Tommy steps out of the back, rubbing the beanie on his bald head. As usual, even this early, his look has been carefully assembled--a white, long-sleeved waffle pattern shirt is mostly covered by a fitted black T-shirt with Asian characters; his jeans, a dark blue wash, fit like they were tailored specially for him; the DC shoes look fresh out of the box. Inside, the floor of his van is covered with paper bags, coffee cups, giant bubble markers, henna oils, and empty boxes of insulin syringes. But his dress is a rejection of this chaos.
He says there's a coffee for me, in a carrier on top of his mom's car--a scarlet Toyota rental parked a few spots ahead of him.
Tony parks his van across the street and walks over. Under his cargo shorts, he wears a pair of rainbow pajama pants. With him is someone I haven't met before--biologically male, but with long blond hair and lipstick smeared slightly beyond her lips. She says her name is Robin.
We stare at the van sitting next to the curb on Sunset Ave, between 3rd and 4th. For the last six months, this is what every Monday morning has entailed for Tommy--scaring up enough people to move his van across the street, or around the corner, or anywhere, and then back. It is an exercise in arch bureaucratic inanity; in community building; in politics, local and localer; and, ultimately, in the application of brute force.
Four months ago, he tried to drive the '85 Winnebago to a festival in New Mexico. In Arizona, it broke down, and hasn't started since. AAA towed it back to Venice, where it's sat ever since, in need of serious work, and, in lieu of that, at least three people to move it. It is a mobile home that's no longer mobile, instead serving as a reminder of the price he's paid for trying to take a week off from the boardwalk and enjoy himself.
The homeless guy who's been setting up his pallet on the sidewlk behind Tommy's van says he'll help. His name's Stan. We shake hands.
"You've helped me out by blocking me," he says. "I can help you push."
"Thanks man," Tommy says, but with a trepidation I've never seen from him. "I'm gonna call Antonio again. I talked to him earlier. I hope he didn't go back to sleep."
Still no answer. With Stan, we have more than enough people.
Tommy gets in the front seat to steer while the rest of us stand at the hood. We learn our weight onto the van, heaving and grunting, my nose so close to the metal I can smell the rust. At first, it doesn't budge. Slowly, though, it starts to move, picking up steam until we're just guiding it more than anything else.
We push it backwards into the intersection, reversing it from Sunset onto 4th, Stan yelling instructions and encouragement, "Come on, keep going, turn the wheel, just a little more, there we go!" Then we move around the other side to push it forward into the open spot.
When it's done, Shawn goes down the line, his dread locks swaying back and forth in front of his eyes, giving everyone high fives. The whole process took just five minutes.
It's not always this easy. Last week was a fiasco. We only had four people, and, again, Antonio was M.I.A. Tommy biked down to the boardwalk to see if he was there, and while he was gone, the parking attendant showed up and started ticketing the cars ahead of us. We tried to start pushing--just Tony, Shawn and I--but Tommy had the keys with him: we couldn't even get it into neutral. For whatever reason, though, the meter maid just left us alone. Tony said "good morning" to her, and she got in her car and drove off.
Maybe that should have been our cue to just leave the van where it was. But when Tommy returned with Antonio, we tired to push. The only available spot was directly across the street, which meant we had to turn the thing around 15 times to get it over there. Tony, Tommy, Shawn, and I pushed, using the curb for leverage when we could, our bodies perpendicular to the ground. We grunted and heaved, leaning our faces right up against the dirt and exhaust that accumulated on the back of the van, trying to get it moving, as Antonio struggled like hell to turn the wheel. As soon as we built up some momentum, and the work became easier, it was time to stop and turn again. With each pass, we blocked traffic--cars lined up four deep on each side, waiting to get by. And after each pass, we sat on the curb, panting and dripping sweat.
By 9:10, after 30 minutes of this, we were almost there--maybe two turns away. Again, we learned our weight against the van and started moving our feet, my flip-flops threatening to slide out from under me. The van inched into the street again, accompanied by a nasty noise--the sound of something metal dragging against the ground, then the sound of air. Forget it, Tommy yelled. Keep pushing.
When we reached the far side, we were a single push away--the van almost parallel to the curb, finally. But we were also stuck. The sound we'd heard was all the air rushing out of the rear driver's side tire, which, once completely flat, had gotten caught underneath the rim. Tommy cursed; he sat on the curb and held his head in his hands; he asked "why?" he called AAA.
"I can't wait til I don't have to fucking do this anymore, man."
While we sat on the curb, waiting, Tommy and Antonio had a fight. Antonio said he'd only been doing this for three months, and he was already fucking sick of it. "I wouldn't say this if I didn't think you were capable, but I know you could scare up $500 to get this thing fixed. This shoulda been your first priority six months ago. I don't wanna spend my Monday morning doing this every fucking week."
Still, Antonio stayed to help push after AAA repaired the tire. Tommy is out of free tows for this year.
For the moment, though, Tommy is happy. For a week, he won't have to do this again. And for three more days, his mom will still be here, before she goes back to Rhode Island. It's down time now, sitting on the curb shooting the shit, waiting til 10 when street cleaning ends and we can move the van right back where it was.
Tony and Robin come back from his van, their hair wet from the shower. Robin has a guitar hanging from her shoulder. She's new to the area, and says she came here to make it big.
"My place to stay fell through," she says. "Luckily, I found some good people who are helping me out. I'm gonna remember that when I've got royalties comin' in. Give a little here, little there." She mimes passing out cash as if dealing cards to an imaginary circle of people around her.
One of the guys who owns the business across the street pulls his yellow Land Rover into the driveway. Tommy waves to him, and the guy sort of lifts his head ever so slightly.
"I saw that guy when I was out with my mom at dinner the other night," Tommy says. "He looked at me and did a kind of double-take, like he just couldn't believe that I had a mom, or ate dinner, or did the same things that he did. I think it was good he got to see me like that. They give me shit for being out here sometimes. It's good for him to see that I'm a person."
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