Walking with Banshee (04/04/21)

Being a walker, I aim for a daily count of either 10,000 steps or 10 miles—at my pace, about 17,800 steps. I’m also an early riser, heading out for the daily walk just a few minutes before sunrise, in order to actually watch the sunrise—it’s a spiritual thing.

To me this is the best time of the day—it’s quiet, peaceful, very little traffic, and I can get my daily dose of steps in before the rest of the day tries to take control of my time.

In the neighborhood we live in, quite a few of the residents are also early morning walkers, so there is always somebody to walk with, which can make the journey more entertaining. Once a week, one of my special friends, a young lady named Susan—she goes by Susie—joins us for a brisk walk with her dog, Banshee.

Now walking with Susie and Banshee holds special meaning if one knows the reference to the name, Siouxsie and the Banshees, one of my favorite bands from the 80s.

When I first met Susan, and she told me her name and that of her dog, the reference was immediate, and she was excited to know somebody caught onto the reference. Siouxsie and the Banshees is one of her favorite bands too, and she was happy to find out I had an equal admiration for them.

In fact, several of the first walks were stories about my seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees in concert in several small venues in southern California in the 80s. Susan could only dream.

Our last morning walk though, proved entertaining due to the activities in the neighborhood.

Banshee is a barker, and will pretty much bark at anything that moves, which on some mornings means him—if he moves, he’ll bark. So as we headed out of the complex, Banshee is barking at his morning best—barking at himself, at me, at my friends, at the leaves that moved on the ground.

As we came up from the complex to the major street, there on the corner was a young lady, standing by herself at the curb. Normally, there are very few people out at sunrise, so seeing somebody standing on that particular corner was surprising.

She was dressed in stiletto high heels, an extremely short skirt, a breezy top that left very little to the imagination, and a fox—it appeared she had a fox stole around her neck, complete with head and tail.

We all looked at each other, thought, a strange place and time for a working girl, and kept walking.

Banshee though was having none of it. Maybe it was a stranger on the corner, maybe he was verbalizing his concern for her staying warm in such attire when it was so cold out, or maybe it was a distant relative wrapped around her neck that bothered him, but he began a constant and steady barking, aimed directly at her.

Susie tried quieting him down, but he was on a mission, and managed to scare the poor girl even from a distance. She was quite distressed at the noise, and seemed to be afraid of dogs.

We apologized and got across the street as quickly as we could, Banshee barking at full strength while running the entire way. We still had questions about the young lady on the corner, but figured it was none of our business and started our walk up the street.

“You better not be upsetting my lady!” Standing in front of us was a guy leaning on the outside of his car, directing his comment at us. We thought we’d seen it all for the morning, yet there he was, gold lamé sneakers, gold trimmed black jumpsuit, gold cap on sideways, and a grillz of gold on both top and bottom of his front teeth. Matching gold rings and bracelets covered both hands and arms of this character.

We assumed he might have been ‘related’ to the young girl on the corner, and though my initial inclination was to engage him is his commentary, my hoodie got tugged, and I simply said ‘good morning,’ and we all quickly moved on.

Prostituion in the area is nothing surprising, but not on that particular corner, nor so late in the evening, and never with such bravado! Normally the business was conducted with discretion. We took a quick look back, the two of them in focus in the same glance, got a good laugh, and continued on our walk.

About an hour later, we rounded the corner back towards our apartment complex, and to our amazement, both of our newly found friends were in the same spots they were an hour earlier—young lady on the corner, at this point apparently freezing, and her ‘manager’ on the phone next to his car a distance down the street.

Even Banshee stopped to take a look, turned to look at us, like he was questioning ‘really?’ Then Banshee started up his barking commentary on the ludicrous nature of the situation.

We got to the entry of our complex, took one last look, and just caught a glimpse of a beat-up old pickup truck stopping at the corner, picking up the young lady, and driving off. Her ‘manager’ jumped into his car, and followed the pickup down the street.

As we went our separate ways, Banshee let out one last bark, as if asking the question we were all asking, ‘why did those two pick that corner and for such a long period of time?’ They could have gone a mile south where business is always brisk around the ‘by-the-hour’ motel.

I guess we’ll never know. We can only leave the situation to our imaginations, and go from there. Banshee though, would be dreaming of that fox for days to follow.

 

#Susie #Siouxsie #banshee #pimp #fox