#126
We’re at the corner of Bacon and Voltaire Street, by 7-11. Across the road, the coffee joint sells $10 lattes and organic muffins. Down the road, a house for sale, over a mill.
At night, 7-11 becomes a meeting house. It’s like the Quakers if they ate burritos and slept on the ground. A few blocks away, the evening comes to life on Newport. Beer/wine/cocktails are advertised. Sushi. Tacos. There is music too, & the pier just reopened.
It’s quiet at night, once the planes stop taking off at the airport to the east. The beach is clean, and the dogs run off their sleep in the morning mist while their owners chit-chat with coffee from home or the $10 spot.
In this part of town, shoes are optional. Shirts seem to not be required. Never saw a sign telling anyone not to enter without them. It’s a free for all if nothing was free. It’s a no man’s land of millionaires with second homes and the penniless with dreams of owning one. It’s a dog’s paradise, with crumbs and pieces of food easily found along the sidewalks and the beach for roaming off-leash. Some streets, some streets are filled with succulents that thrive in the salty, humid air, producing flowers that shouldn’t exist.
At 8 PM the sun sets. Groups gather on the sand and light bonfires. Drums. Guitars. Beers. When I get back to the apartment, I open the windows so I can smell the smoke two blocks away. Seagulls sing. People drunk from local IPAs pass by before passing out.
Down at the 7-11, the lights are still on, it’s 24 hours, all day every day, and the evening there is quieting down until the coffee shop across the street opens up at 5 in the morning, ready to start it all over again.