San Francisco Dérive

ACT I

on the caltrain bound north by northwest on saturday, 6 skeezy grunge younguns board at the palo alto station. they stomp on, 5 boys and one girl. the only things i really notice about her are her stick legs, as i always notice stick legs, and her white cowboy boots with silver decorations. they all sit next to and behind my friend and i. one boy rests his mowawk head on the seat with calculated care.

they talk the entire way about drugs.

they talk: "he does his weight in blow every day". i think of a king on the scales, covered in white powder, a mass of peasants cheering and blowing their bleeding noses.

boy behind me gets on phone talks: "yeah, whatever, man. you're leaving me in the lurch. i don't got no money to get home now and you said you'd pick me up. yeah fuckin whatever." hangs up. turns to girl and says, "man, fuck my dad."
girl, tinny slow-paced voice, "whaaal spencer that's what happens with drug addicts. if something doesn't benefit them directly then forget about it. just keep doin what you're doin and say 'fuck you'.

"you let yourself get affected by your father too much. you're just as selfish as him.

(on phone) "i only got 3. but i wanna snort something. you can take it. i'm just gonna drown my liver out.

"if i was to die, i would have died much longer ago. i have done so much shit to my body; it's just not gonna happen now.

"i don't give a fuck about life. i just wanna do what i wanna do and not go to juvie in the meantime."

they talk: making opium tea from poppyseeds. girl again, her voice pierces metal: "oh yeah! i just grilled up a bunch a poppyseeds, salted em, and ate em right out of the bag. LIKE A HORSE!"

i turn to cheri and tell her about dante's inferno.

i talk: "there's the suburbs of hell, where people who chose neither good nor evil remain and are committed to an eternity of being bitten and stung by insects, thus forcing them into action which they never did in life. then the first layer of hell is limbo, where all the great poets and folks who were around before christ wander about in a gray fog. the second layer of hell is where people who lusted and committed sins of the flesh are damned forever to be blown about by the winds, constantly moving but never touching anything again."

out of the corner of my eye: girl is staring at me through the seats. all of them are silent.

"and the eighth layer of hell is the worst one, i think. the eighth has ten zones, and that's where the suicides are. people who committed suicide are turned into trees and bushes, forever to be picked at by birds and animals, bleeding when their branches are broken and constantly moaning softly. and, what makes it the worst, is when christ comes again in the final judgment, everyone will get a chance to get their bodies back except the suicides. they get their bodies back, but the flesh will be draped on their branches so that they can always touch, but never again inhabit, what they voluntarily gave up."

the girl's mouth is open a bit. i tell cheri about where lucifer lives and how he chews on the three worst traitors. the girl listens intently.

we move on to other topics and they resume drug discussion.

bayshore stop. mohawk boy announces, "roll out", and all stand to wait for the train to stop. girl stands in her gemstone cowboy boots and stares at me. i stare past her, out the window, at the gray misery that is the bayshore area. perhaps that is what limbo looks like.

"excuse me, i'm sorry, i didn't mean to eavesdrop, but what was that book you were talking about - the one about the bleeding trees and all that scary shit?"

i tell her. she looks me in the eye with a little crooked smile. "thanks! i'm totally gonna check that out."

i hope so.




ACT II

we roll into san fran. we walk into a fine curtain of water, across the street to walgreens and buy disposable cameras and cheap umbrellas. within three blocks my little flat shoes are soaked and i have no socks. we have no aim, no destination, no time limits, no appointments. i buy new boots at nordstrom's and leave my old ones in the box. the store is in christmas-colored chaos. new shoes trip and clutter the aisles and floors like rocks on a beach. we escape back into the rain, my feet dry and ready.

the library is closed. i was ready to photocopy a poem and tape it to my leg. a guard yells at a sassy teenager on her way out. we are not wanted here.

we ride the muni to the castro for no reason where for the next eight hours we meet a sea of strangers; some beautiful, some frightening. i ask people to draw things they are passionate about in my little sketchpad. the good people at the mix humor us. we are the only women except for laurie, who is dead-drunk by 6:30 and shoots my push-button umbrella from her crotch, laughing maniacally when it whacks her friends and bursts open.



i write love notes to anonymous people and leave them on the bus seats.

interlude:
pizza, a giant salad, and penis cookies.

we sit next to two men at a window seat in nightclub, the cafe. one leans over and says, "i have not gotten laid in three months. how about you?" this is not threatening: he is gay. his friend leans over and says with an equally thick mexican accent, "i came up here from mexico city expecting to have all kinds of sex, but i have never been more dry."



his next opening line: "do you like weed?"

antonio, the gay one, rushes the bar before happy hour ends. he returns to his table with eight cocktails. he sticks straws into each one and drinks them all at once. cheri and the other fellow disappear to smoke and i sit and watch antonio announce, "i am available!! i am available to any hot guy around!" he puts his arm around anyone that walks by, proclaiming their beauty regardless of age or gender. an old man gets a little peeved, another drunk woman's pants fall down, exposing three inches of ass crack. she does not mind.



cheri returns and we escape before antonio gets us all thrown out.

the cab driver plays "insane in the membrane". i call him dear and he scowls.

we arrive at the lexington where cheri spent most of her nights when she lived here. i play songs off the rushmore soundtrack on the jukebox as the bar fills with all kinds of women. cheri's friends arrive, eager for a real night after a forced stint with beer pong in a frat bar in the marina.

a man named miami tony tells me about his four year old daughter and how she does not believe in santa claus. he is the only man in the room except for his boyfriend. more drinks, more quarters in the music box. time distorts and contracts. the rain's stopped and the neon lights burn starpatched negatives into my eyes. we go to another bar with beauty salon appliances as decorations somewhere in the mission. we dance. more pints. people pack themselves onto the tiny dance floor and knock into each other with ridiculous smiles. a seven-foot-tall man lopes about before settling against the far wall, his white zoot suit blending in as best it can. the dj cuts the tracks down to 90 seconds as if his song quota was mandated by the mob, but we flow with it, into it, and then it dumps us out into the brisk, autumn night. the dear, clear sky opens its arms to us in our friend's car, and we laugh like fools, careening down hills, zooming around pedestrians, music blaring, and for a brief while i think the five of us will keep driving, driving over the beach and all the way to japan.




ACT III

i wake up in a bright white room with minimal furniture. i'm freezing and missing one earring and my pants. for a few moments, i feel awesome.

later, eating omelets with cheri, i still feel awesome. we run for the train, my body cutting through the air, sun on my face, sweat pouring down my back, my black woolen full-length coat and black wig flapping behind me like a liquor-steeped raven, high-heeled boots barely glancing the pavement, clipping and zipping all the way to the station.