Finding Momentum

I spot Mike when I drive up Durant Ave on Wednes­day evening. I’m not doing any­thing that night, so I fig­ured I’d spend some time and catch up with him.

Mike’s squat­ting on a stack of empty milk crates. We slap palms, and he has this long look on his face. “Andrew, she screwed me real bad” is the first thing he tells me.

From what I can gather, Mike’s fam­ily is a loose col­lec­tion of friends, acquain­tances, rel­a­tives and strangers. He’s refer­ring to his cousin’s lady friend, who has been hang­ing around him for the past few days.

“We’re at the ATM and I step up to with­draw some cash. I see her look­ing over my shoulder”–Mike’s expres­sion turns to a snarl–“‘Hey! What you doin’?’” Mike’s expres­sion relaxes a bit.

“Any­ways, I’m with her when we pass by the ATM again the next day and I stop to with­draw some more money. Only I pull out my wal­let and my ATM card’s not there. Where did I put it? She stays and I go back home to look for the card. I tell Belinda, Where did I put that card? and she says it ain’t there.”

Mike’s shak­ing his head, star­ing blankly into space. She jacked me up real bad. A guy walks out of the alley and drops some change into Mike’s cup. Mike springs onto his feet and into his thank-you rou­tine. Thank you brother, God bless you. He drops back onto the milk crates with a heav­i­ness I can feel.

“Well I got my card replaced and they find that I don’t have no more money in my account. Some­body with­drew 350 dol­lars that day, and it was her. I know it. She got my card. She took 350 dol­lars and left me nineteen.”

I shuf­fle around on the asphalt.

“Any­ways I go over to her house and start yellin’ at her to get my money back. I didn’t do it, she yellin’ back at me and I’m like Yeah you did.”

Peo­ple are fil­ing in and out of the Asian Ghetto pretty rapidly. It’s Wednes­day night on a cool sum­mer day and stu­dents are out in force. Not many make eye con­tact with Mike.

“She took my money and jacked my bike, too,” Mike con­tin­ues. “I come home the other day to see her throw down my bike in the dri­ve­way.” He holds up his hands to pan­tomime the action, “She throw it down with a CRASH and she just walks away. I find out she slice up my tires too.”

“I never had a bike that nice before.” Mike launches into a story of how he bought the bike off of a UC Berke­ley stu­dent, then falls silent. “She jack me real bad, Drew.”

Nobody’s stop­ping, but then I catch a group of friends walk­ing up who will. Brian, one of them, stops and greets Mike (they know each other well). Another, Chris­tine, stops to lis­ten. And Mike is again telling his story.