Night notes
Much is obscured by darkness. Sometimes there is the urge to go exploring after midnight. Directionless, we head wherever we go.
Donuts available 24 hours. The shop is brightly lit in contrast with most surrounding shops. Only gas stations stay open past midnight. Two groups of people sit in the small dining area.
We joke about donut shops being fronts for drug houses. Around the bend there are four or five police cars. Suddenly, the urge to turn back around and investigate the crack donuts doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
97 cent store. I laugh. There are 98 cent stores, along with 99 cents and your run-of-the-mill dollar store. That extra three cents does make a difference.
A sad woman stands on a sidewalk. I get a glimpse as we’re stopped. Not particularly pretty, not dressed well, maybe about 35. Maybe she’s waiting for someone in front of this run-down motel. I guess about some other purpose, though she’s not dressed enticingly enough to be a prostitute. But hey… this is Fresno, after midnight, on street heading downtown. And not all hookers have to be nicely dressed.
I forget! Bail bond shops are also open 24 hours, along with the crack donut shop and gas stations. They announce their presence with neon signs and lit offices. Because you can get arrested at any time of day.
Aladdin is the name of one of them. Trying to get the genie out of the bottle. There’s also a couple of adult toy stores open this late, Susie’s flashing with marquee lights.
You can get your gambling at any time of the night. The casino shows signs of life, along with a couple of night clubs.
Wherever we go, there are a lot of cops. No shopping carts spotted downtown. Maybe it’s just too far away from the nearest shopping cart pasture.
We cut back to the donut shop. The caravan of cops around the corner is gone; no more flashing lights. I think of pleading for a first-hand look into the crack donut shop, but I look inside again.
There’s a guy in a suit who was there before, sitting with a guy, dressed in normal street clothes, bobbing his head up and down suspiciously close to the table. Maybe the drug jokes aren’t funny. Maybe I’m just being paranoid in my small-town, Midwestern way.
We head to the apartment, taking the zen way back, getting into more familiar, residential neighborhoods, where it’s mostly quiet now. Just watch out for a few people walking without regard to traffic, and a few shopping carts in the poorer part of town.
Well, in my part of the world, the Nacht Winkels (night stores, opened because smaller stores close at 6-7 and supermarkets 8-9) can front for money laundring (not sure how to spell the gerund version of that!). Sunday night I popped into a NW to buy an pre-packaged ice cream cone (topper for a Mexican dinner at El Sombrero). Suits hovering over the freezer, which opens on top. Took the ice cream, didn’t look around, paid, left, enjoyed the thing in the cold. But those were mobsters, I’m told by a local yokle. Saw the same thing in Vienna at a cheap clothes shop that had no customers inside, only suits.
Weird. And scary.
Not much is open in Virginia after a certain time of night. A gas station here and there. That’s about it. Virginia doesn’t have adult entertainment. Bars are only sports bars/restaurants and they close comparatively early. Virginia is extremely tame, compared to wild, wonderful West Virginia, home of 10,000 titty bars. Virginia is a Republican state, so maybe there is something to be said for Republcian leadership. Personally, I find the site of flashing neon boobs oddly comforting.
I vote Matt the most sex-obssessed brooder.
Mel, what about all of those crazy neon lit used book stores in Fresno that I am always hearing about? When are you going to blog about that seamy side of Frenso culture? All I get from you lately is tame donut stories (without the holes, either, I might add). Give us the real dirt on Frenso. Come on. Please…
I just think the phrase itsself, home of 10,000 titty bars, says it all.
And Todd, I plan on writing soon on the adjusting and settling in I’ve done here. There will be more impressions of Fresno soon. The good, the bad, the shopping carts.
Well, I’ve got the shopping carts covered.
I had to go for the alliteration…ten thousand/titty. That’s my real motivation for that sentence, not sex obsession.
Sure, Matt, that’s what they all say…