Part 4: I NAMED HER SO I COULD KNOW HER BETTER
But was she knowable?
I would call her Ursula.
She made me think of a big white mama bear. And together we would be traveling under the stars, so I named her Ursula. Ursula sounded like a diminutive of Ursa.
We parked near Elly, Pablo’s mobile home. A play on the letters L-Y, short for Land Yacht. Pablo had some extra time and offered to help remove the gurney locks if I could help ferry a few items from Elly to his apartment.
He directed us to a shady spot on the sidewalk in front of a no-frills single story working garage in Bed-Stuy. I was thankful for the shade. It was already too hot be working outside, but at least we’d be out of the sun. A silver sedan sat in front of me, its hood popped and ready to be inspected.
The owners, Percy and Rev seemed reserved but were generous with their advice and borrowed tools. A sledgehammer. Bolt breaker. WD-40. A metal grinder. Pablo knew them from a stint vanliving with his wife across the street.
Artists had bought Percy’s original garage of forty plus years so they now worked from this adjacent one, a darkened recess with no operating lights, but with ample access to the outdoors and free sunlight.
