Last night at about midnight, I heard a woman’s shrill voice down the street shouting “Get out! Get out of the car! To want to be my boyfriend and threaten to rearrange my face! Get out!”

I tiptoed over to the window to look out and saw a car pulled up a little ways down the street, a man walking slowly away from it, head down, feet dragging, like one of those cartoon figures drawn to represent shame. The guy would walk a little ways towards Sixth Street, the car following slowly. A few times he lifted his head as though he’d been called, the car stopped, and he walked over to the window to talk for awhile. Then he would walk away dejectedly, the car would follow again, then, stop, and he’d go over to the window again.

This happened about three times before the car finally drove away for good.

Our short stretch of Tehama between Fifth and Sixth Street was often a conduit for strange conversations late at night, muttered drug deals, barely coherent quarrels among homeless wanderers, or loud comments by lost, intoxicated clubbers echoing off the housefronts.