Boyle Heights

[For HIV/AIDS Outreach: Part Four, please see my entry at Glassell Park.]

Just before dark we made our final stop: a little cul-de-sac with a view of the old brewery rising just beyond the freeway and an opposing view of County-USC rising just beyond a hillock. We had come here in another of Ralph’s attempts to reestablish contact with Noemi and “her” marido Ángel. Ralph had learned that both of them were quite ill with AIDS and he had made a couple of vain trips on foot up and down the banks of the Los Angeles River in search of their reported encampment. At our previous stop under the freeway, Rosalba had told Ralph that Noemi had been there just the night before smoking crack with them, and that Noemi and Ángel were now making their home between the red brick storage building that stood before us and the base of the berm that arose just beyond the dead-end we had pulled into. Alone, Ralph walked out of sight behind the structure only to return with the report that, though he had found effects that indicated an encampment, it appeared no one had been there for days. Perhaps they had gotten themselves to a hospice, Ralph conjectured wistfully, distractedly.

[For HIV/AIDS Outreach: Part Six, please see my entry at Skid Row.]

good mexican food and mariscos, tasty fruit stands, insane hobos classic LA