effort to stop my siblings from arguing with my
mom, the fire fighters took no less than twenty minutes to cross the traffic
light. Being seven, I immediately realized this was not a deft move, but it was
too late. Out on the sidewalk with a fire truck next to me, it didn’t take long
for all the AA people to come out and ask if they can help. A woman walked to
her house to get acetone, my mom having thrown her own down the sink in a
panic. The fire fighters were useless, but luckily the AA people rubbed my
hands raw with an alcoholic solution that cleaned their dry erase boards. They
went back to their meeting and from then on we still only say good evening and
goodnight when our paths cross.
The third locale is home to Jr’s Tattoos and has
brought considerable drama to the neighborhood. The owner is a supposed ex-gangster and
has the car, the tattoos, and the attitude to prove it. He is a bit off, and
angers easily. Is that enough to call him a ganster? Probably, not, but for all intents and purposes he scares the neighborhood into submission. He used to put cones on the street to reserve his own parking
spot but now he doesn’t have to. People avoid him, and the Water Spot guy prays
for him to move. It might work considering he prayed to have the previous establishment
in that locale move and it happened. It was either that or he prayed for the
courage to call the cops himself.
Before there was a tattoo shop, there was white boarded
up windows and no sign. Men, some as young as 15, would trickle in and out of
the place with no name, a tall lamp shining dim light through the slit of the
open door. Cars would take all our parking spots, and the Water Spot guy would
pray. My brother found a newspaper ad that said “Cheap Massages, Relaxation
Techniques” and it was the address of locale three. A couple of weeks later,
There were police cars and screams answering the prayers of the Water Spot guy.
Me and my sister looked out of our back porch to see two latina women, in booty
shorts and what we called “Figueroa Street” shoes trying to scale their wooden
fence to the back alley where the white sign had scared us so many years ago.
One of the woman twisted her ankle in her plastic stilettos and when she asked
a policewoman to be helped was replied with, “I’m not touching that thing.” We
felt more of a connection with that thing than the policewoman at that moment.
There was only one flight of difference between where we slept.
We said nothing. We held our breaths and watched.
When my mother would hear tiros or shots when we were younger she would say “agachense,
get down” and I thought it was a game we played. We held our breaths and
waited. My mother watched. But when the Hoover and Vernon traffic lights decide
to play like sprites, we hold our breaths no longer. All we can do is watch.
