In the Heights
Last week, Project-19 took me to City Heights, an urban blend of African American, Asian, and Latino communities bustling with energy. My SUV loaded with grocery boxes, I meandered its gridded streets scanning from side to side in search of a coveted parking spot. Past experience taught me not to improvise parking in City Heights, lest I attract a menacing glance or boisterous admonition not fit for print.
After circling a bit, I found something within a reasonable distance of my recipients and hiked the rest of the way. I surely looked ridiculous as all five feet of me carried a stack of deliveries nearly high enough to obscure my view. The residents of City Heights adopt a tough exterior and so, doing the same, I strode along in the 95-degree heat like a fiercely determined pile of boxes with legs.
Streams of music flowed from each apartment window, much like the sound of a continually changing analog FM dial… First Tito Puente, then K-Pop, then Lil Wayne or was it Nas? Aromas of unfamiliar cuisines laden with garlic and a curious fusion of spices joined the fray and I imagined myself strolling through a faraway bazaar. This chaotic mixture of scent and sound at once enthralled and overwhelmed me.
At times, the stairs overwhelmed me, too. So many stairs. So many boxes. But with gyms hardly open in San Diego, who am I to complain?
And there were gates, lots of gates, locked gates guarded by unseen but unquestionably heard dogs with City Heights bravado. One building had three such entry gates and no matter which I stood behind, the people I attempted to meet for the handoff inevitably waited behind a different one. Around in circles I went, 25-pound boxes in tow, until each package arrived at its intended destination.
Some of my customers greeted me with smiles, others with hardened suspicion — especially the one who responded to my knock with a ferocious, distant, “What the hell do you want now?!” I froze in anticipation of what might follow and meekly replied through the wrought-iron screen, “I’ve got groceries for you,” hoping that would quell the ire.
Several adamant footsteps later, a small, young woman flung the door open and stood before me wearing nothing but a towel.
“You ain’t my brother,” she uttered, somewhat chagrined.
Both speechless for a moment, we broke into laughter, after which I carried in her box, thinking it best to leave her hands free to hold up her makeshift housecoat. The afternoon continued rather anticlimactically after that with more stairs to climb, gates to enter, boxes to deliver, and people to meet.
As I returned to the car at the end of my route, my feet moved to the uptempo beat of University Avenue. Jackhammers laid down a steady groove as the beep-beep-beep of a garbage truck joined in polyrhythmically. Honking cars blared like horn stabs from an old Motown song. A concrete mixer droned beneath the intertwined melodies of sidewalk arguments and children’s voices. Separately, each was cacophonous. But together, the sounds of City Heights rang out in a final number that played in my head all the way home.
