I am going downstairs in the hotel garage to get my car and drive to dinner. The valet car parkers wearing white knit shirts and black trousers run up and down the stairs all day. The concrete is stained. The narrow stairs barely leave room to pass anyone. I'm descending so fast that I almost run into a woman coming from the other direction - from the lower garage level. I smile as I pass her, a Chicano woman wearing a blue uniform with a white collar and cuffs. "Hello," I say. "Hello," she answers. She is walking slowly. Obviously she is tired. She works in some capacity in the hotel, but I have never seen her. No, I look back because she has hesitated and I wonder why. She sees a piece of trash on a step. She has stopped and is deciding whether or not to pick it up. Then she leans down and does so. There is no question how many things she has cleaned in her life.
From I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles. Now available for 99 Cents!
Copyright 2012 James P. White All Rights Reserved (No part of this work may reproduced, except to quote for reviews or blogs, without the express permission of the author)
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