E cozied up beside me, and commented that roller blading wasn't a very safe activity for this time of the night. I went to brush her bangs away from her eyes. She pulled back and looked at me like I shouldn't be touching her hair. She still stayed close, but I noticed her look and kept my hands to myself.
We watched the street, talking about this and that, and somehow the conversation got around to the fact that her father had died six months prior. I told her that I was sorry. She said it was several days before they found his body. When they did, they found his apartment reeking and soiled from his dogs, who weren't able to go outside. This picture was quite vivid in my brain, and when I told her I really didn't know what to say, I meant it.
She looked startled, and said that none of the other men she had been out with since his death really seemed to care about it. I told her I knew a little about losing someone. When she asked what I meant, I told her that my ex and I split up about the same time her dad died. She was shocked, and asked me why I hadn't told her before that I was divorced. I said that I was telling her now.
I work for a company that is part of a corporation based in another country.
I am a cog in the wheel of the machine.
Basically, I work at my computer and talk to liars all day on the phone.
Still, I like my job. I really do.
Most of the people at the company are white, but there are some yellow, brown, and black people too. The men are either giants or dwarves. I'm a dwarf.
The big boss is a foreign giant. He's from the same country as the corporation. They sent him here to straighten things out and everybody thinks he's done a good job. He speaks with an accent. Once a month, the company has an all employee meeting, where the big boss shows us graphs and numbers and tells us how everything is going. From what I can tell business is good. Also, every month the company sends out an electric newsletter.
Along with all the blah blah blahness, the monthly newsletter gives everyone's anniversary date of hire and birthday for the month. My birthday and the big boss's are just a few days apart in early December. I find that encouraging. Maybe someday, I can be a giant.
It's Thursday night after work. I'm in line with the tourists at a rental car place in Union Square. On my way over, I saw a guy dressed like Sherlock Holmes. He had the hat, pipe, coat, the whole shebang. I've seen him before. I wonder what he does for a living? My guess is that he's a teacher. Dressing like Sherlock Holmes. That sure is a strange trip. But I guess it's no stranger than someone writing about their life after a divorce.
Tonight a friend of my roommate's and I are going to a rock concert at the Cow Palace. I'm getting a car, because I don't wanna be on the bus in that part of town. I was once, and it was like being in a Third World country. The houses were covered with graffiti. They had boarded windows, and dirt yards with abandoned vehicles and razor wire on the top of fences. I saw trails of bullet holes in some of the cars that obviously didn't come from kids shooting at cans with BB guns.
The line is incredibly long. I have plenty of time. I tell myself to stay calm and appreciate the fact that soon I will be behind the wheel again.
The line inches along. I give the nice yellow woman working behind the counter my credit card and drivers’ license, wondering if they are going to pick up the fact that I'm at two locations. I still haven't changed my address with the DMV. The woman asks if this is my correct address and I say yes. I get coverage on the car just in case I live one of my fantasies and take it right off the Golden Gate Bridge. I sign a few pieces of paper, get the key, and step upstairs to get my present.
I adjust the seat and outside mirrors, remove the plastic tag from the rear view mirror that lets everyone know you're driving a rental, and then start her up and slowly go down the ramp.
After easing into the traffic, I put in the same tape that had E dangling her feet out the window, lock the doors, turn up the volume until the speakers begin to buzz, and enjoy the drive. I don't know if the coverage I bought in case my Golden Gate Bridge fantasy is realized covers blowing out the stereo speakers. I guess I'll find out if it happens.
My roommate's friend is taking night classes at the state college. I decide to take the scenic route through Chinatown, North Beach, and the Marina, just because I have the time.
It feels fantastic to be a gas guzzling' American again.
nineteen
It's impossible to find a legitimate parking place near the college. I settle for a spot on the corner near a fire hydrant. The worst thing that will happen is that I'll get a ticket. I gamble on that not happening. I lock the door and cross the street, making my way across campus.
I try to think the purest thoughts as I notice all the pretty college girls everywhere. Oh, my goodness. If I didn't dislike school so much, and could afford the tuition, night classes might be a nice way to pass the time.
The friend of my roommate gave me very specific directions on how to locate her classroom. Still, I have to ask a couple of the pretty college girls how to get to where it is I need to be. Because, well, it never hurts to ask.
I find the classroom and step over to my roommate's friend and tap her shoulder. The professor is lecturing at the front of the class. I don't think he sees me. A couple of her classmates notice. They don't approve. I give them a big smile and turn away. I leave the classroom and wait in the hallway, and a few seconds later my roommate's friend joins me.
She says I look great. I tell her so does she. And then she asks, “Are you positive?” She wasn't really sure about what to wear, but she figured all black was a choice that never fails. I tell her it was a perfect choice. We actually look like we could be brother and sister vampires out on the town. A couple of groovy ghouls.
We stop at a corner store. My roommate's friend buys a few beers. She finishes them, and tells me to stop at the first liquor store we see, so she can buy some more, which I do, happy that they last a little longer. I don't feel like stopping every ten seconds for beer.
The parking lot at the Cow Palace is full. We have to park at the rear of the lot, much to the displeasure of my roommate's friend. She asks if it's okay if we hang out in the car and listen to tunes while she finishes her beer.
There are three bands playing tonight. The first one is a heavy metal outfit with a good name, but lousy songs. I don't mind missing them. She hands me the main act's new cd and begins complaining when she finds out that my car only has a tape player.
The main act is a guy with a girl's name. He used to look like an ugly hag. On this tour he looks like a glamorous alien. All the hype surrounding him promises quite the theatrical extravaganza.
My roommate's friend finishes her beer. After locking her purse in the trunk, we make our way through the parking lot to the entrance. We pass the other groovy ghouls hanging out in their cars getting primed for the show, and are greeted at the entrance by a gentleman with a bullhorn. He’s quoting scripture and telling us all to repent for our sins.
The majority of the crowd are teenage slackers, boys and girls wearing t-shirts and jeans, unwashed, with looks of dissatisfaction fixed on their pimply cherubic faces. My neighbors and peers, the Fringe Folks, are here attired in their usual casual hipness. Many transvestites are present as well. Then there are the die-hard freaks. People with an excess of piercing, tattoos, with hair styles of every conceivable fashion and manner. And as impressive as they all are, and believe me, some of these men and women make quite a commitment to their look, sacrificing any sort of future in the mainstream of life in the good old US of A, none come close to the Spider Man.
I saw the Spider Man a few times in the Haight. He has his head shaved. And it, as well as his face, arms, and upper body, is the template for a large spider web. I have a tattoo. I know what getting one entails. It feels like someone is carving into your skin with a lit match.
My tattoo is small. It only took about half an hour. My guess is that to get your entire head, face, arms, and upper torso tattooed to show a
large spider web must have taken at least a month of visits to the tattoo parlor. I wonder who would have agreed to tattoo someone's face.
The only other tattoo that I've personally seen that comes close, belongs to a young white woman who was performing at the Monday night open mike at the Hotel Utah. She was a petite blondie with a pretty smile and sparkling blue eyes, and she wore a white tank top showing a series of big black lightning bolts across the top of her chest and down her arms.
I talked to her while she was waiting to perform, and I told her that her tattoos put most people's to shame. She was quite shy and friendly, and seemed like she really wanted someone to talk to her. I would have liked to ask her out and get to know her, because she seemed like a very positive person, but I was very tired and my head was quite cloudy. I wished her good luck with everything and left after she played her song.
My roommate's friend says something about hoping to be able to get a good seat, and I smile into the lens of a video camera that some obviously gay guy pushes into my face. He is very drunk, and after filming me from what I assume will be a very unflattering angle for the playback, he staggers on among the crowd. I tell my roommate's friend that the show is general admission, and that we can always go onto the floor and make our way to the front. She seems pleased with this idea and tosses back her hair.
We go inside. My roommate’s friend says she needs to use the restroom. I follow her, and stand in one of the runways. I’m listening to the middle band. It’s fronted by the famous female who was married to the rock and roll singer who blew his head off with a shotgun. Apparently my ex knew her at one time. She's wearing a black halter top and black leather pants. She's showing plenty of celebrity skin.
My roommate's friend taps me on the arm, and we make our way down the corridor and walk around. We find all the seats are taken except those near the top. The music is quite loud. I lean close and point down to the floor telling her that we should go down there. She nods. We exit and make our way down to the main area, and stand near the soundboard. I continue to watch the celebrity skin and note that her in-between song banter seems affected. She is talking with a valley girl-type accent and purrs in almost a sex kitten like way. Who knows what she's really like off the stage. For us common folk, us audience members and fans, it really doesn't matter. The performance is all there is. The image is everything.
I'm getting sick of being asked for a light by every person that passes by, and begin ignoring the question. I guess I seem approachable. Or maybe it's my positioning near the soundboard, but what do I look like? A fire dispenser of some kind? I wish I had an acetylene torch, so that when someone asked me if I had a light, I could incinerate their entire cigarette with one mighty flame.
twenty
My roommate's friend says she's bored. We leave the celebrity skin, and walk back into the main concourse by the shirt stand. She knows the people in charge of the shirts, says hello, and then notices another group of older well-dressed white people standing next to the ATM. We walk over and say hi. She neglects to introduce me. I introduce myself and discover the friendly preppie looking guy about my age is the manager of the guy with the girl's name. He excuses himself after only a few minutes. It's almost show time for his meal ticket and I guess he needs to go make sure he's happy and ready to fully repulse us.
The older white people tire of babbling and excuse themselves to the exclusiveness of backstage. My roommate's friend seems hurt that she wasn't invited, but tries not to let it show. I have no desire to go backstage. I've been before. And I know from experience, it's not that pleasant. These show biz types are some of the most insecure and intensely neurotic people on the planet. They are constantly needing someone's approval and it can be quite draining.
I hear the music inside the hall stop and everyone starts making their way into the lobby. I tell my roommate's friend this would be a good time for us to go in and get positioned in front of the stage for the main act. She agrees and we make our way upstream, like a couple of black salmon swimming against the tide.
We find our spots on the floor, deciding just to the left of center stage. We're not right in front, but we are as close as we possibly can be, which is pretty close. She says she's never been in the pit before. I tell her that once everyone begins thrashing and swirling, it's best not to fight it, just go with it, unless someone grabs her and starts something uncool. If that's the case, be absolutely ruthless. Gouge an eye. Dig fingernails into whatever is available, preferably the good old groin. She doesn't find my words comforting. I've been in enough mosh pits to know my advice is sound and she would do well to heed it.
We stand our ground and everyone begins to return and it gets rather cozy, like the bus at rush hour. We are surrounded mostly by a non-threatening portion of audience. I can even pick out a few older hippies over to my right. I guess that they are here for the same reason I am. The guy with the girl's name has been on the cover of every rock and roll rag there is. We just wanna see the hype.
Just as I'm groovin' on the coolness around, a pack of male and female white trash in their early twenties push and shove their way in front of us. I haven't seen these types since I lived in the South. White trash. How on earth did they afford the steep ticket prices? These people are definitely bad news. They are totally violence prone. I tell my roommate's friend to stay clear of them, as one removes a crack pipe from his jacket, fires it up and passes it along.
The lights dim. The crowd begins cheering and the pit begins churning. I watch my roommate's friend be swept away and hope that she pays attention to what I told her.
A deafening roar of rhythmic noise begins and the guy with the girl's name rises out of the stage, crucified on a cross made of televisions, whose screens show white static patterns. He is very skinny and he looks like a dead person.
The rhythmic noise reaches its height once he is fully upright, then there is an explosion of light and he jumps from the television cross, as the most awful racket blasts from the sound system. The thrashing of the pit becomes quite intense in this split second, and like a blender on high, we all are sliced and diced.
As I'm tossed around, I watch the band and am amazed at their total inability to produce anything that even remotely resembles music. And I hate to admit this, but I tell myself something that I swear I heard my parents say to me when I was a kid: that's not music. It's noise.
But the show is impressive.
The guy with the girl's name walks on spidery looking stilts, has several costume changes, and has the stage engulfed in flames, while at the same time burning crosses rise behind him.
He sings a song about drugs, and has a large neon sign that reads "DRUGS" shown overhead. He closes with a Nazi-type rally, fully propped with banners, a uniform, a raised arm salute, and a podium, where he stands and gets the audience to chant, "We hate love-We love hate," as he tears pages from the Bible and tosses them into the crowd.
The lights go up, and I stand completely dumbfounded and dazed by what I've just witnessed. It was so big and so ugly that it seems almost unreal. I look around at all the kids ragged and torn from the show, whooping and raising their fists in the air as they leave. This can't be good for them. I mean, a little rebellion at their age is natural, but that show really, really, pushed the envelope and raised the whole concept of bothering your parents to a new level.
I see my roommate's friend staggering towards me, and for some reason it makes me feel better. She puts her hands on my shoulders and begins laughing. This causes me to begin to laugh as well, and before we know it, we're both doubled over and laughing so hard that we fall to our knees and continue laughing until we begin to cry.
Today a pretty yellow girl gave me a pink card that reads:
"Please chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo."
She said the phrase means, "Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra." She said that if I repeated it again and again aloud, I would be happy.
She sure seemed happy
twen
ty-one
After our night on the town with the bumper cars and fire dancer, E told me to wait a couple of days before calling her, so I did. She said she was gonna be out of town visiting Mr. Long Beach. I said to say hello to his friendly friends. She said she intended to break up with him. I told her she didn't need to on my account, but secretly I hoped that I could be the only one occupying her brain.
I waited and dealt with the ache I felt from being away from her. It seemed to lessen each time we parted, but there was pain nonetheless. I felt needy and weak. And at the same time, happy and secure. It was a weird feeling.
When she finally telephoned, E sounded on edge and had to keep clicking over to call waiting, because Mr. Long Beach kept calling. After about the third time of being told to hold, I let her know that she could call me later, once she was done counseling her long distance love. I took a shower and went to bed and was awakened after midnight. I listened as she told me the trouble she was having breaking up with Mr. Long Beach.
Derek Henkel - Dirty Red Kiss.txt Page 8