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After being arrested for vagrancy she has the nerve to hold her head high

April 14, 2008 By pia

First please read me in The New York Social Diary.

It was a bright and windy day. I was wearing two or three year old MBT sandals with sport socks for the fashionable nerd lowest part of the body look; Gloria Vanderbilt jeans–we go back to the 70’s, just washed and looked pressed; a pumpkin spandex and cotton Talbot’s tee. I was also wearing a jean jacket though I know they’re so yesterday and Kate Spade sunglasses. I was carrying two insulated nylon bags as food shopping was involved. Though many of my friends make fun of my love of MBT’s, they stop when they try them on–and if they can afford them buy a pair. My hair is Southern blond highlight; my nails just have clear polish but are perfectly manicured–Southern–got over my fear of going into a Southern nail place.

The overly long clothes description is essential to the story. I walk. I am a New Yorker. New Yorkers think nothing of walking 60-100 blocks just because.

But I no longer live in New York. I live in North Myrtle Beach.

There are walking trails here. There is the beach. And yes I feel grateful to live near the beach. But this area is very beautiful and sometimes I need to walk into housing developments, around parks, on Route 17 and Main Street. Main Street’s kind of funky. It has overpriced boutiques, restaurants, a shag shop and a store called “Two Blondes.” Route 17 isn’t beautiful but it has many stores and is the same Route 17 that’s in upstate New York. It’s the North-South Route 66 though so much less famous.

I was walking for hours. It was one of the first days where the weather was beautiful. I felt almost on vacation. My fears about living here were fading.

I was plotting stories, and truly getting a lot of work done–in my head but writers do work in their heads, and I think best when walking.

I was at the end of Main Street about to cross to go to Kroger’s when a man in a road workers uniform and holding a sign said something to me. I was a little befuddled as it was Sunday and I didn’t see any road work. Then I realized he was holding the sign to direct non-existent traffic into the mega church parking lot

I made sure I only said “no, thank you,” and not “no, thanks, maybe some other time,” as I really don’t want to be converted, and I leave no room for that possibility. He could have been inviting for coffee for all I knew as he was looking me up and down but not in a sleazy way. I smiled. I’m sure he didn’t hear me as we were four lanes away from each other and I have a soft voice in the best of times.
Some of you know my smile is worth the net worth of a tiny country. It’s perfect in its imperfection and I smile constantly. I also look horrible if I don’t.

I shopped in Kroger’s. Nobody fainted when I said I wanted to bag my groceries in my own bag. I walked through a few housing developments and found my way back to Main Street where I became so engrossed in looking at stores, the sky and how it reflected the beach I didn’t turn on my street but walked almost to the end. This is where it became weird.

A man got off his bike. I realized he was the same man I had seen at the mega church and began to say hello when he said:
Are you alright?
I have no idea what he’s talking about and begin mentally checking myself out. My mouth was parched. I had forgotten my water bottle and finished the water I bought sometime earlier.
Yes thank you.
No are you really alright?
Yes why?
I saw you walking before and here you are again.
I like to walk.
Do you have any place to go?
Hello do I look like a homeless person? I suppose he thought I had all my worldly goods in the insulated bag, and the Nike nylon bag I carry instead of a pocketbook when I’m not going to see people or for an appointment.

For some reason I didn’t say that or sound angry. I asked him what about me made him think that I was homeless.
You’re walking.
I wasn’t aware that’s illegal.
He repeated that because he saw me walk so many places he knew I must have no place to go.

If he had just turned it into a joke and said “it’s so rare to see somebody walk here,” I would have laughed and felt better but I guess that’s what we do in New York. Or I do.

I guess I was the one who was supposed to turn it into a joke or thank him profusely for caring or said my name and counted backwards from 100 by sevens (a dementia test,) but I’m sort of vain and have never been taken for a bag lady before.

I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable but I was convinced two policemen were going to come any second and arrest me for vagrancy. Logically I knew I have excellent ID, a platinum Amex, a bank/debit card and a cell, though I wasn’t sure how the cell would help me–it does have a lawyer programed in–helpfully with the word “lawyer.”

I was convinced that despite all this evidence of stability, and house keys, easily found in my jean pockets, I was going to be arrested for walking.

The man walked away, and got back on his bike. So bike reading is OK; walking isn’t. Have to remember the rules.

I walked home more than slightly humiliated. As soon as I got in I went to a mirror and inspected myself for signs of a homeless person. My lipstick–lip gloss–slightly pink was still on. I looked like a normal person.

I was doing what should be encouraged–walking with groceries that weren’t in plastic bags–and did weigh enough to be considered weight exercises. Sometimes I walk to the IGA in Cherry Grove, miles from my house in Crescent Beach, and walk back laden with groceries on the beach and even in the water. It impresses my friends.

I have found the exercise/weight program that I love and actually works and I think it’s illegal as it consists of walking with packages.

It’s April, the green month, and here in North Myrtle Beach, greenest city in the South I read, somebody stopped me for the high crime and misdemeanor of walking.

I go out walking after midnight…I stop to see a weeping willow….I go out walking after midnight

Filed Under: me-me-me, north myrtle beach Tagged With: A northerner moves to the south, north myrtle beach

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Comments

  1. paisley says

    April 14, 2008 at 8:50 am

    that is too funny… he probably figured if you were down and out you would make a nice prospect for conversion… i have been unable to access my sites for two days,, and i am in the process of being rerouted to another server within my hosting company,, as something screwed up somewhere.. and after a full day of PROVING to the idiots that i couldn’t access my own site, they are finally doing something… i can so much more sympathize now with your recent hosting problems… i just have no clue how to back the whole site up and move it somewhere else… so i am for the time being kind of stuck…..

  2. G says

    April 14, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    It just goes to show you how conditioned people outside of cities are to getting into motorized vehicles.

    You should come up with a design for turn signals on your denim jacket. Maybe that would be okay.

  3. sage says

    April 14, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    Keep walking Pia–set a good example. Heck, I walk all the time here and Michigan (especially small town MI) is probably less friendly to walkers than southerners… but come to think of it, when I lived in the south, I mostly rode a bicycle (there was a year I only put 4000 miles on a car and that included 3 trips to the mountains!)

    On the other hand, you could tell them that since Georgie’s little war has caused gas to skyrocket, you’re walking to save money 🙂

  4. Doug says

    April 14, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    I can imagine that piece in the North Clackymacky Social Diary.

  5. Bone says

    April 14, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    Next time he stops you, just say, “Seventy-five an hour. Or fifty if you give me a ride on your Schwinn.”

    With the ever-escalating gas prices, one might think more people would walk. It would be my guess that most people in my town would think you’d had car trouble or were up to no good.

    Rabid anti-walkists.

  6. Bone says

    April 14, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    Forgot to mention, I love the piece you did for the New York Social Diary. Will you be writing there more? You should. That was just splendid.

  7. cooper says

    April 14, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    Awesome piece in the NYSD.

    The move is definitely going to provide at least one homeless person wanna be with something to keep her writing forever. Thank goodness.

  8. WriterKat says

    April 15, 2008 at 1:53 am

    Well if you’re what homelessness looks like, they must be pretty classy. I bet he never heard of MBT’s – but I have and am insanely jealous.

    That’s a great story right there. You should send that one into the New Yorker as well, a nice slice of life from the other side.

    I loved reading your story in the Social Diary. Such a different time, and not that long ago. Well written.

  9. EsotericWombat says

    April 15, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Love the NYSD piece, but I think you didn’t need to hear me say that to know.

    I hear they’re trying to get approval from Homeland Security to waterboard walkers. Better keep your wits about you.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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