The following was written around the start of high school. I recall the first section, in particular, as one I was proud of. I'm not sure how old it is, actually, but I think the best estimate would be from 2000. In tone, I was perhaps going for Twain's ironic, critical self-deprecation. Pretty ambitious for thirteen or fourteen. I recall these scenes so vividly, though, that the hideous run-ons and adolescent judgments don't dissuade me from posting. It was a rare synchronous heart-beat when my life seemed to match the optimistic visions of the City on the verge of a millennium. It was a glorious, reflective, open-horizons, nostalgic time in my life.
Pretty ambitious for thirteen or fourteen.
I was sitting, mild mannerly, on
the red velvet chaise in the all but empty fourth floor of the San Francisco
Opera House, with my pen in one hand and the section of the paper which
contained the comics in the other. I say ‘all but abandoned’, for as I sat
intermediately placing the butt-end of the pen in my mouth and holding it, with
no real fear of its falling, like a cigarette smoker, two women came out of the
office outside of which I was waiting, and the taller, pretty brunette
addressed me.
“The bard at work, eh?”
I had never before seen this woman,
and was concerned as to why she had addressed me as a bard. She explained, at
no prompting from my part, except, perhaps, that of the concernedly puzzled
look on my face, that she had seen me sitting on a chaise in an all but
abandoned opera house, pen in one hand and paper in the other, and that she
assumed I was writing poetry in such a romantic situation. I replied that I
was, indeed as she had then asked, waiting for somebody inside. She and her companion
then took the elevator down, talking about me as they entered it.
Well. A few moments. I started to
wander about on the abandoned floor and snooped around the abandoned bar
finding an abandoned bottle of wine, champagne, or some other spirit. Why it
had been abandoned in the stripped bar with a light casting a dilapidated
shadow upon it, never mind its being uncovered, was quite beyond me. I looked
at the golden label, or more specifically the black writing upon it, and found
no clue as to what the bottle might contain. I was tempted to make a lift, but
thought better of it, and sat back on the chaise for a moment, only to stand up
again and start clicking my pen while pacing.
The particular clicking was such so
that, in reverberation of the hallways, it sounded to those still within the
office as if there was a rogue tap dancer in the halls. This likeness was do to
the fact that I had the effect in mind whilst clicking, and therefore sought to
emulate the sound as nearly and rhythmically as I could.
* * *
I am supposing that if I were to
have seen the needle, my reaction would have been far more violent than it was.
On the sixth floor of the Kaiser building in San Francisco, on Divisadero and
Geary, I was being ‘injected’, (though I prefer the term ‘shot’), by a small
Asian nurse, whose name, though the second time I had seen her that week, I had
not yet caught. The shots were Hepatitis B booster and Meningitis. The previous
Tuesday it had been a PPD (the bubble in the arm) and a Tetanus booster. My left
arm was in severe pain those days.
I have always hated needles. They
make me bleed. I do not take aspirin, so this bleeding’s cause is yet unknown.
I believe that it is do to my lack of vein-space. I do believe that my veins
are at all times practically full to the hilt, and that the excess fluids
pumped into me create a little overflow at the source. Like dunking a glob of vanilla ice cream
deeper into one’s root beer with a spoon or straw, and inevitably seeing the
now lighter colored soda run down the glasses’ edge. I figure that if I had had
more injuries in my yet so young a life that maybe I would not have such a
copious volume of blood still about me, but these thoughts are morbid, and best
not considered for too long of a period, especially when one is in a room
unoccupied but for oneself and the needles.
* * *
I enjoy going to restaurants alone.
I was dining at Louis’, a San Francisco institution, in the second to last
booth round the back, looking at the fog and ocean. There had been someone drowned,
the busboy at the next table was reporting to the customers that it had been on
purpose, and the authorities were present down near the ruins of the Sutro
Baths. And so I observed them scurry below as I sipped my drink with a spoon.
The rest of the nearby area was
closed for renovation until that August. The Cliff House, the restaurant which
I had intended to patronize, was also closed during this renovation. So I had
settled for Louis’. After all, I had come out all this way, and was pleased with
my service, chili cup, and patty melt, so all was not lost.
* * *
The worst thing about the San
Francisco Symphony is that the windows have large concrete half-pillars
blocking the view every seven feet or so. Since these same windows were the
feature that made the Symphony’s architecture appealing, for God knows the rest
of it wasn’t, I found this a shame. And even though I had passed through the
lobby and tiers of the building innumerous times I had not previously found so
glaring a fault in its windows.
I do suppose that I am becoming
more observant with age.
The only flaw that the symphony had
before the windows were noticed was the staircase. That staircase had scared
the hell out of me, even when I was little. A good thing I suppose, considering
the literal translation of the phrase. Another wonderful side effect of the
aging process aforementioned is that one’s perception of height becomes more
acute. Whenever I walked these halls I stayed in the middle, an equidistant gap
formed on either side from the stair case and the windows.
* * *
My mother’s dog’s name had been
‘Gorda’ at the ASPCA. This term meant ‘fat bitch’ in Spanish and was an
unsuitable name for the middle-aged, round, mild-mannered mutt. So the name was
changed to something better, yet close enough to be identifiable by the dog, to
the previous. The name ‘Gerta’ was decided upon. It reminded my mother of the
name ‘Greta’, a name which did not fit this dog at all. I was, at first
overjoyed at the name choice. It allowed me in public to address the dog as
though her name was ‘Goethe’, which sounded more dignified to me, and was an
apparently undetectable difference to the dog from the made up nonsense of
‘Gerta’. However when my mother once accompanied me on one of the walks of her
dog I accidentally said ‘Goethe’ instead of ‘Gerta’. My mother corrected me by
saying that the dog’s name was ‘Gerta’, not ‘Goethe’, and my months of
subversive name calling came to an end then and there.
* * *
I resolved on public transportation
that I should not learn to drive. I did not have any desire to drive and while
riding the bus I made yet a further discovery that led me to believe that to
stop taking the buses would be a bad idea. There were a surprisingly great
number of pretty women on the buses whom I had never noticed previously, but
whose presence over the past few days I was becoming more attuned to.
The current fashions of the day
accentuated girls’ hips, butt, thighs, and breasts. In this glorious age of
acne cleansers girls whose faces may once in yesteryear have been scorned were
now smooth and, there is no other word, silken. I refer to those faces of white
girls, for I took little to no interest in the faces and bodies of other raced
girls, unless given reason to do so. I will admit, though, I had a fondness for
the look common to girls from India, and the like places.
But, my eyes upturned from my H.G.
Wells and glued to a curvaceous pair of Levis,
I realized that such a departure from the world of public transportation
was also more then the loss of pleasant viewing. I would be at higher risk of
danger to myself and others. The cost would be far greater, the environmental
damage greater than that of the city’s electrical buses, and I learning to
drive would be unnecessary. They argued that it was more convenient. Not so:
the buses in San Francisco ran everywhere. They cited far fetched emergencies
and worst case scenarios. I cited the existence of ambulances. So the arguing
continued, I clearly victorious, but the opponent too damned stubborn to admit
their fault, likely stung by the fact that they, as automobile owners, had
succumb to all of the terrible vices I named associated with such devices. I
am, in fact, sure that this is the case. For with each refutement I gave, the
greater grew their anger towards my public transportation position. I did not,
of course, speak of the greatest value of all.
