Don’t Cross The Street:

Listen, I’m seventy years old, and I still get goosebumps every goddamn time that blue hour hits Denver. You know the one: sun ducks behind the Front Range like it owes somebody money, and the whole sky turns this deep, impossible cobalt that makes even the shitholes look like church. That’s when the old neon on Colfax starts waking up, signs flickering like they’re remembering who the hell they used to be. I chase that light the way I used to chase women, money, and every bad decision between McCook and Cherry Creek. Only the light still lets me catch it.

Most nights, I park my Nissan near Ogden, and I walk east. Smells like fryer grease, weed, and broken promises. Perfect. Colfax never pretends to be pretty, and that’s why I love the bitch. Fifteen miles of scar tissue right across Denver’s pretty little face.

I shoot fast because the blue hour is a jealous lover; she’s gone in twenty minutes. The Chuck Wagon sign is bleeding red; Bastien’s sign, still dripping neon blood since Ike was president; Pete’s Kitchen, still seeking the midnight crowd of the Colfax gay elite. Atomic Cowboy’s devil is winking at me like he’s got my permanent record. Every click of the shutter feels like I’m confessing sins I never told the priest.

My back was screaming, so I ducked into the rec center at 13th and Federal; I still believe in the church of deadlifts. The place reeks of iron and desperation. Kids half my age moving weight that would’ve made me cry at thirty. I load two plates, pull clean reps while reggaeton rattles the mirrors. This mountain of a man (neck tats, gold grill, arms like bridge cables) steps up.

“Hey, tell me to fuck off or let me teach you something.”

I rack the bar, grin the same grin, and say, “I’m going with fuck off.”

He laughs so hard that the kid curling in the corner drops his dumbbell. “Respect, pops.”

Back on the street, the night’s got teeth now. I’m framing Casa Bonita’s ridiculous pink tower when this girl steps out of the shadows. She couldn’t be thirty, eyes older than mine—tracks up both arms like purple train tracks—lipstick like fresh blood.

“Company, grandpa?”

I lower the camera slowly. “Married to this thing tonight, sweetheart.”

“Everything’s got a price.”

“Not tonight. Get off the pavement. There are safer ways now.”

She laughs like breaking bottles and disappears into the orange light.

Later, out in Aurora, I’m shooting the Fox Theater’s vertical sign (F-O-X glowing like a goddamned hymn) when another woman walks up, taller, harder, quoting double the West Colfax Street rate.

I can’t help myself. “Inflation’s a killer east of town, huh?”

She stares, then almost smiles. “You’re all right, old man.”

I drive home after midnight with a full photo card and a heart heavier than the bag on the seat beside me.

Next morning, the news punches me right in the face: The Gathering Place is out of food. Federal money dried up faster than a politician’s promise. I don’t think; I move. Costco at opening bell, two carts groaning (chili, peanut butter, tuna, oatmeal). Cashier asks if I’m feeding an army.

“Trying to feed some soldiers the country left on the battlefield,” I tell her.

At the shelter, the director looks like death warmed over. Says they can feed the women inside, but the ones who won’t cross the threshold are screwed.

I look out the window. Three women on the steps are sharing one cigarette like it’s the host at Mass.

Twenty minutes later, I’m back with steaming Taco Bell bags. They eye me like hungry dogs.

“Just food,” I say. “No strings, no sermon.”

Marlene (oldest, hair like dirty snow) tells me about waking up under the Colfax bridge next to her husband, already cold. Somebody threw a tarp over her in the night. Still doesn’t know who.

Carla used to pour drinks in her family’s joint back when Colfax had jazz instead of despair. Coke and heroin took everything but the story.

Jayda (twenty-two maybe, bruise yellowing on her cheek) looks at the sky and says her daddy started on her at nine. The only thing she wants is enough money to go home, find his grave, and fuck her girlfriend on it.

My friend, Michael (been shooting Colfax dives since Nixon), always says, “If you don’t cross the street, you might actually feel the pulse.”

I never cross the street. I keep walking it, camera in hand, collecting truth the way I once collected real estate listings and sales.

On this street, I never talk about my MBA or Ph.D., I raised two kids who are still in danger of living a Colfax life themselves. I can still do twenty pull-ups, still hit the bag, and still feel empathy for those less fortunate.

But out on Colfax, none of that matters. Out there, I’m just a seventy-year-old man with a camera and a heart that still bleeds when the city tells the truth.

And Colfax (fifteen miles of broken neon and busted dreams) is still the longest, truest street in America.

Every foot of it is screaming.

I finally learned how to listen. Don’t cross the street.