Just Kids

That's all we were. Without a care in the world.
I was no more than 9. My year old brother, our friend Baldy Spot (insert name here) and more often than not, my little sister, would get all get on the bus. We were getting off at General hospital. It was a playground to us. We'd spend hours there.
We'd go anywhere in the place until someone chased us out. It's a big hospital, there were a lot of floors. There was also a lot of elevators. We'd play tag in them. Chasing each other from floor to floor. Until we got hungry or someone chased us out.
It seemed to me that someone would always press the elevator alarm when we got chased out. I pressed the alarm once. Just once. We always ran. A few inutes later, we were walking through the Emergency Room and an ambulance driver pointed at me and said. ''He did it! He did it!.'' To this day, I have no idea what he was talking about. I think he was just fucking with me but it scared the shit out of me and I'll never forget it.

When we got hungry or brave, we'd go to the cafeteria. There were a lot of vending machines there. A slight chance of finding some change. Hopefully a doctor had the munchies but was called before he grabbed his change. It could mean that we could split a hot dog. There was a hot dog machine. I swear to god. The only one I've ever seen. The hot dogs came out in a tube resembling the cardboard from an empty toilet paper roll. They cost 25 cents. Every once in a while we'd get one. Not very often though. Hell, we were happy to split a 3 Muskteer's bar. At least it was easy to split. 3 pieces, 3 ways. That is, unless my sister was there.

One time we found a quarter. Hot dog time. Not!

The machined malfunctioned. We didn't get shit. After a couple of minutes of pushing the coin return button, Someone had the GREAT idea of reaching up into the machine. I can't remeber who but the skinny arm was long enough to reach a hot dog. Then another. That's it. After that we only used the change that we may have found, to get something to wash down our free hot dogs with. If not, there were plenty of water fountains around.

When we got bored with the hospital, we'd stay on the bus until the end of the line. It was deep downtown L.A. A couple of hours walk back home. Did we care? Only the first time that we had to walk. It was getting dark. The second time was early and we found all the places to stop on the way.
There we were. Kids. No one over 10. Roaming the streets of downtown L.A. Definately, not some place I'd want my 8 year old to be. Our parents had no idea where we were. As far as my mom knew, we were outside. Playing.