Roorda says that's not about to happen.
"The whole reason we needed a restraining order is because we can't peacefully co-exist. He's just too nasty. I called the police on him one time when I was walking my dogs outside the store, and he told the cops my dogs had tried to bite him," he recalls. "Please. I have two eighteen-year-old shih tzus. They hardly have teeth."
Brett Amole
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Colfax and Colorado, westbound, 2:26 a.m.
She wants to know if anyone else who's waiting for the westbound 15 "knows where to get any shit." She is 27 years old, heavyset and Native American. There is a dirty, bloodstained bandage wrapped around her right hand. She pulls a sweaty clump of cash from the pocket of her jeans, which are too tight for her. She counts it in the light of a street lamp. She has a ten, a five and two ones. She needs more. And she needs to get some shit. She wants to know if anyone wants to come get some shit with her.
"I'm going to see a friend at 13th and Pearl," she says.
A wicked symbiosis exists between the 15 and the bustling black market for crack cocaine.
Ground zero for crack on Capitol Hill, as Mary Alice knows all too well, is 13th and Pearl. Crackhouses abound in apartment buildings surrounding that intersection, and crews of dealers work street corners for two blocks in any direction. The 15 makes it easy for couriers to shuttle drugs back and forth between Aurora and Capitol Hill without worrying about police pulling them over for routine traffic stops.
The 15 also makes it easy for crack smokers anywhere on Colfax to hop a bus to the hot zone and perhaps even pick up a new sugar granddaddy on the way.
The bus comes, and when she gets on, she sits in the very front, behind the driver, and counts her cash again and again. A ten, a five, two ones. A ten, a five, two ones. There's an old man across the aisle, his hair balding in patches, wearing a black Members Only jacket that was fashionable in 1986.
"What's a pretty thing like you doing with just that little bit of money?" he asks, grinning like a jester. She smiles back, nervously, and crosses the aisle to sit next to him. She's going to get some shit, she says. Thirteenth and Pearl. Does he want to get some shit?
He doesn't say. He asks, "How old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
"What's your name, sweetie?"
"Mary Alice."
She counts her money. He looks her over. They can each taste the other's desperation. Their body language reeks of silent transaction.
He asks if she's married.
"I'm engaged," she says.
"How come you don't wear a ring, then?"
"I'm afraid someone would cut my finger off to get it."
He cackles. "That's smart thinking," he says.
He's old enough to be her father's father. When she gets off at Pearl Street, she motions him to follow.
Colfax and Downing, westbound, 3:33 a.m.
The bus's brakes hiss like a dragon as it pulls to a stop. The door opens, and a woman's angry voice says, "Can you just tone it down a little? No one asked for your opinion."
The voice belongs to a woman in her forties who gets on the bus, wearing loose black fishnet stockings, a tube top and a Wal-Mart display case's worth of costume jewelry. She's addressing a younger dude with a heavy beard who's dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans and paint-stained boat shoes. "You fat bitch," he shoots back. "Mind your own business, all right?"
The bearded dude turns his attention to a gutter-punk girl in a midriff-baring tank top carrying a canvas backpack, a portable stereo with the tape deck ripped out and a small blanket tied into a bundle. The bearded dude is hitting on her. She's clearly high on something, pupils black-pooled, laughing for no reason.
She says, out of the clear blue, "I'm so fucked up, my feet can barely fit in my shoes." Her shoes are low-top Nike cross-trainers. She has no socks.
"Well, why is that, honey?" her suitor asks.
She leans across the aisle and whispers in his ear.
The dude draws back and says, "Honey, you gotta stop doing that shit."
"Oh, I don't," the gutter-punk girl responds. "Not anymore. You don't know even how bad it is. I'll show you."
She takes off one shoe to expose a swollen foot. Infected track marks circle her ankle, garish splotches of purple beneath the harsh white fluorescent bus lighting. She's been shooting up -- into her feet.
"Honey, that doesn't look good," the dude says. "Oh, here's my stop."
He gets up. The woman in the fishnet stockings bids him a fine adieu. "Just get your happy ass out of here, sicko," she mutters.
"You ugly bitch," he says. "You must hate your life." Passing the driver, his voice turns from pitying to cheerful. "Thank you, sir. Have a great night."
Gutter-punk girl tries to put her shoe back on her swollen foot. She keeps standing up, putting one leg up on her seat and then losing her balance and falling over.
The bus reaches Colfax and Broadway, and she finally manages to stuff her foot back in the shoe. She takes so long gathering up her stereo and bundle that the driver misses the green light. Then she limps off in the general direction of her future.
