“Ethan says Hi"! Wanda covers for me. “Now just lay your head down and let those tears out.” She plants a stern blue clinical box of Kleenex on the coffee table. Somehow I expected the Kleenex to match the couch. I guess shopping choices are limited in the Lower Haight. The harsh blue snaps me out of my tears and now I’m angry. Angry at Chance, which I guess means angry at myself. He was just another Betsy. He made me believe I was loved and then he took it all away. I could never love myself the way Chance loved me.
I lie on the soft pink couch and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling. On the edge of my vision, I can see Betsy’s wheelchair. I turn away and close my eyes. I don’t need her bullshit right now.
“Hey Time Traveler.”
“Go Away, Betsy.”
“You can love yourself like Chance loved you, you know. You already did.”
“It’s not the same as having someone.”
Wanda comes into the living room. “Did I hear you call, Ethan"?
“Sorry. I’m working through shit out loud.”
“Don’t be. You’re safe here.” Wanda returns to the tarot reading in the kitchen.
Betsy rolls backwards into the shadows and fades away. Good. I’m alone now, just me and my private thoughts. I am hollow, empty, as if I was still on Prolixin.
The couch continues to give way under my weight. The bearded clam pillows topple and cover me. In this moment, engulfed in pink comfort, nothing can harm me. Nobody can pierce the safety of this giant fluffy fortress. I drift into a dreamless oblivion of much-needed rest.
*
The safety and comfort are shattered by the telephone. I hear Wanda speaking to my mother.
“Yes, he’s here. He’s very upset, and he’s napping on my couch.”
The pause is filled with short gasps as Wanda faces the wrath of my mother.
“I didn’t realize it was a prison. Aren’t the inmates allowed to leave and visit friends"?
More invective from my mother comes spewing out of the receiver.
Wanda is firm. “He is napping now. If you want to pick him up, I will call you with the address at 7pm. He needs his rest. He’s heartbroken.” She slams down the receiver. It rings again once, but she turns off the ringer.
Wanda pokes her head in the living room to check on me, and I feign sleep. I can’t deal with any of it right now. Sue wanders in and says, “He looks like an angel fast asleep.”
Wanda affirms, “How he managed to survive his mother this far is a mystery to me. That woman would tear the wings off of angels and burn them with candle wax.”
Sue says, “Let’s cast a spell of protection for him.”
“Great idea.” They wander back to the kitchen and rummage around for ingredients. The adrenaline levels subside, replaced with a soft generalized dread, and before I know it, I’m asleep again.
After a few hours, Sue comes to my couch to comfort me. Why did I kiss her all those months ago? I don’t understand my heart. It needs replacing. Sue is a lovely human being, adorned with red locks and wise glasses. But I prefer lads to lasses. Love is cruel and unforgiving. I know I have crushed Sue’s heart just as as love crushed mine when Chance appeared and disappeared. I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything.
“Sue, I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I’m a fag hag, Ethan. Getting hurt is what we do,” Sue reminds me.
“I prefer the term ‘fruit fly.’”
“Oh,you do"? She reaches for my love handles and tickles me. I spazz and cry out for her to stop.
“But seriously, Sue. I spent the last two months in a relationship with someone who doesn’t exist. What is wrong with me"?
“You know, he probably does exist on some other astral plane. Or right here,” she points to my heart.
“I wanted you to meet him. His name was Chance. I thought you would like him.”
“I’m sure I have met him, and I’m sure I did like him.”
“He wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, and he had pale green eyes. When he held me, I felt safe. The kind of safe when you fall asleep in the back seat of your parent’s car while they are driving. You know"?
“Yes. I do know. Although my father was bipolar and a really bad driver.” She chuckles remembering. “I think I had a dream about Chance, and that’s where I met him, Ethan. He’s not on this plane, but he’s with you.”
“You believe that”?
“Don’t you see visitors all the time? People who are with you but they aren’t there?”
I remember Betsy. “Yes, I do.”
“So do I. It’s a side effect of being an empath.”
“Chance was perfect.”
“Listen to yourself. That name, Chance, it’s so prophetic.”
“I bought a ticket to Mexico. Well, to Calexico. What should I do"?
“In accounting class,we called your ticket ‘sunk costs.’ It’s money you already spent and won’t recover, so you shouldn’t include it in any decisions going forwards. It is no longer relevant to decisions about the future.”
“So what are you saying"?
“I’m saying, if you can afford to go to Mexico by yourself, and you want to go, you should just go. And if you can’t afford it, or you don’t know how to make it work by yourself, don’t sweat the money you spent on any tickets, because it’s already gone.”
She has a good point. My bus leaves tomorrow morning. I could always go back to Conard House and return to my room and my same unbearable life. I could catch the bus to Mexico and spend my hard-earned Sweet Inspirations money on a trip of a lifetime. The fact I bought the tickets shouldn’t matter. What matters is what I want. And I want to go to Mexico.
“It’s settled, then. I’m going to Mexico.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - STRANDED
I clear out of Wanda’s place before 7pm rolls around, so she could invite my mother to come over and look for me if it came to that. I think about the Greyhound station, which is a well-known entryway into the hell realm, and debate crashing on the floor there. They would kick me out for vagrancy and for not being a bum. But it’s worth a try.
I head to the Greyhound station to see if my ticket will work on an overnight bus to San Diego. No dice. Gotta wait til morning. I rent a locker for a dollar and stash my duffel.
There is very little to do in this part of town that doesn’t involve glass pipes, pickpockets, and eczema. I would go to Tu Lan for spring rolls, but they roll down the security shutters before the shadows grow long and darkness creeps in. This part of town is terrible during the day - at night, it is the 9th circle.
To amuse myself, I walk past the Fascination parlor to see what lost souls remain at this hour. It looks like a fluorescent-lit nursing home common room.
Then there is the Strand, an art house theater in both senses of the word. Most days, they play revivals, such as “Alien” or “The Conformist.” But Thursdays are gay porn night. And it’s Thursday. I am trying to save my US dollars for pesos, so I don’t run out of money, but the Strand is dirt cheap, and I can’t resist putting on 3D glasses to watch Jack Wrangler in “Heavy Equipment.” It’s not for the porn, I tell myself, but for the once in a lifetime opportunity as an artist to see a 3D Gay porn film. This may never happen again. Admission is $2.50, and the double feature runs until 1am. The second feature is a 2D classic - Kansas City Trucking Company. I am 19 now, old enough to go in without being hassled. This could be a great escape from a broken heart.
Inside, things are not as artistic as I had imagined. I prefer the back row for a 3D movie so I can see the objects leaping out over the audience. But the back row at the Strand on gay porn night is reserved for a different purpose. There are dozens of men standing backs to the wall with their flies open, dozens more kneeling to face them on their cushioned seats, and many more shenanigans too dark to see in the flickering light of the 3D movie. This kind of sex terrifies me. I was raised on Byron, Shelley and Keats. I crave love, passion, art, romance. I don’t want sex to be
meaningless.
And where the fuck are the ushers? I have my answer when I see a man holding a flashlight on the receiving end of a blowjob. This is a crime, I am positive, but the perpetrators are all complicit and there are no victims. Except for the guys who get AIDS. Just thinking about that disease destroys any arousal I might have allowed myself. Instead, I am filled with an inexplicable mixture of anger, disgust, self-loathing, pity and fear.
I’m not letting the sex party on Row A ruin my 3D movie. I sit in Row E which is as far back as I can go without implying I want to be a part of the action. I’m hungry and I want popcorn. Kansas City Trucking is still on, so I won’t miss the main feature. Again, every dollar spent this side of the border is a wasted motel in Mexico, so I choose the small, which only costs $1.75. I say ‘only’ because even though it is 3 or 4 cents worth of popcorn, it is still less expensive than the ridiculous popcorn at the Galaxy which costs $3.75 for a small!
The guy behind the counter is not cute, and he knows it. He has long stringy locks of greasy hair, Charles Nelson Reilly eyeglasses, and an ill-fitting three-piece suit. I’m judging the shit out of him. I don’t say anything, because I feel as ugly as he looks and I might even be that ugly, so I just practice being polite. He doesn’t cruise me. I hope he’s straight. I’ll bet he hates Thursday nights at the Strand. I could ask him, but a conversation with a creep is not part of my plans. Then he asks me a question.
“You don’t look gay. Why are you here"?
“First of all, I am gay. I don’t go near the back row because it disgusts me, but I am gay.”
The popcorn vendor nods and waits for the rest.
“I’m here because how many times in your life will you have the chance to see a gay porn film that managed to raise enough capital to be produced in 3D? It’s the sort of chance that only comes along once. Why are you here"?
“Well, I work here. And I’m not very gay.”
That last bit is perplexing. What is ‘very gay’? What is ‘not very gay’? I don’t want to be sucked into a conversation with this greaseball, but my verbal diarrhea erupts like a spastic colon of questions.
“How gay are you"?
“So, like, I’d do it with a pretty boy like you. I would. But not that guy.” He nods in the direction of a 70’s mustache clone, reaching into his 501’s and adjusting his cock ring by the lobby mirror.
“You prefer women, right"?
“Nah. I like being alone. But you know, if you wanted to, maybe you and me could --”
“Let me stop you right there. I am flattered. I’m leaving for Mexico in the morning. I’m here to waste some time until the bus leaves.”
“A bus to Mexico? The Green Tortoise"?
“No, Greyhound.”
“I got a place on 5th street if you want to crash there. No pressure, just you know, you can come over.”
I notice a few worrisome details about the popcorn guy. First of all, he has a pentagram and a goat’s head tattooed on the back of his hand. I don’t know how I missed that. I also notice he wears a hunting knife in his belt. He could just be some wannabe survivalist Satanist. He could be a psychopath planning to bind, torture and kill me. Now I need to extricate myself from his hospitable tentacles before I find out how he uses the knife.
“Dude, where is the bathroom"?
He is dull-witted and doesn’t even notice the deft change of subject.
The bathrooms are halfway up those stairs. There are no ladies here, so if you want privacy, you can use the ladies room.
I puzzle over his offer until I wander into the men’s room, where every urinal is occupied. Hobos and businessmen stand side by side, stroking, looking, leering. I turn tail and head into the ladies room. After, I finish climbing the stairs, cross over to the left staircase, and tiptoe around the corner into the theater. Popcorn man doesn’t see me.
Truth be told, “Heavy Equipment” is not a very well-constructed film. Jack Wrangler, the star, is very well put together, but the editing sucks. The thrilling 3D moments are pedestrian, like when he mops the floor and we see the mop from the point of view of the wringer. I had hoped he would let his humongous dick pop out from the waistband of his tightie whities, and it would graze the heads of the few audience members in front of me; this never happens. We never see any of the artistic sexual angles I had envisioned. We see a wrecking ball, the mop, a dump-truck dumping its load, but the sex is two-dimensional and hum-drum.
The Strand will evict audience members at 1am, but I want to escape before I am forced to interact again with the quasi-serial killer popcorn vendor. At 12:15, Kansas City Trucking ends, and the final showing of “Heavy Equipment 3D” comes to life. I peek out in the lobby, and see Popcorn Killer selling stale Red Vines to a young Asian-looking man. There is a mutual attraction there. Hands touch, numbers are exchanged. I hightail it out of the Strand and onto Market Street. It’s still early, so I head next door to the Starlight Lounge.
The Starlight Lounge is a pre-war bar. It is less gay than the popcorn guy. It’s pretty much a 1 on the Kinsey scale. But it’s so beautiful. The bar is horseshoe shaped, and the curving walls enclose it in a giant circle. The walls are decorated with hand-painted renderings of San Francisco in the 1930s. They are lit from below by colored lights. Neon green and gold lights curl across the ceiling.
The straight bartender demands my ID. I dig until I find the fake ID I bought in New York. It’s a Massachusetts driver’s license. Nobody ever knows what a Mass ID is supposed to look like, so it works. The ID is useless, I don’t want to drink booze. I order a coffee.
“Irish Coffee"? The bartender doesn’t meet many customers without a drinking problem.
“Plain Coffee, with cream, if you have it.”
He grumbles and serves me the coffee.
“How much"?
He raises his hands, refusing payment. I whip a dollar out of my Velcro Madonna wallet and place it on the bar. He smiles at me. He wouldn’t smile if he knew where I was ten minutes ago.
Nobody at the Starlight Lounge speaks to anyone else. It’s not a pickup bar. It’s a place where professional alcoholics go to hone their skills. It’s a crack house for drinkers. I sit in silence, nursing my coffee. I am surprised with a generous free refill from the bartender; no tip accepted.
Last call comes sooner than I expect. I realize I have mistimed things and now risk running into the Satanic popcorn vendor if I am not careful. As the bedraggled unwashed alcoholics stream out of the bar, I join the stream, watchful for the oily-haired predator. He is nowhere to be seen. The Strand is locked tight. He lives on Fifth, and I’m going to the bus station on Seventh, so I am in the clear. I enter the station and breathe a sigh of relief.
*
Passengers are permitted to sleep upright on the benches. The long wooden benches are separated every 3 feet or so with a humped inlay of brass just sharp enough to make sleeping lengthwise impossible. I try putting my shoes over the brass hump, but it only compounds my discomfort. I have the thin blanket from my dad, but it’s locked away for now. It would not be able to cushion the bump enough to allow for rest anyway. So I sleep upright, nodding off and waking when my neck softens to the point my head collapses forward onto my chest.
In desperation, I try to sleep in Child’s pose. My knees are tucked under my chest, arms pointed behind me. I am a dung beetle. This works until the weight of my torso against my knees prevents my lungs from drawing enough air. I also realize I am presenting my rear end to every passerby. I need to adjust.
Sideways, I can’t hold the pose, and my legs fall off of the bench.
*
I wake to find myself lying on the concrete staring into the face of a station agent. Hands planted on his hips, he wears a dehumanizing frown.
“This isn’t a hotel.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m catching the early bus to San Diego and I don’t have money for a motel.”
The agent reaches to help me to my feet, and plants me on the uncomfortable
bench.
“What time is your bus"?
I peer at my ticket to remember.
“7:35 AM”
“Well, you got just two more hours. Try to stay upright on your bench until then.”
“Yes, sir.” I smirk and he walks away, filing my face in his mind among the unwashed horde of ne’er-do-wells and bums. This stigma will never go away. I struggle to earn a few hundred dollars here and there, but I know I’m fooling myself if I think I can support myself. Look what happened in New York. Look what happened in the Tenderloin and the hospital. I can’t figure it out.
I don’t have to figure it out, because I awake from a light upright nap and see the clock reads 7:00 am. I check the chalkboards at the front of each stall to see where the San Diego bus is. I find it, but the door is closed and locked. The driver stands a few yards away, smoking a cigarette.
“We board at 7:20.” and he blows a puff of smoke.
After retrieving my backpack from the locker, I head to the restroom to splash some water on my face. The sinks only provide cold water and the only soap is Boraxo. The mirror is made of once-shiny stainless steel, scarred by knife marks, but it still provides a cloudy distorted reflection. I massage the pebbly powder with some water until it forms a feeble imitation of lather. I rub the abrasive concoction on my face to remove the oily sheen from my face. I rinse, avoiding stray grains of this quasi-soap from getting into my eyes.
When I survey my work, I catch a terrifying glimpse in the mirror. It’s Satanic Popcorn guy from the Strand pissing at the urinal. He hasn’t seen me yet, I hope. The knife attached to his waist is bigger than I remember. This Greyhound bathroom is the precise place where murders happen.
I back away from the mirror towards the door, keeping my eye on the knife and its owner reflected in the scratchy metal mirror. He doesn’t see me.
Just as I reach the door, he turns and looks straight at me. He hasn’t bothered to put anything away or zip up.
“Where did you think you were going"? he asks. He’s stroking himself one handed, the other hand on the hilt of the knife. “I have been watching you for hours. You are so pretty when you sleep.”
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