Public Transit = Huge Forearms

Who says you need a car to buy and plant a Mexican dwarf lime tree?

I’m terrible to go shopping with. I like to wander. I have no problem being at a grocery store for a half an hour to leave with nothing but bread and a twelve pack.

I’m a phase kind of person. I live through ideas that may last only an afternoon. Public transit lifestyle and advocacy might be the only thing in my life not based on phase theory. This Sunday I was in such a phase. This Sunday I was going to garden, and by God, I was going to do it car free.

Now this isn’t all that new really. I’ve been through this phase before and on such days I spend a couple hours at Home Depot spending more money on the items to make/plant than the item/plant will ever yield. Recently was a compost pile and making it, albeit fun, will in no way produce the amount of fertilizer equal to its relatively meager cost. Not to mention I don’t go through all that much fertilizer. The same can now be said about the Mexican dwarf lime tree I decided to buy yesterday.

To move this along—when I stepped up to the register I had in total: a 25lb bag of manure, a 25 lb bag of potting soil, a gigantic black plastic pot, a lime tree that stood about 3 feet tall and had thorns, as well as 2 succulents (the reason for the trip), a lavender plant, and spider killer.

The pretty black girl in her orange apron, after talking about how cold she was and giving me the eye (probably not), was blown away that I was taking the subway from MacArthur Park back downtown with all this stuff. I assured her it was no big deal and that it was worth it to not have to drive. She summed up the point of MetroRiderLA in 7 words by questioning where I was from because “that’s not what people do in LA.” I gave her a smile and she gave me a good luck.

But luck was not at all what I needed. What I needed was much more real, much more tangible. What I needed was Jose Gomez.

I made it all the way to Bonnie Brea with my balancing act and though doing quite well, still not in pain, I needed a quick re-adjustment of the weight. That’s when my new friend, and dare I say, colleague, came over to grab the lime tree as it was about to fall in my face. I’m paranoid about losing my eyes so he came at just the right time for the lime tree, if you recall, has thorns. I thanked him and he offered to help. Not being a complete moron, I added in my head how much cash I had with me and upon figuring that it was sufficient, I said yes.

As we walked I told him I was taking the train to which he raved about and just to pwn the blinded-by-racist-leader-Mann, BRU, I asked which he liked better, trains or busses? He of course gave a resounding endorsement for trains and wished there were more. Jose became pretty much my favorite person in the world at that point. He solidified that position when I offered him ten dollars to carry the plant with me downtown and drop it off at my apartment. Again, a resounding yes.

As we descended he was happy to point out he had a Metro pass already because some time ago he had got caught without one and had to pay a fine and therefore hasn’t traveled without a ticket since. Now that he’d unknowingly backed my anti BRU and anti fare gates stance I knew I had to write about ol’ Jose Gomez of El Salvador here at MetroRiderLA.

The rest of the trip continued to be pretty great. On the platform we talked, me through broken Spanish, he through broken English, about the best way to plant the tree. Another man then came up and put his two cents in, though it was all in Spanish so his advice was only half received. We also talked about his family still in El Salvador of which he hadn’t seen in fourteen years and though not anywhere near the same, how my family was in Chicago. Later, when talking of his experience in the United States, he corrected me when I said the US was “bueno y mal” by pointing out that El Salvador is much worse and that many people here don’t realize how good we have it. By this time we had got off at 7th/Metro and were walking to my apartment and seeing that I was spending my afternoon planting an unnecessary fruit tree, hiring a laborer to help me without a second thought, he had hit the obvious nail on the head. This of course wasn’t much of a realization for me but it’s still good to hear from time to time to wake us up from the nostalgic funk of how bad America “is” and how great other places “are.” Jose Gomez was a wise man indeed.

When we finally made it to my place I told him I was going to write about him on the Internet. He was pretty impressed by this idea and proud to hear he’d live on forever, and not to dampen the mood, I refrained from telling him it wasn’t for the LA Times. Though I should have for MetroRiderLA is a billion times better.

I then handed Jose his earnings, a crisp ten spot, and we shook hands. I thanked him again and he said the same, then turned and left. It had all worked out; my eyes never got poked to death by lime tree thorns and my forearms were the strongest they’d ever been, there was no need to go to the gym that evening. My only regret was that I didn’t have more cash on me to pay Jose to help me with the tree and share in an afternoon cervesa. Of course, that regret is nothing at all compared to the regret I would’ve had if I had driven and never met Jose Gomez of El Salvador at all.

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car free • gardening • Home Depot • Jose Gomez • lime tree • MacArthur Park