Yesterday morning, I dropped off my car at the auto shop and jumped on TRAX to head home. I like TRAX, but I don't normally ride it. Once they finish the airport line, I'm sure I'll use it a bit more than I usually do, but as of now, I'm only on it once or twice a year.
I walked down the sidewalk on 2100 South and rather than go all the way around the fence through the UTA parking lot, I just casually walked between the tracks. Once I got up to the platform, a Juggalo on a razor scooter started talking to me. I pulled my headphones out and asked what he said.
"There's a cop right there," he said. "It's a $2500 fine for walking between the tracks like that." He pointed to a sign and rode away.
I hadn't seen the sign, but I looked at it after he pointed it out. There was a fine alright, but it was $2400 less than he told me. And the cop was on the very far end of the platform issuing a ticket to some punk rock squatters, paying no attention to me.
As I waited for the train, a juggalette (a lady juggalo, if you didn't know) probably about 18 or 19 was walking her old, green BMX bike across the parking lot. We boarded the train when it arrived, she sat at one end of the car and I sat at another. We both got off the train in front of Sam Weller (where I could catch the train up 4th South to my house) and she, again, walked her bike across the street. She dropped it, hard, next to a group of people—some younger than her and a few that were way older. The way she just threw that bike down made me think she was either really angry about something or she was just showing off. Probably the latter.
She bummed a cigarette, piked up her bike and walked it away. I watched her go down the street until she rounded the corner and she never once got on to ride it. The rest of the Main Street Juggalos (I think that's what their gang name is) kept moving back and forth between two places about 20 yards away from each other. Eventually, the same groups ended up together but just in opposite places.
I started thinking how it would be kind of interesting to pick one out and just follow him for an entire day without his knowledge. I'm curious what they do all day, what they talk about, where they go when they're not hanging out in front of the City Weekly building and where they actually live.
I wonder how many of the older ones are left over from the glory days of hanging out on Main Street before TRAX was built and there were two malls (Crossroads and ZCMI) to navigate between. I also wonder if they tell the younger kids about how things were "back in the day" and if the younger kids listen to the stories wide-eyed, wishing they were around (much like new punk rockers do when they hear stories about the 80s) or if they simply ignore it because we all know ICP wasn't around back then, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Those are the conversations I would like to hear.
I'd never do it, of course. I've got far more important things to do—like write about possibly doing that on my blog while ESPN plays in the background.
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