Drama last week

This happened Friday a week ago:

Around noon I looked out my kitchen window to see my friend from south Davis having an animated discussion with someone out of view in the direction of J street. Her van was pulled over outside our apartment. I intended to call her later to find out what was going on because she looked upset. When I had called to her husband in the van he said something about a guy needing to chill out.

Another friend told me that there was some big white guy standing over the hispanic orange-seller on our corner watching everything that he did. She thought it very strange.

That evening a large white guy claiming to be a neighbor (I'm assuming the same one) knocked on my door wielding a picture of my friend and her van and telling me to call the police if she or the orange seller were on the property. (I didn't tell him I knew her because I didn't know what was going on, yet. HAH, if I had it would have been funny to see what his reaction would have been!) He insinuated that the orange seller was engaged in illegal activity hidden behind the 'front' of orange selling based on some past experience he had had in law enforcement or something. (must be true since NO ONE could make a decent living on selling oranges all day, right? no matter the guy's probably desperate for money to support his family) He went on to say that these people that vend on the side of the road have a '3rd party' dropping them off and supervising their dealings throughout the day. It appears to me that he thinks my friend was that third party! He went on to say that my friend had been violent with him, and watch out for her.

I humored him because I hadn't talked to my friend, yet.

After he left I called her. Her husband is hispanic and she knows the plight of street venders so she pulled over to buy oranges from the guy on Friday. She and her husband walked up to him (with white guy standing over him scowling) and her husband asked him in Spanish how much the oranges were. The orange seller tried to brush them off, probably because he was nervous with the guy standing there. I think at this point the white guy assumed that Adan had inquired about business or something (must not speak/understand spanish) and therefore interpreted their presence as 3rd part overseers! The white guy told my friend that what she was doing was illegal and he was going to make a police report. She got nervous, tried to ask him who he was and what he meant then went to leave. He didn't answer her. He followed her and took pictures of her, her van and her husband. That was when I saw her out in the street getting a little upset. She tried to return the favor of taking pictures of him and he tried to knock the phone out of her hand several times. At that point Adan got back out of his van and intervened. My friend was so upset that she went to the police station to ask them why buying oranges from the guy on the side of the road was illegal! Poor thing, she was terrified the police were going to come to her house and arrest her, even though she hadn't even ended up buying oranges! The police told her that it wasn't illegal and that they would be going out to stop the white guy harrassing the poor vender.

Wow, drama. I don't know who that guy is. If I had more guts I'd be dying to tell him about how that woman in his picture is one of our awesome nursery leaders of 2-3 year olds at church and her husband teaches the 5 year olds with Ian every Sunday! She's the loving mother of 3 children and blasts church music in her car like she's in the ghetto!

We were laughing on the phone because even though she was upset she stopped to smile for his picture taking! Oh, we are creatures of habit.

I emailed this story to my apartment manager to let her know what had happened. This was her response: "your story was wonderful. When I came to work Sunday to put out a birthday balloon I had this long message on my machine. My daughter was with me and we were trying to make sense of it. We finally decided it was some kind of nut. It was the white guy as you call him. He was mad at me for letting the guy sell there and wanted to know what I was going to do about it or was I a part of it? I didn't even get any free oranges. Isn't life exciting?"

This will definitely go in my memory book!