Street City

I sat in a dark dirty corner of the Tenderloin. This wasn’t my neighborhood, but I liked visiting. We all need a little filth and degradation now and then. Someone to start screaming at you about a missing hat or the great white conspiracy to build a Caucasian-only city of shimmering diamond towers outside Fresno.

The Asian bartender had a thick accent. She was chatting with a guy who looked like a shrunken trucker. They were talking about where to get the best martini in town, which seemed like a strange topic for a shrunken trucker to get so uppity about. He had passion.

It was early Saturday evening and I didn’t have any plans for the night. I’d gone to the library earlier, then sat in the park of limbless trees in front of City Hall and browsed the books I’d borrowed, some slim volumes of poetry. More times than not, I have no idea what poets are talking about. But it was appealing: the feel of the book in your hands, its portable condensation of experience and thought. The pretty symmetry of the lines. Keys locked in a key-box.

After awhile of just sitting around and looking at people, at the books, the wind started kicking up, so I’d decided to get a beer up the street.

The martini debate was getting more heated. I browsed the news on my phone, words and images like bile oozing over the screen: corruption, fraud, cronyism, our Democracy hard at work. I used to get more worked up about things like that. I used to have higher standards. I’m not sure that’s the same thing as idealism. The road foreword sometimes looks very much like the road backward. People speak like they know.

A 1970s rock song came on the jukebox. It was a song that used to cause sentimental swellings. It used to bring me back to sunshined beaches and snow-covered pines, but now I felt nothing. I wondered if that feeling would come back. I can’t say I felt nostalgia for nostalgia, but I missed it, that feeling. Something to infuse life with—I don’t know—meaning, consequence, context? Somehow these had become distant luxuries.

“Oh, bullshit, the President doesn’t even like martinis!”

My phone vibrated across the bar-top, a flash of message received. It was a text from Bob, this guy I didn’t really get along with, an acquaintance of a friend. For some obscure reason he liked to hang out with me. We messaged back-and-forth: he wasn’t far away, in one of the tourist districts, at a kitchy Gold Rush bar. He’d met a couple of outlandishly buxom women visiting the city and looking for adventures.

Then I was drunk telling stupid jokes and people were laughing because sometimes I can even get funny when I’m drunk. The woman Bob was interested in was obnoxious and loud, pretty much his soul mate. She spoke like someone had wound up her mouth for several days and let the crank go. Her friend had nothing interesting to say and she had that creepy generic California blonde look, but she had attractive boobs. She was the kind of woman I would’ve avoided back when I lived in L.A., but now enough time had passed to give her the slight appeal of the exotic.

Bob liked to play the vagabond artist role, only he didn’t make any art. Still, it was surprisingly effective. He was energetic and enthusiastic, which goes a long way among moody smoldering types and generally uninspired go-with-flow folks. He was a low-grade explosive, irritating, loud, interesting for a little while.

L.A. Woman: “So were you like totally going crazy when the Giants won!?”

SF Faux Vagabond Artist: “I can’t believe you like sports. Only stupid people like sports. You’re not stupid, right? I hope not, because I don’t like to date stupid girls.”

L.A. Woman: “That’s like got nothing to do with it.”

SF Faux Vagabond Artist: “That’s not even a real name. It’s adjective.”

L.A. Woman: “No, dude, it’s a noun.”

SF Faux Vagabond Artist: “Giant what? Giant jock asshole? That’s an adjective.”

L.A. Woman: “What’s wrong with you?”

SF Faux Vagabond Artist: “I like grammar.”

L.A. Woman: “Seriously, do you have Asperger’s or something?”

SF Faux Vagabond Artist: “I really don’t think that’s any of your business. Are you on medication? Do you have hemorrhoids? See, you don’t see me asking questions like that. I’m just not that kind of person. I’m not sure I want to hang out with you.”

Then he started dancing around like a marionette with a snapped string, twirling awkwardly in crooked circles.

The other hard to handle thing about Bob was his coke habit—he’d deny it whenever directly confronted—something that was a bit incongruous with his hobo musician look. And he had a knack for sniffing-out similarly inclined women. I don’t like coke. I prefer slow pleasures, not euphoric chatty highs that quickly vaporize unless you do more, then more, then guess what? But I do that: get involved with crap just to do something, keep the night going. What can I say? You get bored.

Then, not like a dream but an error, a disruption in continuity, we were in their hotel room. It overlooked Union Square. Union Square used to feel like an actual square, a leisurely public green in the heart of the city. Now it was artificially raised, more concrete than grass. I supposed there were rationalizations made for the considerable changes, but it felt like a mistake. Good cities have all things, including fantastic mistakes.

The lights around the square were attractive, though. Made you feel detached from mortal concerns. Took you outside.

There were cackles, guffaws, something like a bark. I turned to the room’s crowd. They brought me back to the mess and disappointment of the actual living life. Suck it up, dude.

Bob was cutting lines of cocaine on a nightstand that he’d pulled out in front of one of the twin beds. He was talking about an after-hours club down by the Bay, a place he tended to go. I’d been a couple of times. It’s the kind of place that can be totally dull, or, on the other hand, where you can find yourself debating films with someone who’s probably a bona fide gangster.

The one talking to me said, “It’s not something I would go out of my way to get. But if someone puts it right in front of me, I’ll do it!”

Then she leaned over and inhaled a line, her weirdly tanned boobs nearly falling out of a shopping mall top.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

Bob decided we should go to the Starlight Room. He claimed he knew someone who worked there. The friend was absent when we arrived, but it wasn’t too crowded, so we found a seat. We were all underdressed, though some tourists in the room considered shorts and Alcatraz T-shirts appropriate attire for one of the fancier, more storied spots in the city. We lucked out and even got a seat near the window.

The view was stunning. You could see the whole city, the towers and the hills, the hilltop towers. And our approaching server, reflected in the window, was also a real beauty: the seductive city gracefully rendered in flesh. She looked like someone out of a proper noir. She was elegant, a simple black dress. Her movements were slow and deliberate. A simple sizzling gesture was how she suggested we should order. You imagined she might quietly yet firmly push you off a rooftop just for the hell of it.

“Yeah, I snorted coke right off her ass!” Bob boasted to his short-term soul-mate. The girls laughed. They obviously found his crudeness slightly offensive but comical. They were off on an adventure, so normal etiquette need not apply. Later, they’d do nothing but mock us, what a pathetic joke, but now let’s have fun!

Bob, and the evening’s companions, were grotesque when compared to the server’s stylishness. Not that I was any part of this city-top world—upon entering, the door guy had given me dirty looks, which I gratefully reciprocated. But I couldn’t blame him, really. In a sense we were sullying the Room’s gleam. I was as much a tourist as the others.

We ordered. There was nothing verbal, just a nod of understanding, subtle disapproval. I felt attraction and contempt. I looked at the faces of my companions flickering along the table. They seemed monstrous yet silly. What was I doing here? I should just go home. Watch TV while eating a burrito. Instead, after sucking down the cocktails and now crammed into a spice-infused cab, we rose high over the city, hurtling toward the after-hours club, another bad idea.

It was a fine warm day and the hillside park was crowded. Later the fog would arrive, driving this warmth out like a weakness. But now there was only a pleasant ocean breeze, mild and calming. I sat near the top of the park’s broad downward slope. Most people along the slope looked happy. This didn’t make me happy, but it was pleasant enough to observe in others.

I took another sip of my brown-bagged beer. It was cold, good.

I’d been trying to read a novel. Its topic was America. Despite the gushing blurbs on the cover, it was bloated and dull. I planned to give it another ten pages or so before setting it aside, but just completing one paragraph was a slog.

And the nearby sunbather wasn’t helping matters. She was an authentic beauty. She lay on her back: a yellow polka-dot bikini, large white-rimmed sunglasses, black hair. Her toenails were black, too. We hadn’t been getting much sun lately, so she was severely pale, which is to say she looked good.

Her companion was a dog, a strange, nervous little creature. In fact, it was freakishly tiny, like a bonsai tree. It roamed around a patch of daises near the sunbather’s smooth legs. The daises came up to the critter’s neck. It stopped at one—taller than the others—and began to lick it. The dog licked the daisy much longer than seemed appropriate. Then it started looking at me, like it knew me, or expected something from me. Perhaps I had a treat?

I ignored the dog and looked down the slope, above the grins and hats. Distantly, were the towers of downtown, great stacks of stone eyes, the consolidation of financial ambition. I looked into the sky. It was that specific color of blue when filtered through sunlight and a slight ocean mist, that dreamy promise of elsewhere.

The miniature dog started barking at me, which sounded more like bird barking. I refocused my attention and watched its master rise up on her elbows and look around, her ponytail gliding along her shoulder blades. She gave the pooch a little pat on the head, a tender scratch under the chin. She said something to the dog, but the breeze took it down-slope, so I couldn’t hear.

The sunbather then slowly turned onto her side: the fine curve of her hip, a tantalizing little roll along her supple belly. She sat up, crossed her legs, undid her hair, and clasped the hair tie between her teeth. She tilted her head back and shook out her hair. She used her fingers as a comb. This was all done casually and free from any self-conscious awkwardness, like she was alone at home. Then the sunbather tilted her head forward and started the process of pulling her hair back up, which she did very slowly, giving the delicate area around her neck and shoulders a bathtub eroticism.

It was captivating, but more… It was like her form had healing properties, a category of medicine. It almost made you believe in intelligent design. Effective design, anyway. She elicited an immediate urge to caress.

Then, as if all this wasn’t enough, she swung around and lay facedown, untied the back straps of her bikini top, and discreetly placed them to the side.

I looked, and looked, and then closed my eyes. Deep breaths. Concentrate on the warmth on your face, its friendly glow. Try to purge all thoughts. I honed in on the sound of the breeze up in the trees. I listened to the gently groaning cypresses, the prickly gesticulations of their branches. I breathed slowly and imagined that I was something not myself.

I am the treetop. The breeze turns into winds. I endure rain and fog. It snows. The city hills grow taller. Spaceships lumber high above like colossal metallic carp. Below, I hear the sounds of lovemaking, and the screams—the collapsing sobs—of murder. Then, like before, earthquakes and fires wipe away much that is around me. But I survive. In time, fresh structures bloom into a future place unrecognizable from now. I don’t see my death, not yet.

I sensed movement. I opened my eyes and saw the vending machine dog bounding toward me. What had been keeping it in place the whole time—excessive attachment to its master? fear of punishment? It took quite awhile for it to cover the 15 feet between its encampment and my own. Then I saw what had been capturing its interest this whole time: just inches away from me sat an oddly plump turd. It contrasted darkly against the green green grass.

The dog pounced on the turd with surprising ferocity. Compared to its size, the turd was enormous, like it was attempting to eat a loaf of bread, whole.

“Um, ma’m…?” I said. The beautiful sunbather must have been lulled into a warm sun languor, because it took a moment for her to notice that her dog had gone AWOL.

She raised her head, turned, and saw her dog. Without thinking about her loosened top, she jumped up, momentarily exposing her lovely swinging boobs. Awkwardly, she pulled up the strap, but it was too late for adequate coverage. She grabbed a nearby white button-up shirt and held it to her chest, embarrassed, blushing. Problem is, the shirt was pretty much see-through. She rushed over. I felt a jolt—not just for what was revealed, but having it take place in public. I decided that public parks were an excellent use of my tax dollars. A militia should be formed.

“Sorry, he’s got a thing for poop,” she said, a dimpled smile. She scooped up the dog, the turd dropping with a plaintive little bounce back onto the grass.

“I know the feeling,” I said.

She paused, thinking, and then scrunched up her face: ew, gross.

Smooth, very smooth. Maybe you can invite her to a shit-tasting soirée at a Hayes Valley shittery. Really, they have a fine selection from all over the world. This one has a cupcake/woodchip quality to it.

“Thanks for letting me know,” she said. She returned to her blanket. With fascinating quickness and dexterity, she reapplied the bikini top and again was on her back, soaking in the sunshine.

Soon, more people showed up, including a large group that sat right behind me. They were drinking mimosas and were loud and irritating and smoking, and I wanted to throw the worthless novel onto their spread of assorted fruits and cheeses.

I felt uncomfortable. There would be no more attempts to read, tree top reveries, or sunbather appreciations. Time to go. I put the novel back in my bag and started to get up. I looked over at the turd—poor neglected plump little turd, covered in teeth marks and pooch drool.

I pulled the bag from my beer and liberated the lozenge of hardened poop from further gnawing. The sunbather’s dog began to yelp frantically. It growled. The sunbather tilted her head back and, raising her sunglasses, eyed me. I held up the bag. “Lunch!”

I had to get downtown, and quickly. Some friends were waiting on me. I entered the underground station. I walked down concrete steps. Due to some recent construction, they were spaced unevenly. I had to walk slowly so as not to fall and destroy my face or dislocate a critical joint while tumbling toward the white tiled wall below. A couple of the steps were so narrow that I had to turn my foot sideways, which was uncomfortable. What, exactly, were these public transportation engineers thinking?

None of this proved relevant, as the underground platform was already packed with grumpy, stifled riders. All the earpieces in the world could not sing away their sour faces, or freeze the pacers—watch out for the pacers. Just then an overcrowded single-car train arrived. Only the rude and tiny and incredibly slender were able to board. And an elderly Asian lady whose steady shoving strength was greater than one would have thought possible.

I looked up at the monitor. Its purpose was to tell you when to expect the next train. Or, depending on how you sliced it, its purpose was to tell you when NOT to expect the next train. Getting downtown via this method looked hopeless.

I would have to take overground transportation. I returned up. It’d be slower, but at least I would move toward my destination. Others had had the same idea. It was necessary to jostle for position on the streetcar island. Some people spilled into regular traffic. There was honking. Some motorists made defamatory remarks. I thought maybe I’d have to take a cab, something I did not want to afford. But luck gave me a thumbs-up: soon a nearly empty throwback streetcar appeared. It trundled forth, its arrival announced with a grinding stop. The operator was gracious enough to open the side doors. We jumped on. I even managed to secure a place to place my butt.

The bench-seats curved strangely, however, right into my lower back, like it was designed to allow maximum discomfort. The motor whooped—it sounded like a small fishing boat—and we lurched forth. The car bounced and shook. I rode in the past down toward the future.

Really, the retro streetcars were for the tourists, and there were plenty on this particular streetcar not named Desire but named Market. They wore fleece sweaters and baseball caps with the name of the city emblazoned upon them. Next to me, the parents standing and the children sitting, was a nuclear family of tourists. Their tongues sounded northcentral or northeastern European. They were studying a map of the city and speaking quietly about what they saw there.

I zoned out until a crew-cut weightlifting Castro dude who reeked of leather and Old Spice slid over and put his bulging crotch just a few inches from my face. He had on a wife-beater and his tan was extreme. I felt him getting closer than made sense. Either I’d have to relinquish my seat or just accept it. I accepted it. But the cologne conjured thoughts of my dad, who was also big and wore leather and used Old Spice. The man looked down at me with cold eyes. You might say his gaze was penetrating. Is this your thing? The intimacy of it made me want to fight him away, some kicking. It felt like a violation.

After a couple of stops, Sergeant Spice was replaced by an older man with wild, darting eyes and pasty skin. It looked like he had used Elmer’s glue as hair product. He was extraordinarily white, like his blood, too, was white. He was probably in his fifties, but he was big and imposing, vaguely threatening. His head nearly touched the ceiling of the car. What’s up with all these big men?! He stood sideways, one elbow akimbo, making it difficult for anyone to get by. He stared blankly out the window. He seemed unaware of his surroundings. Was he in a state of shock? On opiates?

About two stops later a black teen dressed in clothes made for a fellow more giant than himself was loudly and rudely making his way toward the back of the streetcar. His teeth were gold and he had a big smile. His black baseball cap was carefully placed askew. In fact, his entire head seemed permanently cocked to the side.

His smile snapped into a frown when Elmer—his expression had not changed one iota—wouldn’t move out of the way.

The giant pants teen would have none of it. He began to spew insults. Elmer, nearly a foot taller, continued to ignore him, studying the passing buildings. The teen hunkered down a bit. Insults graduated into threats. I think he was preparing to shove Elmer into the crowd, but my line of sight became blocked as the tourist family assembled into a protective huddle, the mother and father like a tortoise shell over their children.

Then, right in front of me, I saw Elmer start to move. Casually, like he was pulling out his wallet to purchase some pretzels, Elmer slipped a six-inch buck knife out of his back pocket. He surreptitiously held the knife along his badly stained and torn blue jeans. With expert skill, he opened the knife with one hand. He shifted its position so it was ready for action. He continued to look out the window, like he was oblivious to the teen’s threats. It was clear that the teen himself didn’t realize Elmer was poised to stab him.

The tip of the blade was just inches from my face. The streetcar shook to and fro, the tip now too close, the tip now still pretty damn close. The grinding of the rails became louder. The metal scratching away at metal, the sheen of surface exposure. I felt a surge of adrenaline, fight or flight. But I was trapped. All I could do was jerk my head back and slightly raise up on the bench, both actions remarkable in their inadequacy to meet the threat at hand. What do I do?

Within seconds, the streetcar came to a scheduled stop. I heard the doors squeak open. As another person attempted to squeeze by and get out, he bumped Elmer in the back. Elmer lifted his knife a bit. Then the shouting began. It was an Asian woman next to me. She had five pink plastic bags over-stuffed with produce. She pulled these bags to her chest as she shouted. Others began to shout. The black teen attempted to shove Elmer with his forearm. Elmer barely moved. He did, however, turn his head and look down at the teen. Elmer seemed confused by situation, but he said nothing. He simply held up the knife a bit, poised to stick. The teen stepped back, but it wasn’t a retreat. He was ready. He reached into his giant jacket. He spoke of the ways in which he would murder Elmer. Someone shouted that the teen had a gun, but I couldn’t see it.

The operator came on the loud speaker: “Everyone exit the car immediately!”

All moved slowly, drifting and bouncing chaotically, like we were underwater, or on the moon. I think the tourists, utterly befuddled, were able to disrupt the situation somewhat, as they courteously moved between the men to get off. As though the official announcement gave them permission to walk between two people ready to kill each other. I wasn’t sure the parents even saw the weapon. But the boy definitely did: his eyes were large and speechless as he passed before the exposed blade.

I slid down along the bench and practically leaped out the doors. Others leaped with me, a hot burst of tension pouring around us. Pigeons scattered toward a darkened side-alley. I stepped a few feet back and watched the free-for-all. I was trying to see everything at once. I saw nothing.

Oddly, sirens called almost instantaneously. Did the operator have a distress signal? Elmer, taller than everyone else, emerged from the streetcar crowd and starting trotting down the side-alley. His face again had that slightly vacant, puzzled expression. His hand looked red, but I couldn’t be sure. The teen was still in the streetcar. A few moments passed before he jumped out, all jacket and pants and rage. His baseball cap was gone. He looked for Elmer, but Elmer was out of sight. Then he heard the sirens. Change of plans. He ran down Market in the opposite direction as Elmer had gone. He turned at the first corner he could find.

The police arrived, blocking the other lanes, asserting their authority to demonstrate authority. An overcrowded Haight Street bus was stopped behind the streetcar. The riders starting disembarking, adding to crowded sidewalk. Complaints were rebutted with strange versions of the traffic-stopping event. One person insisted there had been shots. Personal creativity is highly valued in these parts.

I was late. This would not resolve itself for some time. Now I had to walk, which I did. I walked briskly, a near jog. Still seven blocks to go.

I felt shaky as I walked, my knees wobbly. I’d been en route to fun, diversion, a reprieve from the pressures of work, possible layoffs and the frightening prospect of unemployment in a country embroiled in economic civil war. Instead, now I was all shook up. I didn’t want to arrive downtown full of negativity. I didn’t want to be a downer. I tried to clear my thoughts. Forget about the red hand. But I could distinctly smell the panic and anxiety in my perspiration. I’d had a close call and, though I may wish to push it from my mind, my body had other ideas. I always forget that it’s the real crazies who are afraid of the underground tunnels.

Michelle, her wild hair still knotted with sleep, started laughing so hard that she sprayed latté onto an unopened copy of the Chronicle. The creamy brown liquid seeped into the newspaper’s fresh surface.

“Ow. Cinnamon. Crap. Ow.”

“Serves you right,” I said. “You shouldn’t mock the impaired.”

“That’s your third phone this year!”

“I was multi-tasking. Actually, checking to see if you had pinged—you hadn’t—and it slipped. The toilet was old and had this weird design. I mean, the drain hole was sort of raised, but it had a long neck. It looked like I should be able to get it. But I couldn’t reach my fingers down far enough. I tried, though. Oh how I tried.”

“Gross.”

“Definitely. And for naught.”

One of the sparkly young café workers walked past. She had that groovy hippie soft porn look. I watched her fine behind as it sashayed past a plate of strawberry waffles, which had a giant dollop of freshly whipped cream like a prize far too generous.

“So, what happened to you, anyway? Off gallivanting with your…what was he again?”

Michelle and this guy—Bob? Tom? Bill?—had hit it off at bar in the Mission that had once suckled old, broken men into nondescript Colma graves, but now catered to electric-eyed Hipsters Without Borders. He was tall, lanky, arty, outgoing, all together irritating.

“He’s a photographer!”

“God, they’re the worst. They point a device at something, push a button, and then take credit, like it’s their creation.”

“Oh, be quiet. There’s a lot more to it than that. It’s what you frame. It’s your eye. Where you focus.”

“Have you been watching PBS again?”

“Stop putting down PBS. I like it. And my date was fun. We went to his loft and then up on the roof. We drank wine and looked at the stars. It was pretty. And we didn’t flush our phones away. So there.”

I drank some more coffee. It didn’t seem to be working.

“So what happened with that girl from the Make-Out Room?” she asked.

“She’s a slapper.”

“What?”

“We went to that School of Rock show. The kids were playing all David Bowie songs. It was fun. But then out of the blue she just slapped me. Playfully, more or less.”

“Wow. She did seem pretty tom-boyish.”

“I think she wanted me to slap her back. I’m not sure. The kids certainly found it amusing. Instructional, maybe.”

“I’m not sure she’s the girl for you.”

“Maybe. I have to do some Internet research—just to make sure I wasn’t missing some special signals.”

“Keep trying, it’ll happen.”

I didn’t really believe this, but I nodded acceptingly. Usually when I meet the right women, they either quickly become super-glued to another or become like Michelle: nearby but out of reach.

Michelle looked into the window, her reflection. She self-consciously tried to straighten her unruly hair. Then her cell phone started to vibrate, scooting along the table. She craned her neck to see who was calling. Her hand began to reach for the phone, but then she paused, hesitated, pulled away. She placed both hands neatly on her lap.

She looked at me and smiled. Clearly her date from the night before was making the bold and risky move of calling her the next morning. She might as well set his individual ring tone to wedding bells. Would she answer or let it go to voicemail? The audience anxiously awaited her choice. Her face, always expressive, traveled like a bullet train through diverse landscapes of assessment, some wild and rocky, others no doubt involving lawns, swing sets, glass pitchers of sugar-free lemonade. Important evaluations were being made as one vibration dissipated into the next trembling burst.

“Don’t look at me,” I said.

“I don’t know.”

Quickly, she picked it up. She answered with a singularly sweet “Hiiiya!” and then was walking outside for privacy. She was all smiles before she tilted forward, her face lost in hair.

Another of the young hipster girls walked by, a welcome distraction. Her midriff was bare and the tattoos there lured my mind to consider the tattoos that were elsewhere, because the image was incomplete, and they must continue upward and around, downward and down around.

I opened up the oddly thin newspaper and tried to find some local reporting.

Michelle was beaming when she returned from her phone call.

“My photographer dude is taking me to Sonoma today! Yay, a surprise!”

“Now?”

She nodded yes while scrolling through her mysterious cell phone files. I was convinced she had a universe of relationship intrigue stored in there.

She theatrically held up her phone, displaying it like a game show prize. Then, with a great flourish, she placed it in her handbag. “See, you put it somewhere safe, like this.”

I shrugged and looked away. “Safety first. Loser.”

“I get to wear my summer dress!”

“That lady bug one were everyone ogles you?”

“Oui.” Then she looked in a nearby mirror and frowned. “I must beautify!”

“Okay, you’re way too uppity.”

“I’m happy!” she insisted while throwing away the soiled Chronicle. She shouldered her bag.

I stood up and gave her a hug. It always felt good to hug Michelle. Once, early in our friendship, we’d been out carousing with friends, beginning in the afternoon. We were the stoutest, the last two standing. We went to the Toronado, our neighborhood beer bar. It was a well-known destination in the city and always crowded. We only stayed for one beer, saying little in the noise and crush, and comfortable with saying little. On the street, as we were about to part ways, I couldn’t resist her charms. I leaned in for a kiss. She pushed me away. She held up her finger in a disapproving manner, like a librarian scolding a middle-schooler caught scrolling through online porn. “You’re my friend. I have rules! No funny business.” She had looked very beautiful there, beneath the street lamps, before the black metal grating of a darkened hair salon.

I told her to have fun on her impromptu daytrip. I meant it, more or less, as long as I didn’t have to hear too many details.

“Byyyeee!”

I sat down and watched while she walked down Divisadero. She was practically skipping. The cars passed behind her, flashes of sunshine like little burns. What to do now?

The curvy flirt asked me what I was getting. I was trying to remember her name, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“I don’t know, whiskey maybe.”

Her eyes enlarged. “I love whiskey.”

“I don’t know, though. Whiskey makes me ornery.”

“Oh, I love me some ornery too!”

A group of us had been wandering around the so-called Barbary Coast trail. There were tales of murder, fraud, theft, kidnapping, whoring. They were told with ironic distance, drained of actual sustaining fluids, what keeps people alive. I’d been bantering with the flirt throughout the walk. I was unusually witty and charming. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me.

Now, at a semi-authentic Old West saloon in North Beach, the flirt pushed her soft full chest up against my arm. She wore a tight pink T-shirt with the Enjoy Coke logo, only Coke was spelled Cock. Not something I could relate to, or even imagine, but a cause I could support. We have a strong sense of community here in San Francisco. She had on one of those bras that revealed her nipples, which seemed to be perpetually erect. She saw me staring. “This is the fucking Barbary Coast, right?!”

She wasn’t the kind of woman who gave you thoughts of companionship, hand-holding, cuddling and watching movies, debating into the wee hours. She was the kind of woman you immediately wanted to take to a room with four walls and a closed door and a bed. Naturally, you resented this, its potency.

She ordered two whiskies and I paid. We drank them together.

“So what do you do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just walk around the city and stare at people until they tell me to stop—or punch me.”

“Oh.” Her tone seemed tinged with disappointment. Was she taking me seriously? It’s hard to tell when people are taking you seriously.

“And you?”

She spent about five minutes talking about her office job, a dull affair involving administrative support, not far from my own source of income. I didn’t have the energy to draw comparisons. I figured I’d just stick with the street-wanderer occupation. She did seem kind of focused on the idea of income. And what you could do with that income.

“God, these guys are assholes!” She was glaring at a quadrangle of international football fans: swollen, boisterous men in shiny jerseys. Either their team had recently won, or they tended to break out in anthems whenever the spirit moved them.

Not long after denouncing the soccer-ballers, she was flirting with them—chatting, touching, phones out and trading numbers. She looked good and she was popular. They started singing again. Competition was stiff.

Later, drunker, outside, smokers in the fog: “Making new friends?”

“Yes! Some definite potential.” She again pushed herself against me. She smelled good, like a mountain meadow, fresh wildflowers borne from freshly melted snow. Then she reached up and put her fingers through my hair, an oddly intimate gesture. I slipped my hand behind her back. I could feel her spine.

“I’m a very sensual person,” she said. “It makes some people feel uncomfortable.”

“So you want to get dinner sometime?”

She smiled, but it was a patronizing smile. “You’re cute and nice, but you’re not my type. You couldn’t keep up with me.”

There was no hesitation in her voice, like we were discussing organ donor compatibility.

“You barely know me,” I said.

“I know… I know these things. I’m really outgoing. It’s just the way it is. There would be trouble.”

“Maybe you couldn’t keep up with me in some areas.”

She smiled, the response so simple, like I’d just walked into a trap I had set myself. “All the more reason.”

I’d intended to leave after that, but instead found myself debating with one of the international footballers, a dude with an accent so thick—Irish? Scottish?—I could only understand every third word or so. But I understood enough to know he was insulting American football. For some odd reason I started defending the sport like I was being personally attacked.

Next thing I knew I was getting yet another pint of beer—the sports men had just left, taking their anthems to the next bar down the way—and I found the whiskey-drinking woman flirting with two rotund gentlemen late in life who looked at her with bemused distance. They seemed immune from any such hazardous attentions, but perhaps remembering the days when they were not so lucky.

She pulled me back a couple of feet and told me I was cute.

“So?”

She reaffirmed her no. “I’m too fast for you.”

There was a pause, her eyes all devious glimmer, a bold harlot newly arrived to the crooked hillside boomtown. Knee-caps, not ass-cracks, the great inflamer.

“My rule is either I date someone, or play with them once. Just once. That’s my rule.”

The room became very loud, and small, like I was on stage.

I asked if she could come out and play. I felt like a fool as I said it. An eager opportunist. Gold was just lying all through the creek bed. All you had to do was slip your hands into the icy water and you were rich.

She quizzed me. She asked if I could handle such an arrangement. She wanted confirmation that I didn’t like her too much, that it wouldn’t be a problem. I was very reassuring. And I meant it, figured I knew what it meant.

She smiled, the adversary there, and in her eyes. I saw her tongue.

I kissed her aggressively. She kissed back with equal force. Then she pulled back, defiance in her eyes. But her body was open to me. I looked at that body of hers, the things I wanted to do.

“Let’s go,” she said. “I’m sick of this place. I’m cat-sitting just a couple of blocks away.”

I took her by the waist and pushed through a group of newer fellows huddled around the exit. I leaned my shoulder into those getting too close, even while her many hands seemed to be touching, stroking.

Then we were walking into some dark and salty North Beach alley. She led me up a tall, narrow, winding staircase. I couldn’t see much. But I could feel what I needed to feel. What I wanted to always be feeling.

So, turns out my cocky reassurances had little correspondence to reality. Once is never enough when you get precisely what you desire. It slips into your blood, liquid ice through your arteries. Like all your flesh is on fire.