Lilith meets the park custodian

 

A child said, Aunty, what is one tita? I might say:

 

The park worker was weed whacking next to the fence Lilith and I walk by to get home. I asked if the tour bus that got stuck yesterday at the school had gotten freed. "Oh my god," she said, short woman in her weed whacking chaps, red bandana twisted on her forehead, lively light brown eyes. "No common sense! Had to get kids off the bus, standing there in the hot sun, while the back wheels flew around. Got another bus, finally, for the zoo trip." It's one of those things, like you go to the restroom to shit and there's no toilet paper; either you go to another stall, or you get right in there and do it." 

 

There's a reason she always works alone; might be in prison otherwise. "This power washer guy, he puts his sign on the fence. I take it off. He complains to the bosses, cuz his sign worth $600. I say, show me that place with the $600 signs!" And this woman complained to the mayor: she came early with her dog, and she told her it's not a dog park, you gotta have control of your dog, and she made a stink and reported her. Said it was one service dog; can't ask them their disability. "My wife as a disability; no one's allowed to ask her." "I was out here on the hill, weed whacking, and there was three piles of shit. It was one shitty day!" "So I saw her on the road one day and I yelled, 'Call da mayah, bitch!' and she looked down." 

 

Better here, but. She works at several parks. Sometimes this is her fourth park of the day. She takes pride in her work; the place looks neat when she drives by in her truck. District park, whoa, found a dead woman in the field there, homeless, and some guy killed himself there, it's a spooky place. Sacred. She's been in the hula world, she understands it. And you, she says to me, you appreciate nature, the lady who takes photos. "I like being outside," she said. Just gotta work alone. "Oddah guys just sleep on the job." And two of them died, one of a heart attack, the other had one stroke." 

 

"All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

--Walt Whitman