Skid Row Story
by Will Kern
This morning I went to teach my ESL
class in downtown LA. It’s in a really
terrible neighborhood, in the middle of
the most depressing part of Skid Row.
Last week I had a book bag stolen out
of my car that had all my Korean books
and workbook in it. Of absolutely no
value to anybody except me, but
suddenly gone, just like that. It’s an
import export company that hires me. I’
m not sure why they have their offices
here. I’m guessing it's because the
rent is cheap.
Skid Row is sad. No amount of
street sweeping can clean the filth off
the buildings and the sidewalks and
the people. There are nylon tents set
up everywhere, worn and torn, the grit
ground in. The people that walk the
streets are a combination of crazies
and bad alcoholics.
The bad ass mofos are out here
too. You can tell them by their prison-
honed muscles bursting out of their
dago Ts.
In Skid Row, a pile of trash on the
sidewalk might be something else. It
looks like clothes and newspapers and
plastic bags filled with crushed coke
cans and brown plastic bottles – then
suddenly it’ll stir because there is
somebody sleeping under it.
Two days ago I saw a bloated
young Mexican man standing on the
corner holding scrawled cardboard
sign that said “buY Me a BeEr.” He
had it bad, the shakes. Least he was
honest.
Yesterday morning on the corner of
3rd and Broadway I saw a woman
having a loud conversation with herself
– pretty regular sight down here. Only
she was different. She was white for
one thing (it seems like 99% of the
homeless down here are black or
Hispanic) and dressed in a business
suit and high heels, her clothes
frumpled, a mess, like they’d been
slept in. She was around 45. My first
thought was, “somebody forgot to take
their medication.” My second thought
was, “her mind’s snapped.” I had a
fleeting image of a family member,
perhaps an overweight older brother
with a handlebar mustache and dark
state trooper sunglasses, finding her
on the street and putting his hand
gently on her forearm and leading into
her car so he can take her somewhere
to get help.
But I doubt that will happen to her.
Everybody down here is on their own.
The population is exploding too. Cops
from all over LA County – City of
Industry, Burbank, Hacienda Heights,
even Monterey Park where the
Chinese live - have started using Skid
Row as a dumping ground for their city’
s homeless and mentally ill.
And let’s not forget the seniors who
can no longer afford nursing home
care. They are brought down in squad
cars or hospital vans and dropped on
the street.
My class starts early, around 7:45
am. It’s the time of morning associated
with rebirth, when the sun comes up
over the horizon to swathe the
landscape in many a golden hue. But
not on Skid Row. The sun coming up
just illuminates what’s dirty and broken.
This morning the traffic on the 101 was light so I got
there early. There was only one student there, Sam, this
Korean kid, 25, who is always early to open up the place. I
said good morning and started to make copies of the day’s
lesson.About five minutes later I hear one of my students,
Hailey, come running upstairs shouting “Teacher!
Teacher!” and then something in Korean. Well, this is a
pretty spirited class, so I didn’t think much of it. Then I
heard a little more commotion but I wasn’t sure what it was.
Then Sam comes up to me and he says, “Hailey says
someone has broken into your car and taken your stereo!”
We rush downstairs, and Hailey is standing downstairs by
my car. There is a shopping cart nearby, and Sam says the
guy who stole the stereo was with the shopping cart.
I unlock the door and look. The stereo has been torn
out, the multicolored wires hang out of the rectangular hole
in the dash. We look at the passenger side door. There
are scratches in the paint where the thief jimmied the lock.
At least that a-hole didn’t break the window.
I get on the phone and dial 911. They switch me over
to the police. Hailey says she knows where the guy went,
so I say, “Take me there,” and we cross the street, and
before you know it, we’re walking down an alley and the
cops are on the line asking for a description of the thief. I
start to tell them, but I didn’t see the guy, Hailey did, so they
don’t want to talk to me, they want to talk to her. I hand her
the phone. As I do, she points to this ramp that goes into
an outdoor parking garage and she says, “He went up
there.”
So I look up the ramp and up at the top is this black
homeless guy in a dirty white T-shirt.
I say to Hailey, “Is that him?” and she says, “Yes.”
So I start walking toward the guy, who’s not looking at me,
but is at this point about 60 feet away, and I say, “Hey! Did
you steal my stereo?” And he glances at me and he said,
“No.” And I say, “She says you did.” And I start to walk
slowly towards him and I say, “I just want the stereo back. I’
m not going to call the cops.”
He reaches down and he pulls out this bag, and then
takes out something wrapped in a black sweatshirt. And
he’s unwrapping it, and now he’s walking toward me. And
he’s unwrapping it as he walks toward me, and whatever it
is, it’s big, and I’m thinking, “Is this a gun?” and I start
backing up, and I’m thinking, “Oh my god, this is where I get
whacked for a freakin' car stereo” and he pulls off the last
part of the sweatshirt and it’s my car stereo.
He hands it to me. And I say, “Thank you.” And he
says, “You’re welcome.”
Hailey walks out of alley with me, but before we leave,
she looks over her shoulder, and in this sing-song voice
she says to the guy, “Thank you!
And again, he says, “You’re welcome.” But not in a sing-
song voice.
The office was all abuzz later that morning. I proclaimed
Hailey a hero, and told her she needed to quit her job and
join the LAPD. My students asked me why I said, “thank
you.” I told them the little situation we had could have
ended very badly. I said “thank you” because I was grateful
that it didn’t have to.
After I finished my class, I went downstairs and he was
standing by his shopping cart about 80 feet from my car.
He looked at me and nodded, and I looked at him and
nodded back.
Then got in my car and drove away.