Skirmish in a Babylon

Seriously, Babylon is just fun to write.

I got on the 71 just as a fight was breaking out in back. Apparently some kids who had BART'd in from the East Bay were thinking that a card game with oppurtunistic hustlers on the MUNI was a good way to make some money. The kid was duped out of fifty dollars and started reachign through the hustler's pockets and found himself held back by a couple of the hustler's friends. The busdriver waited until it was over, and then phoned in to MUNI headquarters to tell them that there was a fight going on at 8th and Market. I got to the back of the bus to hear the kids complain about those shifty card players. It's not like the card players have jobs, and it's not like if they didn't have friends they could've gotten away with that shit, they thought. Some white girl next to them agreed that the whole situation was hella wrong, and I drummed like a motherfucker on my knees.

It's hot today, I think that's why everybody is going apeshit. I would really like to buy some pot. People roll blunts on busses, in this day and age. I was even offered one at the price of 15 dollars, something I at the time considered exorbitant, but would now totally go for. I'm writing now not from the main library but the Presidio branch, which Richard Brautigan described in the mid sixties, the only difference being his library was open 24 hours a day and housed unpublished manuscripts.

James Brown's In A Jungle Groove is one of the CDs they have here, the other one being Live at the Apollo. Good choices both on a day like today. An old woman is talking to herself,sitting in the line. She asked me earlier if she could use the computer after me. I said yes, so long as she sits in the line, and nobody else sits in the line before her. She got sad. I got kinda sad too.

Other old woman is confused about the way the library computers work on an hourly refresh. Lots of looking at clocks. Holy shit, am I addicted to the internet. Talk to yourself in this chair, I insist.