When I go onto them, a security guard will usually roust me. I ignore the guards, and wait until they are standing right next to me. Then I get up and go. Every once in a while, I'll be able to sit on the pier without being bothered. I'll sit right on the edge, and rise and fall with the waves, listening to the creaking of the planks and the squawking of gulls. I always imagine jumping into the bay.
One of my favorite spots is Ocean Beach. My ex and I stayed in a motel next to it when we first arrived. We saw two cranes at the beach on our first night. I thought it was a good omen. It wasn't.
If I can, I'll take the Muni train to the ocean, and walk by that motel. Next door is a coffee shop that had an open mike night. Once, an old bearded drunk guy dragged in this huge amplifier, and played a short blues set with his electric guitar. I remember he did one original song about wine, wine, wine, pass down that bottle of wine. He was the best act that night. There was also a very young girl who played the guitar and sang. Her biggest supporter was her mom. All the other performers read poetry.
I'll walk past those places, across the Great Highway, down the sand dunes, and out to the ocean.
One of the things I've come to notice about living in the city, is that you are never alone. Not even at the beach. No matter what time of day or night I come here, there are always people around. And you can't walk out into the water, bend over and cup your hands to catch the surf, let it go, and then bring your hands to your mouth to taste the sea salt, without knowing someone can see you.
But I do it anyway.
three
It's Sunday evening, and the brown children are playing in the courtyard. It's basically a cement area where all the stairways lead, and there are signs that say "No Playing In Courtyard" and "No Jugar En La Yarda." It drives my roommate crazy when the kids are out there, but I like it. It's nice having children around. It makes the place feel homey.
Right now they are rollerblading and throwing water balloons. I had to step over their paper plates of food, because they set them on the steps. One of the kids is a girl about thirteen. She's one of those early bloomers, and I can tell she likes me. She acts up whenever I walk by, either by being extra bossy to the other little ones, or by talking very loud and sassy to the ones about her age, tossing her hair and laughing. I guess she thinks this somehow makes her older. I'm not imagining it. I catch her looking at me. Anyway, I never speak to the brown children. I smile and step over their toys, or dodge their plastic balls as they play catch.
I have very detailed fantasies.
One of them has me carrying a huge portable stereo. I carry it with me every time I ride the bus, waiting for the time to show what it can do. The opportunity presents itself. A group of gang-bangers is at the back playing their measly boom box. I sit between them and turn on my machine. I play guitar feedbacking white noise. The volume is incredibly loud. It is concert level. It causes people's teeth to vibrate.
Another fantasy has me in the subway waiting for the train.
I'm standing at the edge of the platform on the yellow plastic raised area they've put down as a safety zone, so you know when you are too close to the edge. I stand at the rear of the platform near the entrance of the tunnel and listen for the train. I hear it and step to the edge. I look straight down the tunnel and watch the light on the train. You can see the light from quite a distance. It looks like it's not moving at all for what seems like a long time. I watch the light grow bigger and bigger, and the wind from the train rustles my clothes and blows my hair. And just as the train is about to enter the station, I jump off the platform right onto the tracks.
E called me. I was at work, and I checked my voicemail at home. She tried to sound nonchalant, but I could hear a definite nervousness in her voice. I was delighted, and called her after ten like she instructed.
We talked about this and that. She was being very coy and vague about the simplest questions, like what she did for work. She agreed to go out again, but wanted me to write her first. She lives down the Peninsula about twenty miles south, just past the airport.
I wrote her. I don't remember exactly what I said. I think it was simple things, like my job, hobbies and everyday stuff. She wrote back that she was seeing a guy in Long Beach, and detailed her many recent travels. I didn't mind that she was seeing someone else because I barely knew her. She also wrote that she was a Gemini.
I've never put much credibility in astrology because it seems so frivolous, but I did pick up one of those two inch horoscope books that they have at the grocery store checkouts and read her supposed characteristics. And the weird thing was, it was like she was a classic example of her sign, almost like she had been studying for the role.
I rented a car for our first date because I don't have one anymore. For the first time in my life I am without car. I don't feel like an American. I keep waiting for a group of men to kick in my door early in the morning, and drag me off for questioning. I do have a television. If I am taken away, I think that will help.
I arrived at E's house, and was greeted by a note in the door jam that instructed me to have a seat on the front porch and wait. She was running a little late. The note was written on the back of a business card. The card noted a woman with the same last name as E, and I assumed that it belonged to her mom.
There was a lot of stuff stored on the front porch: old bedroom sets and mattresses, paintings, knick-knacks, and paper grocery bags containing newspapers. I sat on a loveseat and flipped through a picture book of Hollywood stars.
Eventually E made her grand entrance, swooping onto the porch and saying something like she hoped I hadn't been waiting long. We looked each other over. It had been a while since we had last seen one another. We approved. She wore a pair of blue-jean overalls and a simple white T-shirt and it showed her figure nicely.
I drove into the city, and we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant in North Beach. The waiter complimented me on my shirt, prompting E to inquire how she looked to the waiter, to which he replied, "Marvelous." We ate and talked quite easily, and then headed out of the city over the Bay Bridge, towards Oakland. I brought a few tapes, basically two choices: what I knew I liked, and what I thought she'd like. I put in the music I thought she'd like and I was right. She knew most of the songs and sang along with the tape.
We were going to see a black musical somewhere in the hills of the East Bay. The directions she had were somewhat vague, and it was truly miraculous that we found the place. But, after playing our hunches, backtracking, stopping, getting directions, and making many illegal maneuvers, we reached our destination.
It was an outdoor amphitheater. We parked among the trees in a lower lot and joined the others as they headed towards the box office. The majority of the people going to see the show were old white people, whom you could tell did not live in the city because of their clothes. They weren't sharp looking. They were comfortable and faded. I think I was actually the only person wearing black.
E got our tickets from will call and we went in, passing a table with items to be raffled, that for the life of me I can't fully recall. I'm sure they were homey suburban things. Like all natural whole grain pasta makers, or non-fluorocarboned, hand operated, vegetable slicers. Very Californian.
The refreshment stand looked like it was made by someone in the stage crew. It was wooden, and quite simple, like the items it offered for sale: lemonade, wine, jelly beans, and non-oiled and unsalted, hot air popped popcorn.
We watched the show and E told me a friend of hers was one of the dancers. He had my favorite part of the show. He did the serpent dance and sang about being high. He writhed quite convincingly.
After the show, E wanted to go backstage and see her friend. We stepped over the sign on a chain that read "Backstage Do Not Enter," and followed the cement steps down. We found the black actors mingling and laughing, looking joyous and exhausted from their performance. We sat on a sofa next to one of the actresses who played a bar person, and I struck a conversation with her
regarding her elaborate costume jewelry. She had yet to change into her street clothes, and still had on her costume and stage make up. I don't know how many of you have ever talked to someone after they have performed on stage, but the make up that they have to wear is applied quite heavily. I guess it's because they have to look perfect to people from far away.
The black actress gave me several items of her costume jewelry to try on, which I did. E didn't approve, and made it known to me by that certain look. I turned away from her and continued with my fashion show, thanking the black actress.
E and I got off the sofa and searched the rest of the backstage area for her friend. We found him in front of the main office of the theater. E's friend was talking with the black man who was the lead in the play, and they both gave us a hug when we said hello. The lead actor and E's friend were both gay.
We all chatted for a while about how good the show was, and they told us the problems with the stage and the problems with the other performers, and eventually we said good-bye and made our way back to the rental car among the trees. I was dragging by this time and sat on the hood of the car and smoked a cigarette, while E touched up her face.
On the way down the winding back roads of the Oakland hills, E said that perhaps I should slow down, so I took both my hands off the wheel and asked her if she would like to drive. She grabbed onto the steering wheel and guided the car around several turns while I kept my foot on the accelerator. We were a team.
After about a quarter mile of driving like this, E asked me to take the wheel again. I did, and she didn't complain about my driving the rest of the way.
As we returned to her neck of the woods, she said we should have a drink at a bar in her town. It was eleven o' clock on a Sunday night, and the bar was the only place we could go, because everything else was closed.
We went in and took a table next to the dart board and tried throwing darts. I couldn't remember how to score them. After a few tosses, we sat, and she asked if I wanted to thumb wrestle. She said she had many brothers, and that she was good at it. I still beat her two out of three tries.
After my second victory, she gave a girlish shriek and slapped my hand, flashing her intense eyes at me in a playfully submissive way. My heart dropped. I wanted to kiss her.
I got us each a beer, and we ended up talking about this and that, when all of a sudden she got defensive and demanded I justify my position on why I thought it was a good idea to let the red people build gambling casinos on their land. I didn't even know what it was we were talking about, because all I was doing was stealing looks at her chest, and losing myself in her intense green eyes. But she was adamant that I justify the statement I had apparently made about the red people.
I said, that from what I knew about the subject, it seemed like they had little if no means of income on the reservations, and that casinos would at least give them an chance to earn a living, to which she replied, what about the Mafia, and that it wasn't right that the taxpayers should pay for it.
I didn't know what she was talking about.
As we were leaving, she told me that in high school her boyfriends would drive these sleepy streets blasting their stereos, and she would lounge in the passenger seat with her legs out the window.
On the short drive to her house, I put in the tape I had brought with songs I liked, turned up the volume, and E dangled her legs out the window swinging her bare feet to the beat.
I killed the music and stopped in front of her house, asking her for a kiss. She said not on a first date, and put on her shoes, instructing me to call her in a couple of days.
Just like that, she was gone and I was miserable.
Once I got home and in my room, I realized I really, really, felt bad. I felt weak. I felt almost dope sick, like I was going through some kind of withdrawal. I sat on my bed and anticipated my call to her in a couple of days. I could hardly wait. I needed my fix.
four
I was sitting at the bus stop this morning between two rough looking guys, and I noticed that the mustard message was starting to flake and peel. The guy on my right was an old yellow man. He wore leather loafers that were almost completely worn, and brown fast food looking dirty polyester slacks. Both his eyes were badly swollen. Hopefully, he was on his way to the doctor.
The guy on my left was bearded, and his mouth was sunk in like he was missing a lot of teeth. His hair was long and greasy. He was wearing sneakers that originally were white, but were now soiled. He wore no socks, and dirty blue jeans. He carried a wooden cane that was splintered at the handle so he had a rubber band to keep it together. The bus came, and I saw him stand and move fine. He really didn't need the cane to walk. I guess he had it for protection.
The thing that these guys and I had in common were the jackets we wore. We all had brown nothing type jackets. The kind you wear casually, with big pockets that button on the front. The main difference in the jackets was the degrees of dirtiness, but for the most part the style was the same. I wish I had a picture of the three of us sitting side by side at the bus stop. I bet we looked like triplets.
I'm in the lunchroom at my job. It's after work, and I don't want to go home because my roommate's there. She took the day off, and I really don't wanna talk to anyone. She's nice enough, but it's just that I like to be by myself after work. I don't think having a roommate is natural. Sharing a place with a family member is one thing, but there's something odd about living with someone you aren't related to, because there will always be some kind of dynamic that will develop. With my roommate and me it's a brother and sister thing.
I decide to go to a theater by my work that used to show month old movies, then started showing adult films, and now shows month old movies again. I have an hour to kill, and I want to wait for the getting off the job people traffic to thin before heading home. I give the pretty yellow girl working the box office six times what the movie I'm going to see is worth and step inside.
The interior is drab, and the carpeting is ugly. The black man who takes my ticket tells me the bathrooms are downstairs, and my movie is upstairs. I pass the video games and unattended snack bar, noting that there are candies on display. I don't think the snack bar is supposed to be self serve. I leave it alone, and go inside the theater. There is another movie ending, and I'm thinking perhaps I misunderstood the black man who took my ticket.
I go back downstairs, but the ticket stub tearing man is gone. I ask the older yellow man working as a security guard where my movie is, and he assures me that it's upstairs. I thank him, and walk up the escalator that isn't working, past the non-self-serving, unattended snack bar, and into the theater that will be showing my movie.
Inside there are other people, but I think they have more time to kill. They look like they have paid the before five o'clock amount of three dollars. I would guess that a few of them have been here since the first show, and will be staying until the last.
I sit in the middle chair of the last row, in front of the projector’s wall. There is a metal railing in front of me, and I am barely able to see over it. I move to the left rear section, and sit in the middle seat of the last row.
These seats are easily the most uncomfortable movie theater seats I have ever experienced. They have some kind of orange padding, and are so smashed down from accommodating people's back ends, that they might as well be cinder blocks. They have wooden armrests. The one on my right side is loose. The backs are also wooden, and the back to my left has some gang words written in permanent magic marker.
If any of you has tried to read gang writing, you've probably come to realize that you can't, unless I guess you are actually in a gang. Gang writing looks like an ancient alphabet to me, or some kind of hieroglyphics. I wonder if each gang has their own written language. Maybe I'll grab a tagger the next time I see one autographing a bus roof and ask him.
There are three black people in my section. There is a man and women who appear to be on a date, and a young man wearing a puffy down-fi
lled jacket. He is wearing a baseball cap with the brim extending over his left ear. He is smoking, which is nice to see. You're not allowed to smoke in public here, except outdoors. They passed a law last year that even makes it illegal to smoke in bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, which I guess is good for non-smokers, but it makes it tough on smokers.
I started smoking just after my divorce. I smoke at the most, two cigarettes a day, one usually around two in the afternoon to help me finish the work I need to finish, and one after I eat dinner. I smoke menthols. I like the green boxes and the minty way the smoke tastes.
The movie is about vampires and it is stupid. Of course, the vampires are cooler than the heroes that are trying to kill them. It wouldn't be bad being a vampire. At least you'd get to live forever. But it might be kinda hard to get used to drinking blood.
Eternity
Dawnless Hell
Earth's Core
666
This is written in magic marker on the piece of plywood that is serving as one of the windows to the lobby level entrance of the building where I work. If I didn't know better I would consider it a bad sign, but I actually like my job.
Derek Henkel - Dirty Red Kiss.txt Page 2