Los Angeles vendor pushes a balky cart through a precarious world

It is arduous work in the best times, and these are not the best times. Campos used to clear $100 a day, enough to get by as long as he worked seven days a week. Then food prices went up and sales went down. Now, he's lucky to take in $70 a day, and about $30 of that goes to corn, milk and other ingredients.

Home is a one-bedroom duplex on Soto Street. He and his wife, Maria, sleep on a pullout sofa in the living room. Their daughter sleeps in the same room, on a metal-frame bed next to the television and a tower of potato-chip boxes. Two other relatives share the house with them: Maria's daughter from a previous relationship and the daughter's year-old son.

By 10:30 on this Wednesday morning, Campos is pushing his cart down 6th Street, near Hollenbeck Park. A jangly, accordion-filled Mexican version of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" blares from his portable radio. At the corner of Whittier Boulevard and Boyle Avenue, he parks in front of a laundromat and honks his horn. Leticia Ulloa, an employee, laughingly tells Campos she's on a diet.

Refugio Gonzalez, 23, an out-of-work refinery worker, buys a tamarind-flavored shave ice. He needed to break a $20 bill and didn't want a bunch of quarters from the change machine inside, but that isn't his only reason for patronizing Campos.

"I see him walking up and down the street, and I can tell he's not always selling," Gonzalez says. "You want to help out."

Nearby, an elderly, sun-baked woman raises two bags of cherries.

"Cherries, las cherries!" she cries, and leaves without making a sale.

Campos sells a shave ice and a bag of chips at a tow yard on Boyle Avenue, then turns west on 7th Street, holding tight to his cart on the long downhill stretch over the 101 Freeway. In the distance, the downtown skyline looms through the haze.

About 11:30 a.m., the wheels of the cart get stuck on a crease in the sidewalk. The cart pitches to the left. Campos strains to keep it from tipping over but loses the battle. The two coolers -- holding three dozen ears of corn, a block of ice and some Cokes -- fly into the street, along with bags of chips.

This has happened before. On this very stretch. Crestfallen, Campos thinks about going home.

But the corncobs were in a bag, and Campos is relieved to see that only one has fallen out.

The ice has also stayed in its bag. A Coke can is punctured. The biggest problem is that the hot water has spilled from the cooler holding the corn. Keeping the corn hot could be a challenge.