[img]1|right|||no_popup[/img]Just before 10 o’clock this morning near a heavily traveled intersection in Culver City, two women, one borderline elderly, the other youthful, were conversing.

Suddenly the 70ish woman, tall, slender and composed, exploded in a shower of tears. Couldn’t help herself. Her face became wetter. You might have thought a concerned passerby would have stopped.

A witness across the street, who did not want to be involved, at first, checked his watch. For four consecutive minutes, the desperate woman sobbed.

Compassion overtook the eyewitness. He bravely strode to the scene, asking how he could help. The embarrassed woman insisted she was fine, and the eyewitness countered just as firmly that she was not, and he was there to help.

The woman reluctantly related her predicament. When she started talking, she couldn’t help herself. A torrent of words gushed.

Without family anywhere since her parents died in the early 1970s, the woman, never married, said that she had lived in the same uncomplicated apartment since 1992.

Who Is She? Who She Is

By mid-summer, the woman we shall call Frieda felt as if a loaded dump truck had fallen on her. The old landlord had sold out, and rumors were rife. The new owner would put the dozen tenants on notice.

Official confirmation came on a terrible Saturday. One of the worst letters of Frieda’s life turned up in her usually innocent mailbox 48 mornings ago. Her depressed life has been dizzily spinning since.

Since her last job dried up seven years ago, she has lived as sparsely as a bird. A precious extra 50 cents never is spent.

Trying to sound compassionate, the new owner said Frieda’s rent would remain in the mid-500s for August and September.

• Effective Oct. 1, 18 days away, it leaps to $750.

• Effective Nov. 1, $850.

• Effective Dec. 1, $995, a 99 percent jump.

Frieda is desperate.

Frieda has been flooding friends and telephone lines with panting calls.

As of this hour, she has no idea where her vulnerable body will be on Oct. 1.

Between her retirement check from the County and a modest Social Security stipend, she has barely covered her rent. Sometimes she has been forced to borrow.

“I can’t pay October’s rent, let alone the raises after that,” she said.  “I don’t know what I am going to do.”

She was trying to hook up with an equally undefended roommate recommended by a friend. But the party of the second part communicates sporadically and with unclear motives.