Denver Police, dealing with the Health Care Crisis
On my front lawn is a transient man with a half dozen backpacks, screaming profanities and phrases all alluding to the idea of his imminent demise.
It’s only about 10 in the morning. Some of us were trying to sleep.
Standing on the patio of my home, still in flannel pants and bare feet, I ask the man if there is anything I can do to help him.
“There’s no fucking helping me, man. I’m about to fuckin’ DIE!”
“Can you at least get off my lawn and die somewhere else?” I suggest (oh, relax, I’m about 30 seconds away from calling the ambulance).
“My health insurance was just canceled, they left me for dead! What do you think I should do about this?!” He lifts up his shirt to reveal a rubbery/plastic-y bag surgically attached to his stomach, leaking fluids.
See? Ambulance called.
Within moments northbound Logan was completely blocked off as four police cruisers produced six cops who stood on hand to watch three paramedics empty the bag of human waste that was attached to the screaming vagrant. On my front yard.
And here I thought I had enough distance between me and Colfax to avoid all of the crazies!
I don’t hate Colfax. Really, I don’t. Living near Colfax is a lot like living on the beach. Sure, it sounds awesome at first; but then you have to listen to the waves all the time, everything you eat smells and tastes like saltwater, and you’re eventually all like: “Sand? Fuck Sand!”
- (Side note: the true beauty of Denver? Never having to clean sand out of, well, anything).
Paying rent to live in Capitol Hill means you are never short on entertaining visuals. Whether it is misspelled graffiti or a pile of panties in the alleyway that had been set fire to. The arrangement of taverns means no alleyway is free of public urination at 2 in the morning and the fact that thousands of people living on top of each other means one can listen to no less than three neighbors fucking loudly on a Wednesday afternoon. The closeness to a major transit artery means that on a snowy Tuesday evening you can fall witness to a homeless man who passes out in the middle of eating a 79 cent taco (at least, I hope he was passed out, and not dead. That would ruin tacos for me).
Submitted by @teneighteen
Colfax is home to a lot of dive bars…
…not-so-dive bars, tattoo parlors, liquor stores, more dive bars, methadone clinics, “herbal remedy centers” and – most importantly – the 15. One of the many lines in Denver that seems to run conveniently from one low income area to another. It may be the only thing RTD is truly efficient at: displacing the homeless. I remember a bag lady that would always hang around 80th and Wadsworth with three suitcases and a down coat. Sometimes I’d see her taking a nap in a sitting area at the Flat Irons Mall until the neatly-pressed security guard helped her back on a bus that would take her to an end of town not so concerned with moderate-to-high-end retail sales.
Years ago there was an attempt to rejuvenate parts of Colfax – make them more attractive to retailers and condo developers. The Lowenstein Theater became the new Tattered Cover/ Twist-and Shout. The area around the Bluebird became lush with independent shops, cafes and boutique restaurants. Floyds 99 has even set up a brand new location! There is now a McDonald’s that might even be clean and safe to eat at!
However it doesn’t matter what retail establishments exist on which streets. One thing is clear – the crazy is all over Denver. It spares no neighborhood. Pick a bus stop, within 20 feet is someone who is roasted out of their mind on something they haven’t made a reality TV show about yet.
When I lived in a reasonably nice apartment building at 7th and Pearl I thought my fourth floor balcony was far away enough from the street to avoid any further run ins with the homeless. However, my parking space was adjacent to a Jeep Cherokee which sat on four flat tires and didn’t look like it had moved in years. The front seats were full of junk and the back windows were heavily tinted. Somehow, no one had called up to have this thing towed. I don’t know why I was surprised to see the resident of the Jeep taking a leak on my car one morning while he was brushing his teeth.
I guess we all have morning routines.
Eventually I bailed on the beachfront property and moved from living within mere blocks of Colfax to a hearty 13 blocks away only to discover a new brand of the filthy and insane. Where ever there is an alley with trash cans full of recyclable items – there will be vagrants digging through them. “Oh, Baker? I know that area – I once watched two homeless people have sex on a slab of cardboard over there.” However, crazy is not always limited to homelessness as I once witnessed a woman riding her bike up Broadway, in the middle of the road, without handlebars while she was dancing, literally, dancing as she was pedaling.
I’m not alone in my unusual confrontations. It must be the price of living in the city. It must be the price of being human – the understanding that we are all at least a little bit odd. I suppose the only factor which separates those who tell the stories and those who become the stories is how many times a month one voluntarily showers.
You can follow D.T. Pennington on Twitter. @Courier_New
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