"The Decline of the West" was not written in 1904, but bear with me.

 

"What is she doing?"

"It looks like she's getting organized."

"I know that's what it 'looks like.'  She's been doing it for hours." 

Dawn first appeared in the alley behind Total Tan and "Monica" Liquors shortly after the bungalow where she'd previously been living (in an informal arrangement with an unknown number of other tenants) was raided by the Sheriff's Office and Animal Control.  The (possibly) rabid and neglected pit bulls were taken away, the locks were changed by the owner's representative, and the occupants were told to leave while a panicked Dawn made a run for it in nothing but her underwear.  Dawn was a hefty white girl pushed a little roughly by Life somewhere past 30 with inexpertly applied "Nice 'N Easy" red hair and a wild gaze, but nothing a decent outfit, therapy and a bath couldn't have fixed.  

Instead, Dawn managed to retrieve some of her possessions from the debris which began to emerge outside the bungalow (her former residence), so that she was soon clothed again and 'passable' in a disarranged way.  And that's when she moved into the alley, putting her life, so to speak, on view to me and my friend Dave, from the balcony of the little West Hollywood pied a terre I owned at the time.

"She's just settling in," Dave observed calmly.
"Well I don't think you can actually 'settle in' behind a dumpster," I replied naively and annoyed at the same time.  Dave raised an eyebrow as if to say he wasn't going to argue, but perhaps I should reconsider my position, and he waved his cigarette at the tableau below.

Dawn had a small red Samsonite suitcase open on the asphalt; next to it, spread out across roughly three parking spaces, she had placed a variety of items in strategic piles which she kept rearranging and redistributing.  Bits of clothing (mostly what appeared to be socks and scarves), an impressive collection of paper items, including a Hello Kitty notebook and an assortment of pages taken from magazines, newspapers and the free weeklies; a select group of canned goods or toiletries (it was hard to tell from our vantage point), and a pair of mangy stuffed animals (a Tony the Tiger and a purple dinosaur) were displayed on the retaining wall behind the dumpster. 

"Tony and Barney must be there to protect her new friend," Dave suggested.
"What new friend?" I inquired, only to be answered by movement behind the dumpster as a dishevelled man, neither Dawn's age nor race, emerged from the shadows, squinting and pulling up his pants.
"Oh dear god," I exclaimed, thinking selfishly in the moment of my plummeting property values.
"Black Snake Moan," Dave replied.
"That's awful.  You don't think he --"
"He smelled that tasty white --"
"STOP," I cried out, feeling suddenly nauseous.  "This is quite serious.  I have a homeless encampment outside my door."
"Not exactly 'outside your --"
"Whatever."

Dawn and her companion now proceeded to have a loud and largely unintelligible exchange, curiously disjointed but spirited, like two earnest thespians butchering a modern rendition of Chekhov.  You know, not really speaking to one another but almost.  Like reading Mamet, impossible to follow but it might make sense with the proper delivery, which it was clearly not receiving.  You just have to take my word.

"I thought crystal made you lose weight," I said, observing that Dawn did not appear to have missed any meals.
"Not everyone," Dave explained.

The discussion below grew more heated.  Dawn was apparently not in the mood.  She was busy getting organized.  Her sometime suitor expressed his disappointment and staggered off toward the back of the liquor store with an ardent wish that she should pleasure herself without his assistance and be sorry in the process.  Dawn cried out something about the gross injustice of the world and the unacceptable treatment she would no longer be putting up with from anyone anymore, and she resumed her sorting with a vengeance, her decisions regarding the arrangement of items becoming, if possible, even more fraught with violent emotion.

"She needs help," I said.
"I wouldn't know where to begin," Dave offered.  "I can't really figure out her system."
"Not that," I said.  "I mean, she can't live behind the dumpster."
"She's waiting for the house to get cleaned up."
"How do you know?" I asked in disbelief.
"She told me."
"You talked to her?"
 "The other day,"  Dave replied.  "She said she's waiting for the owners to clean up the place -- did you see the TV they hauled out?  Totally smashed.  And that couch?  Dude, they were busy in there.  Anyway, Dawn says it's all a misunderstanding between the owner and the other renters."
"A misunderstanding?" I answered somewhat incredulously.  "They were dealing drugs.  It was Grand Central Station over there, remember?  Plus those dogs kept getting loose and attacking people."
"That's what 'they' want you to believe," Dave explained.
"They?"
"It's part of a CIA sting operation," he added unhelpfully.  "According to Dawn.  It's all part of a Fatherland Security cover-up.  That's what she calls Homeland Security," he added and chuckled good-naturedly.
"I see," I said.
"Just so you know," Dave said.  "It's pretty complicated."
"Complicated," I echoed.
'It's not easy," Dave said, watching Dawn absorbed in her work down below.  "It's not easy sorting out your life."