PRELUDE

Let us imagine for a moment that we are human beings. Let us imagine that within these drifting galaxies, this swirl of random energy, we have been given this moment of light to pass into a realm of our own creation. Let us imagine that we are here on this mountainside beneath these great redwoods, looking down on the seashore and out onto the breathing sea. Let us say that we spot a lone Gray Whale breaching the surface to breathe and spout its plume of mist, and that a flock of pelicans drifting in v-formation low near the sea, turn in unconscious unison to avoid the whale’s mist, and that the cool red sun in the western sky has just touched the sea to sink now beyond our sight behind the long horizon.

Let us call this: a moment in time.

To find one’s self alive in this new moment is a marvelous thing! The earth, reaching out in all directions, thriving with living things of all manner, plants, trees, birds, insects, furry animals trotting on padded feet or hooves along worn paths, hawks circling high above, watching for life, the sky spread thin over the bright sea as it rises and falls, too grand to fathom. Life! And here, within this flourishing illusion one sits and breathes, listens and sees. A marvelous thing!

In our collective imagination we have all conspired to construct the life of Man, his great societies, his aspirations and discoveries, his wars and slaughters, his hunger, his joy, his suffering. We have conjured up a measurement called Time and the illusion of future and past, beginnings and endings, concepts of good and evil. And from all of this conjuring we have come to believe that lives have been lived, some positive and helpful, others destructive and frightful, most a little of both. And we have learned to record these lives and these times and compile them into what we call the histories, the story of Man.

This could be one of those stories.

ONE

Journal Entry 12/14/2008

The rain falls through the canopy in heavy drops on the cabin and the loamy earth. The full moon glows behind the clouds, but down here there is only the darkness, wet and rich. Imagine green ferns reaching out like hands and moss dripping wet from black limbs. There is the oil lamp on the table flickering nervously and the thick candle near the window behind the cot. I am waiting for sleep and perhaps a dream. Perhaps a dream of pelicans gliding through the darkness. The window is open a couple of inches and I am listening to the prehistoric rain, the rain of my ancestors.

I am thinking of the promise I have made to myself to search through the rubble of my history for the links that have bound one day to the next, and that may hold together, finally, a true image of this life, this one of trillions of lives that have emerged into this miraculous illusion, and then faded away. It would be very easy to let this small life mulch into the soil as just another fallen leaf. How easy to turn away now, as I have done, without coming to know the final truth.

But wait, isn’t all this rehashing merely egotistical arrogance? Who should care, one way or the other? Who is interested in one man’s struggle to know the truth of himself? Most likely no one, yet that is not the point. This is all for me, you see, my therapy, my act of personal reconciliation as I begin to prepare to close my eyes for the final time.

Yet, there just may be something in this for you as well. Which life is more valuable than the others? Which of us should not have been? None, for we are all essential. We are all sparks of this great evolutionary flame. We must all strive to leave our mark on the walls of our caves and to sing the songs of our ancestors in our own personal way, and to then pass them on to those who will follow. If I had had a father he would have said to me: “Tommy, every man has the duty to write at least one book in his life.” I didn’t, and he didn’t, but I know that I must do it anyway, and perhaps he, that yawning vacancy, is a part of the reason why.

And so my work here is to remember, and to search for the keys to the inner doors which have been shut by time and grief for all of these years, even to myself. This is the task I have accepted. For me, this is an act of courage, perhaps my first.


Suddenly the Beatles are singing in my brain: “Rocky Raccoon, checked into his room, only to find Gideon’s bible.” I douse the lantern and the candle, lay back on the cot with the blanket over my legs and chest, adjust the pillow, reach back to slide the window open a little further for the rain to wash pure this emerging memory. It is my job to pay attention and to travel through time. I am listening.


Desert Song
Summer 1973

Maxwell is dancing in his underwear and socks, the vodka in one hand the other hand waving as if directing the orchestra. The bandage of his third hernia operation bulges under his shorts as he weaves with the music. Fat Dad snores in his bed in the next room, his huge chest rising and falling with each breath, his red swollen feet oozing from the sores. A small dust whirlwind spins by the open front door, staggering off into the distance. This is the desert where the heat is merciless and the sky is always empty.

The telephone rings. Maxwell looks at me and I at him. He lifts the receiver and listens. Smiles. We have been invited to the home of Charles and Jasmine White for an afternoon of barbeque frolicking tomorrow at noon, and to watch the Watergate hearings on TV. It has been rumored that John Dean is now prepared to sing and Sam Ervin is always good for a chuckle. The children will be visiting their cousins until Sunday and Jasmine is in heat. Charles, the recently liberated male in the pack, has a client in the morning and will be retiring early with a nod and a wink. Maxwell delivers this news with a slow and knowing smile. Of course we shall be delighted to attend.

It is the appointed hour of noon and the wind has come up. The wind is the voice of the desert before which even the heat must bend in reverence. Living things have learned to hide, burrow and wait. We dash to the car covering our eyes, switch on the motor and creep through the fierce cloud of sand. The houses stand silent and dim, windows and doors closed and swaddled. On the main run the signal lights sway on cables above the deserted pavement. Only the El Capitan shows even the slightest sign of life, its flickering neons aglow in the dust. CASINO ROOMS EATS One can only imagine the sleepy gamblers with their cups of quarters watching the wheels spin incomprehensibly, and then the arm is pulled once again and the sequence repeats. We pass the commercial zone and turn down toward the lake which lies silent and hidden behind the gusting cloud. Here we enter Lakeside Estates, home to the privileged of this part of the desolation. There are three models of homes to choose from, lined and fenced side by side, anonymous. Models open daily. For one who has lived near the suburbs of Sacramento there is a sense of familiarity and a sneaky hint of comfort. Yet there is also a sense of panic and instinctive revulsion which accompanies a small fear that these districts will soon cover the entire country – perhaps even the whole wide world! Safe, familiar, predictable.

We enter the house and are immediately confronted by the Tiki bar complete with thatched roof and bamboo stools. There is a fish net hanging down one side of the bar with starfish, ceramic crabs and colored balls attached. Charles is mixing the Mai Tais behind his “Tiki Fun” apron and humming along with the Barry Manilow music while the wind rattles the windows in gusts. A large jeweled ring highlights his right hand as he stirs the concoction and greets us with a thin mustache smile. He cocks his head a little to the right and shakes my hand softly. The empty cocktail glasses have been lined up across the bar anticipating our arrival. “We won’t be barbecuing in this wind”, he announces wryly. “Jasmine is frying the chicken.”

On cue Jasmine dances out of the kitchen, a Mai Tai in hand, the little finger gracefully pointed out. She is wearing a sheer vee cut blouse, back-zipped petal-pushers with an aqua floral design and bare feet. Her thirty-something breasts are still sufficiently perky, the dark nipples barely hidden under the lace. She holds her face in a non-committal pose with just the slightest of a smile, but all this practiced mystery is lost and given away by the thick dark-rimmed glasses without which she cannot see. She greets Maxwell with a kiss on the lips and then turns to me. Instinctively I kiss her on the mouth and she dances back into the kitchen having completed the performance.

I sit on the edge of the afghan covered couch before the color television console. The Watergate hearings are in motion but the sound has been tastefully muted in favor of the Manilow music playing through inconspicuous speakers mounted in the corners of the glitter sprayed ceiling. The lighting is recessed and on dimmers. These are the trappings of success out here in the scorched desert.

Suddenly a couple of hours have passed and I am standing before the large picture window looking out into the wind and sand. My shoes are off, my shirt unbuttoned. There is a Mai Tai in one hand and a Budweiser in the other. I sip from one and then from the other. I am just rising to the pleasant peak of a slow and poisonous drunk. I am smiling into the wind storm because I am insensibly happy for no good reason other than the booze. I love the wind, especially here behind the glass. I love the wind, I love the sand, I even love the Barry Manilow music which keeps repeating and repeating. I am approached by Charles from behind who throws an arm over my shoulder and stares out into the wind with me. “Maxwell tells us that you are a banker,” he says to get the conversation going. I examine his moustache for a moment and then turn away, fearful that he just might want to kiss me. “Actually, no,” I say and chug-a-lug the beer. This I follow with a long and satisfying belch and then a small smile. There is a moment of silence between us as I hold the smile. “Do you have any Clifford Brown?” I ask. He is puzzled. “Trumpet”, I explain, “jazz trumpet”. His face lights up, “Yes, we have some Harry James. And also”, he says, suddenly alive with purpose, searching through his albums, “Yes, here, ‘Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White’. Perez Prado. That’s trumpet isn’t it?” He drops the needle on the 45 RPM, cranks the volume and shouts over the music, “My nephew plays the trumpet.” “So does mine”, I shout back. Pleased with this he wanders over to the bar to mix up another batch.

Jasmine is indeed in heat. She dances with herself in languid steps, charmed as a cobra, smoldering between her legs. “It’s cherry pink and apple blossom white, when your true lover comes your way…” Maxwell follows her helplessly, his hernia stitches pulling at the seams.

In another small drift of time Charles has evaporated and Maxwell is now on the couch with Jasmine. Her top is off and they are both struggling with her zipper. Too many cooks spoil the broth. “Cherry Pink” has repeated about a thousand times. I keep turning it up hoping to disappear into the sound, but no, I’m still here and the more I drink the clearer everything becomes. This is a bad sign. I just might be in for another bout with my nemesis, Unbearable Clarity, the malady I occasionally suffer from wherein the profound senselessness of everything going on around me becomes acid clear and unbearably intolerable. The Tiki bar with fake thatched roof, the Mai Tai concoctions, the Watergate hearings tastefully muted, the Perez Prado trumpet bending that long note over and over, the glittering ceiling, Maxwell and Jasmine writhing on the couch like mating snakes, this two-story four bedroom structure standing idiotically out here in the blistering desert, the stoplights swaying in the wind, Fat Dad and his festering feet. And me standing here in this room amid all of this stuff! I could as easily be in Sacramento, or Bakersfield, Milwaukee, Montgomery, Alabama. Everything has become vivid, the edges sharp, the colors primary – red, yellow, blue, green. The furniture is logically laid out, every room precise and defined. I am as completely out of place here in this living room as a lump of mud, and I have no idea what I am doing, yet I suspect I’ve been here a thousand times before. If I stand here one moment longer I will go stark raving mad.

I look out the window and am stunned to see the great outdoors completely transformed. The wind has stopped. The sky is clear. The moon is full and shining through the dark night, laying soft lit edges on the tract houses and the sand swept street that weaves down to a long, thin, glimmering lake that must have been painted into this desolate landscape by a mad man, a Vincent Van Gogh, or wizard like Hieronymus Bosch.

Without a word I exit the house leaving the front door open so that whatever mystery is out there might just make its way into this house and bless its inhabitants with its moon glow touch. I leave behind the sleeping Charles as he dreams of naked children or perhaps wild horses, preparing for his morning appointment, and the dream-spun Jasmine reaching deep within her being to grasp and expose her most generous sex, to turn herself inside out. The night is as silent as a painting and I have the sensation of walking onto a huge set, an empty stage, lit to perfection, waiting in patient silence for the audience to file in and take their seats. No one is about, nothing moves. I follow the road down to the lake and stand there like Moses before the Red Sea. A loon calls and a small coyote trots right past me on the road as if I didn’t exist, and I wonder if perhaps I do not. Is this a huge and marvelous dream? The coyote pauses at the lake to drink. If this is madness, oh, thank God! Finally! If this is the fruit of my insanity I have earned it. If this is reality, the new reality, the new world that has just revealed itself to me I will dance a jig and walk on my hands. I will sing an opera, prostrate myself before this glowing lake, coo with the loon, offer myself up as sacrifice to that bushy-tailed coyote and all her pack.

I walk up to the main run and turn back toward the commercial zone. There is not a tire mark or a foot print on the sandy highway and I wonder if I am the last man on earth. But no, the El Capitan is populated with gamblers who are unaware of their surroundings, and Joe’s Tavern tinkles with music from the jukebox. The hanging traffic lights change from green, to amber, to red for no reason at all.

Back in the neighborhood the houses stand silent and dim, as if expecting an explosion. In the shack I rifle through my pack for the pipe and stash. Fat Dad is sleeping heavily. Leaving the shack I walk up the narrow road away from the town and up the rising hill that glows in the darkness. Quickly I am surrounded by the brush, on the very edge of the immeasurable wilderness. Half way up the hill I turn to look back down upon the town and the long finger lake pointing to the north. Everything has been reduced to miniature, a shimmering illustration, glitter paint on black satin. Sitting on the sand I light the pipe, close my eyes and taste the sweet smoke. Everything is transformed by the moon. There is a three dimensional silence to the night, a cooing in the distance like a child’s dreaming voice, a dog's bark, round and hollow, the moon glowing on the sand. The silence is a soft blanket. I lay back on the sand and look up at the sky that covers me with stars and moon. Magically I rise from the sand and float up toward the stars, releasing all I have ever known of “self”. I spread across the sky in a mist of consciousness, seeing all, hearing all, being everywhere at once, knowing nothing except that there is nothing to know. I am dreaming. I am being dreamt.

The coyote howls once.

TWO

Journal Entry 12/26/2008
The sea is restless this morning, the waves swollen with impatience, throwing foam into the air and hissing like angry sea-dragons. The sky is gray and close. On the mountain above there is a dusting of snow. Bundled warm I sit on the rugged bench sipping the coffee and looking down upon the shore a half mile below. Here, on this perch each morning, I experience the huge expanse of the sea, and come to know something of my solitude, as silent as the soul.

Saw a young doe along the path to the bench. She was about twenty yards from me and just stood there watching me curiously as I walked right past her. She looked at me with such openness, I felt that she might suddenly speak! Maybe I have been having too much time to myself. Soon I’ll be hugging the trees!

Back in the cabin beneath the redwoods the air is damp and cold. There is a fire in the stove and the water is steaming. I shall make a hot brandy since there is no one to condemn me for indulging in an early warmer. Not a word written since Monday night when drunk and raging behind a jug of Red Mountain, singing and scribbling notes, now unintelligible. All this in response to another attack of unbearable clarity perhaps motivated by doubt. What am I doing? Who am I trying to kid? The mind is filled with the stories but each word is a wound. Sometimes it is physically painful to sit and write out these sequences, these songs.

Thinking about those early days in the City, a long dream. What is real, what is imagined? What was lived, what was conjured from the wind? Once it gets flowing it is all real and accurate in detail, as if being seen through a window, revisiting the voices, the sounds, the smells of the City, the warmth of my jacket.



Tubby's Bar & Grill
Summer 1964

We enter the City from the north; Santa Rosa, Cotati, Petaluma, Novato, San Rafael, Sausalito, and over the Golden Gate. How could we know what lay ahead, the months and years, the suffering and joy, the lives lived and lost. The City was always the jewel stone of the future for me when I was growing up in Sacramento. It was the place where I knew my life would one day begin. It was not just the hills and cable cars, the vistas, the bridges, that tugged on my sleeve, but the jazz clubs where you can stand right next Miles, or Thelonias, or Cannonball, the City Lights book store where you just might run into Kerouac, or Ginsberg, or Gary Snyder. The Beatniks. The poetry. Coffee houses. Lenny Bruce. Lord Buckley. The long lush park. The beach. It was the City, a living breathing creature! Always urging me in.

Maxwell drives the long blue Desoto through the fog with all the windows down, shouting over the roar of the engine. I shiver contentedly in the passenger seat looking out at the fog, empty and silent. I feel the newness and freshness of each mile that takes me yet further away from the rubble of all that is past. This is a new life, I tell myself, each moment a new eternity. I secretly hope we will never stop driving, never arrive. There is no destination for me, no plan, no idea, yet we know this is the beginning of everything else, born out of the old and finished, the past, already falling away. I am as free now as I will ever again be.

Everything I own and care about is in the car. A few books, a box of LPs, the writing journals. Sapphire, my black string-bass, is stretched between us, her long neck almost reaching the dash board, as much a part of this adventure as either one of us. Occasionally I pluck a string, just to hear her hum. KJAZ on the radio: Bill Evans and Scotty LaFaro. A magnet pulling us into the cool, breathing City.

48th Avenue runs along the Great Highway which skirts the sand dunes and ocean beaches from the Cliff House, on south. In the back of the second floor flat is a small enclosed porch where an old agitator washing machine with an automatic wringer attached services the family. Off the porch is a tiny room, slightly larger than the cot that occupies it, and a window that cannot be closed, which looks out across the highway, the sand dunes, and onto the Pacific Ocean. This is my room, a paradise of privacy where I can close the door to the energy of the children and the inevitable bickering between Maxwell and Clara. Here the drowsy afternoon sun fills the room and the salty scent brings childhood snap shots of sand castles, tide pools, starfish.

The next few days are spent walking the beach and the long beautiful park. Clara works in an office; Maxwell part-time at a ceramics supply business. I take the N-Judah to the Financial District from where I can walk to Broadway and North Beach, the wharf, or the warehouses south of Market, the Tenderloin. I might stop at the bus station at First and Mission for a cup of coffee, sitting in the naugahyde booth to look out at the line at the ticket counter, the waiting room, bored and lazy, and the teenagers playing pinball machines as I had once done. At Fisherman’s Wharf I smell the boiling crab and sourdough bread and listen to the Italian vendors speaking their native tongue with tough, arrogant tenderness, and calling out: “Hey, fresh crab. Hey, fresh crab.” The fishing boats creaking in their stalls; the gulls bickering over scraps. All music.

Change is a time of opportunity, I council myself. The universe is open, awaiting my choices and will then spin and conjure and finally lay everything at my feet. I keep telling myself this.


It is early morning, before 5 AM. I am drifting down Sansome Street in the fog. Footsteps echo while distant sounds muffle and throb. Before me opens the Financial District, a great stage set with a few flicking lights, the clack of one street car. Huge monoliths rise out of the mist to stand in silence before me, gray and empty at this time of day, as if waiting to be animated, ignited, to become of use. Dark windows, doors closed, street people curled in blankets on the steps. I stop in wonder, looking up Market which fades away in the mist, stage right, and then down to the wharfs, only imagining the black bay waters beyond. Where am I in all of this? Only eyes and this beating heart. Behind all of these dark windows, will I discover myself? I only know this: I am alive, and these monoliths stand silent and cold. But where am I in all of this?

The situation in the 48th Avenue flat deteriorates quickly. Clara is unhappy with my constant presence; Maxwell is troubled by this, defending our deep friendship. I take to slipping away shortly after they arrive from work with the children in the evening. I wear a warm Navy pea coat with the collar up, my hands buried in the pockets, and a knit cap and walk the districts looking in store windows, lingering near the doors of the bars, occasionally going in to sip a beer. I quickly learn to stay out of the Tenderloin district where everyone is watching for a John or a trick or a tenderfoot tourist not unlike me; where there is desperation and bitterness. Polk street near Sacramento is the gay district, festive and friendly. Fags and transvestites, raucous and a little too loud, just to draw attention to themselves. They take me for a sailor and invite me into their clubs, but just wave me off when I decline, laughing with one another.

Further up Polk near Washington, away from the gay scene, there is a neighborhood bar and grill called Tubby’s with a dozen or so tables and a piano bar. Happy Hour is from 6:00 to 9:00 PM every Monday through Thursday when tap beer is fifty cents and a huge table of hors d’oeuvres is set out. Besides the usual olives, celery, cheeses, crackers and chips, there is always a great mound of shrimp and crab meat with garlic butter and salsas on the side. This is where I “dine” four nights a week sipping my fifty cent beer and listening to the jazz pianist called Minton, a light skinned black man of mixed heritage with Jamaican features. There is a small “orchestra pit” behind a semi-circular bar with a trap set in the pit and the piano above on a platform with a string-bass resting on a bar stool next to the piano. But on Monday’s through Thursday’s there is no drummer or bass player, just Minton working his way through a seemingly endless book of music. He has excellent technique and a smooth and easy style reminiscent of Nat King Cole’s piano. Occasionally he will slip into the left hand strumming style of Erroll Garner, usually “I’ll Remember April” or “Autumn Leaves”.

There is a group of regulars who sit at the piano bar listening to Minton and applauding each piece. I sit at the end of the bar closest to the piano where I can watch his hands, doing my best to learn the chord changes to his selections. One evening, resting between tunes, he looks at me and asks, “What do you play?” This is the first time he has recognized my presence, and I hesitate. “Now, don’t be telling me you don’t play, ‘cause I can see you do. Musicians know each other right away. And I can see you’re pretty hungry, too, coming here mostly for the Happy Hour, and could probably use a gig.” He and I both smile at his insight and candor. “I play a little bass”, I say, “and I take good food wherever I can find it.” “I heard that!”, he says and holds out his hand to be tapped by mine, which I do. “Come on, let’s take a break”, he says, and I follow him through a door into the kitchen. We slip past the cooks and kitchen workers and into a small break room with a couple of bar stools and a sagging, red divan. Minton pulls out a joint and strikes a wooden match on his Levis like a cowboy. It’s a fat Jamaican joint and he takes a long luxurious toke, holding it down with his eyes closed and then releasing it in a cloud aimed at the ceiling. He hands it to me and I dampen my finger with saliva to doctor a run down the jay, showing that I know what this is all about. I then take a hot toke that erupts in my lungs and I explode with a cough that blasts out my mouth, nostrils and probably eyes and ears as well. Snot is running down my lip which I wipe with the back of my bare arm. Minton looks at me with comically raised eyebrows and half a grin. “It’s been a while”, I explain. “Where you from, little brother?” I’m pleased by his familiarity and we talk easily for a few minutes while finishing the jay. On the way back to the bar he says, “Come on up and play a set”.

He starts with a medium tempo blues, showing his generosity. Many jazz players will shake you down on the first tune with an up tempo “All The Things You Are” type tune to see if you have any chops and can play a tune with slippery changes. But Minton is cool and generous, and from that day on refers to me as “Little Brother”. I sit on the bar stool with the bass between my legs, closing my eyes and evaporating into the music. It is easy and joyful to be playing again, and when he says, “Take a few”, I drift into a melodic solo that seems to be playing itself. He occasionally echoes bits of my phrases behind me, which has the effect of pushing me on to the next level, the next turn of the mind, as if we are floating on an ocean of music together. Of course, these are blues changes at a medium tempo, so I’m not being challenged technically. Again, it is his generosity that opens the gates for us both.

He invites me back any time I choose on the nights he is playing alone, offering free beer and a hamburger for payment. I sit in for a set and then I wander back out into the streets, still buzzing from the pot, as happy as I can be. San Francisco! I’m living in San Francisco!


The ecstasy and adventure of change eventually cycles through the weary drudge of what is called “reality”. Why we refer to the hard and monotonous tasks of life as “reality”, while labeling pleasure and joy, truth and freedom of spirit, as “fantasy”, I will never know. I, for one, never bought into those labels, nor was I ever much interested in people who did. What we call “reality” seems to have a lot to do with money, the making of money and the desire, above all else, to have money – a lot of money – more money than one actually needs. There seems to be the idea of security – safety, comfort, peace of mind – words and phrases the insurance salesmen have co-opted - in the accumulation of massive amounts of money. When money becomes the dominant value, the truth of the heart is smothered, discounted, ridiculed. It just so happens that in these times, the 1960s and 70s, especially here in San Francisco, there are many others who, more or less, agree with me.

To the musician, “reality” means the most dreaded of all conditions: the Day Job – the ultimate cop out. To take a day job means to have compromised the most sacred of your values, to have succumbed to social pressure and to have become possessed, not unlike the zombies in that famous movie “The Night of the Living Dead”. It is a dreadful alternative to consider. And yet there often comes a time when push comes to shove, and certain levels of the “reality” compromise must be considered. One must eat; one desires a home, if only just a small two room apartment, a safe haven to retreat to when weariness sets in. And so it comes to pass for me, here in the City.

With my last unemployment check I take a third floor walk-up two room apartment at 1661 Sacramento Street. Of an evening while roaming the streets I notice a FOR RENT sign in the window, climb the six concrete steps to the opaque glass door and press the button marked: MANAGER. Almost immediately I hear the buzzer and push open the door. Directly in front of me is a carpeted staircase with carved wooden railings fading up and away into the dimness. On the right is a door labeled #1 Manager. The door opens and there stands a jolly round Chinaman with a bald head and a huge wide smile showing two rows of large, white, perfect teeth. “Yes, yes, yes”, he says in rapid succession. His great smile draws out of me my best smile in helpless response. “Yes”, I reply. “Yes”, he answers. Finally, I manage to break the routine. “The apartment. You have an apartment?” “Yes, yes.” I am beginning to wonder if he speaks any English other than this one word, which he has perfected. “Here”, he says pointing at the stairs. I am relieved to hear this variation of language. He holds his great smile and begins climbing the stairs, pointing a finger in the up direction, and I obediently follow. On the second floor landing I notice two doors marked #3 and #4, and on the third floor landing there are two doors marked #5 and #6. It is #6 that he opens with a key, flips on a dim light, and we enter a fair sized square room about 15 feet wide. There is a bare window that faces Sacramento Street and opens onto a fire escape with an iron ladder hanging down the side of the building. There is a view of Sacramento Street, the apartment buildings across the street and the corner of Polk Street. I can hear the traffic churning below, an occasional horn honk, headlights and tail lights aglow. It is perfect, everything I had ever imagined a San Francisco apartment would be. There is a very small bedroom, a white and black tiled bathroom with a four-footed bathtub, a large black chip in the white enamel, and a kitchen just large enough for one person, with a four burner gas stove, chipped and stained. Along the outside wall there are white cabinets over a tiled counter and a deep sink below a small window no more than a foot and a half from the wall of the next building. Perfect.

To my surprise Maxwell decides to make the move with me, depositing the family in their own apartment along Lake Street on the edge of the Richmond District where the children can attend a nearby school and Clara can bus to her office. It has been almost five years since we shared the hut in the Okinawan village of New Koza while in an Air Force band together and we are charged with a new sense of adventure. “The chicks are back!”, we chant while carrying the first arm-loads of clothes and books up the dim stairwell. But when we open the door for the first time to our new adventure we are assaulted by a hoard of tiny leaping insects jumping up at our legs from the dusty old carpet that covers the floor. Fleas! Hundreds, thousands of fleas! We retreat to the landing and drop our stuff. Maxwell looks at me and I know that it is my responsibility to confront the landlord.

I knock on the door marked #1 Manager and wait in the stillness. It is Saturday morning, he must be in there. I knock again and he opens the door with his round bald head and the toothy smile. “Yes. Yes”, he says. “Uh, there’s fleas up there, thousands of fleas.” “Fleas”, he repeats, “yes”. “Yes”, I say, “fleas, lots and lots of fleas”. He nods, the smile fading just slightly, and looks at me dryly, waiting to understand my point. “They’re all over the place! We can’t walk in there. Look”, I say, pulling up a pant leg to show him the little buggers still on my leg. He leans over to look carefully at my hairy leg and then back up at me. “Fleas”, he says pointing at my leg. “But, but, you’ve got to do something. We can’t live with fleas all over the rug!” “OK”, he sings, nodding in agreement, “OK, OK.” And with that he closes the door leaving me in the roaring silence of my confusion. I raise my hand to knock again but something stops me, the clear futility of it all. I know I have been out witted by this monosyllabic Chinaman from an exotic culture obviously far more advanced than my own.

“Well, what did he say?” asks Maxwell as I emerge from the stairwell. I shrug my shoulders. “He said ‘Yes, yes, fleas, OK, OK’”, I sing, mimicking his voice and smile, “then he closed the door in my face”. We stare at one another through a moment of wonder and then double over in laughter, overcome by the high and beautiful humor of it all. We buy six cans of flea spray and carefully cover the entire rug from corner to corner, open the living room and kitchen windows, and head up to Tubby’s to splurge on a burger and beer. Our work is done, at least for this day. After this, the relationship between landlord and tenant is firmly established. We leave one another alone.


It isn’t long before Maxwell has migrated back to the family apartment and I am spending a lot of time alone. Jazz music has been my companion and my solace from the age of thirteen and it can be said that listening has become my greatest pastime. I now find myself listening for hours at a time to my fairly large collection of LPs, and any that I can snag from Maxwell’s collection. I am particularly entranced at this stage with Sonny Rollins, the tenor man who had played with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet, Thelonious Monk, and many others and had finally made a name in his own right. I love his piece, “St Thomas”, based in the calypso root. His tone is big and broad and his lines are solid, simple and pure. The calypso beat is one of the happiest rhythms in all of music, impossible for me to hear without dancing, at least in my head. The album is “Saxophone Colossus” and I play it over and over again.

Listening to music is a dream state for me, a way of putting all else away on a shelf for a while. I can disappear into music, wander, float, ooze through realms of color, morphing shapes and drifting emotions. It doesn’t matter the style or form of the music, when it touches my soul I am there, where there is no there, riding the clouds of musical rhythms and textures. It may be “Clifford Brown and Strings” or Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, it could be Jazz at the Philharmonic or Duke Ellington, if it touches my soul I can fly away.

I was never much of a musician, undisciplined, untrained, and maybe most importantly, uninterested in the performance aspect of the occupation. I loved to play the music, yet had no interest in performing. If I had had the ability to tolerate the formality of musical training, school, I would have become a composer, not a performer. But I did not, and instead, became a musical dreamer.

Two or three nights a week I go up to Tubby’s to sit in with Minton. He is consistent and generous, tolerating my barely adequate bass playing and feeding me burgers, beer, pot, and stories, and teaching me cord changes and musical styles simply by playing them, occasionally playing my base line for me with his left hand to show me, not tell me, how it is done. I will always remember him with kindness in my heart, but it all comes crashing down one night, literally, in a way I would have least expected.

It is raining softly, the collar of my pea coat turned up, the knit cap pulled down over my ears. Hands stuffed in the pockets I turn up Polk Street, auto headlights and taillights glowing in the mist. There is a taste of ocean salt in the air, even this far in from the beach. San Francisco is a city with millions of people living and working, breeding and dying side by side. To many it may feel cold and harsh, impersonal, even dangerous, but for me it is friendly and I imagine a sense of comradery between us all. I slip into Tubby’s, through the hors d’oeuvre crowd and into the break room in the back. Minton is reading a Down Beat magazine and says without looking up, “Hey, little brother, what’s happening?” “Rain”, I answer. “That’s cool, let’s play ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’. Ever hear Bill Evens do that? He gets inside that piece, turns it inside out. Changes styles about four times, looking at it from all angles. Ever see him play?” “Once in L.A. with that Miles band, Coltrane, Cannonball. Man, what a group! Philly Joe, Paul Chambers. Maybe the best music I’ve ever heard.” “Yah, they were something else, young and alive.” He is pensive and considers me for a moment, looking up from the mag. I can feel him looking at me, in me. I would guess that Minton is about fifty years old. His body is hard and young, his face always on the verge of a smile. Yet there is something distant in him that I do not know, something that holds me back. I look down, unable to hold his gaze. Then he says, “You know, to play good music you have to believe, little brother. You have to believe in something, something in yourself. Playing the right notes is not enough. Music has to come from something else, something alive in you. The music you play is who you are.” It occurs to me that he is about to launch into a Jesus sales pitch, but I dismiss the thought. He is more than that. I nod my head because I know instinctively what he means, but I don’t know it in my mind and don’t know how to respond.

Up on the stand I look out at the crowded room and notice Maxwell sitting at the bar. He nods Hello. I am on the platform with the piano to my left. The bar forms a horseshoe around the drum kit which is below me, bass drum and snare, ride cymbals, high hat, toms, a floor tom. I sit on the stool with the bass between my legs and my feet hooked comfortably behind the ring that supports the four metal legs. Minton goes into an intro to “Here’s That Rainy Day”, showing me the key he’s in and some of the changes. I join him in the head, a slow and beautiful ballad with broad changes that leave plenty of room for passing chords and unusual voicings. A couple of times around and I know pretty much what I am doing and can relax and lay down some support for Minton as he moves through his improvisation. My eyes are closed and I am seeing the music as color and form and the noise of the crowd, the cash register, the waitress taking orders, the clang of glasses is eliminated from my consciousness. I feel as though I am floating. Suddenly my eyes pop open and I can see that I have been leaning too far forward and I am tilting precariously toward the empty space before me. This feeling of floating is real, but I’m not floating, I’m falling! Instinctively I pull at my feet to catch my balance, but they are hooked behind the ring of the stool and pulling at them only serves to push me even further forward. I cannot believe what is happening and do all I can to deny it, frantically searching for a solution, but no, there is nothing that can be done. It all happens in slow motion and complete silence. I try to turn myself under the bass so that it will fall on me, cushioned by my body, and I glide myself sideways at the same time, hoping to avoid being gouged by the high hat stand that points up like a spear. Somehow it all comes together as imagined. My body hits the drums on a sideways slant knocking them asunder but away from me toward the bar and the patrons who are sitting at the bar, frozen solid. My head and back hit the floor first knocking me senseless so that for a few moments I see only red and yellow fireworks. There is a huge crash of drums and cymbals that seems to go on and on like the roar of a Titan missal lifting off from the launch pad. It is the one and only drum solo of my entire life! And when the banging and crashing finally comes to an end, there is complete silence in the room, everyone frozen in place, stunned into statues. The first sound I hear is Minton’s piano playing “Here’s That Rainy Day” without having missed a beat. I am on my back, my arms and legs pointing up like a dead dog in a cartoon, the bass miraculously balanced on my hands and feet. Minton continues to play, the crowd begins to stir. I want to laugh but discover that the wind has been knocked out of me and I can’t breathe. My mouth is opening and closing like a landed fish on the bottom of the boat, the bass still balanced above me. Finally a breath wheezes in, and then another. It seems, much to my mortification, that I will survive and live to see another day. Finally, I slide out from under the bass, sit up and look around. The horseshoe bar is lined with faces looking down at me in sober silence. I set the bass up on the stand and begin reassembling the drums as best I can. No one says a word and Minton’s piano continues to play. His face is frozen and cold. I climb back up on the stand, pick up my pea coat and knit cap, and head for the door. Maxwell is nowhere to be seen.

Out on the street it is pouring down rain. Lights flash, horns honk. I walk back to the apartment in the driving rain, my pea coat still under my arm, knit cap in hand. I never again enter the doors of Tubby’s Bar and Grill, nor do I ever run into Minton. The gig is over. It will be more than ten years before I play a bass again.

THREE

JOURNAL ENTRY 01/12/2009

Minton has been on my mind and I have been looking back over the details of our short friendship. It occurs to me that it may not have been Tubby’s that I walked out on that final night, it may have been Minton, and not just because of my profound mortification over the scene I had caused and the embarrassment it must have brought down on him. Minton had said to me that very night, “You have to believe in something, something in yourself.” He was talking about music, the creative force of the music. He may have touched a tender spot there. Did I believe in myself? Was there even something within me to believe in? Did I turn away from this question, not having the courage to face it? Courage, what does it really mean? The guts that it takes to risk failure or disappointment? Or is it the guts that it takes to face the truth, the truth about ourselves and our limitations, the truth that we may not want to know. Jazz music is populated by iconoclasts, the great innovators, the creators of the art form. As an adolescent infatuated by jazz, I came to know and idolize the “greats”, like Bird, Dizzy, Miles, Thelonias, Clifford, and the others. Unfortunately for me, these became my idols and set achievement standards that I knew I could never reach. Of course this is the trap that stops many of us from even attempting to follow our passions. A good teacher can help guide one past such doubts, and to work to achieve one’s potentials, at whatever level they may be. Minton was a teacher and he took me in, perhaps without either of us realizing it. It is clear to me now that he was at least knocking on the door of self confidence, self respect, self acceptance when he encouraged me to reach for that intangible something within myself. Some of us spend our entire lives searching for a teacher, a wise one, who will lay out the truth for us, only to discover later that we had been surrounded by them all the time. We need to learn to recognize and open up to these messengers and to the messages they carry. Teachers are everywhere, but attentive students are hard to find.

The young doe was grazing near the bench once again. She nodded her head as if to greet me. I stopped and we considered one another for a few moments. “Good morning”, I said. She lowered her head and then looked up at me again. I took a step toward her and she stood her ground. I watched her for a few more moments and then walked on to the bench for my morning meditation above the sea. Walking back a little later along the path to the cabin I noticed her again watching me from a small path that forked off of mine. I walked toward her and she turned slowly away giving me the feeling that she wanted me to follow, which I did. Keeping a distance of about fifty feet between us she led me through the damp mossy redwood forest. After no more than a half mile we entered a meadow that sloped gently up to the tree line where there was a small wooden house not much larger than my cabin. I stopped to take in the scene. Smoke drifted from the chimney of the house, so it was clear that someone was living there. Also, there was a fairly large terraced garden to the right of the house that was enclosed by a high wire fence, obviously built to keep the deer out. I noticed someone working in the garden.

The deer walked up to the gate of the garden fence and greeted the gardener with a nod. In a few moments the gardener came out the gate and latched it carefully behind her, walked up to the deer and spoke to her, scratching her neck and ears as one does a cat. She looked up and noticed me standing at the foot of her meadow. My inclination was to turn and leave, but I stayed because I knew she had seen me and because I was even more curious now about the deer. I walked up to greet her.

She was an older woman, even older than myself with her gray hair tied back in a girlish ponytail. She wore overalls over a long sleeved red cotton shirt with a blue and white bandana tied around her neck. Her hands and face were spotted and lined by weather and age, but her eyes were light gray, clear and young. She immediately reminded me of my grandfather’s second wife, Beulah, whom I loved dearly as a young child.

“Good morning”, I said as I approached. She smiled and nodded to me, reminding me of the deer. “Your friend there led me here along the path that leads to my cabin”. “Yes, she’s much too friendly for her own good, but she is also quite sensitive to peoples’ motivations and intentions, so it speaks well of you that she has brought you here to meet me.” Her smile was soft and her manner was calm and genuine. I immediately felt at ease with her. “Are you living in the Goodman’s cabin then? No one has lived there for a few years now. It’s nice to know we have a neighbor.” She said her name was Annie, asked mine and then introduced me to the deer. “Dear Deer, this is Mr. Tom”. She spoke to the deer as if she were a child. I stroked the deer’s chin and she nibbled my hand with her lips. “She is hoping you have something sweet for her, perhaps some black berries. Once you start feeding her, she’ll pester you to death. She walks right into my house just as if it was her own, eats the cat’s food if I don’t take it away first, and then pesters me until I give her some Quaker Oats and berries, if I have them. She’ll eat anything you give her except meat.” Hearing the bleating of a goat I looked up to see a she-goat tethered on a long rope behind the house. “Oh, that’s Jennifer, my milking goat, Dear Deer’s best friend. They are always challenging one another, jousting with head butts and hoof boxing for hours. Then they will graze together like mother and daughter.” “Quite a menagerie you have here, but no dog?” “No dog”, she shakes her head. “They keep the deer away and upset things, being so territorial. Just Jennifer and Charles, the cat, and now of course, Dear Deer.” She told me Dear Deer had shown up one day, a young fawn without a mother. “No telling what happened to her mother. Maybe coyotes or poachers.” “I hear gun fire sometimes in the canyon”, I said. “Yes, yes. It doesn’t look like it but there are several families living in this canyon and some of them feature themselves to be hillbillys, living off the land by killing doe and fawns and birds small and large. I’ve met some of them, but they generally keep to themselves.” We kicked the dirt for a few minutes in silence and then she asked, “How long do you plan on living in the cabin?” “About a year”, I said, “I’m working on a project that requires peace and quiet and solitude. I’m giving myself a year to get it done.” Another few moments of silence and then she straightened up and said, “Well, back to work for me. Come by some afternoon around four or five for a cup of tea, if you feel so inclined.” “Thank you, I’ll do that”, I said and waved Goodbye. The deer watched as I walked back to the path, but stayed by Annie’s side.


Part One: The Party
Summer 1964

The next rent day is creeping closer and I have to develop a plan. I’ve got to make a life here in the City. No matter how I twist and squirm I know that I’ve got to find a job. Reality is yanking at my sleeve. I’ve got to act because I’ve got to eat. Plain and simple.

Maxwell brings me leftovers from their table and slips me a five whenever he can, but he’s got the kids and Clara to deal with and I don’t want to add to his pressures. I’m reading “Tropic of Cancer” again, to help balance my fears and frustrations, and just came to the part where Henry has a brainstorm for how to have a good home cooked meal every night. He writes to a dozen or so friends asking each to have him over for dinner one night a week. They all know that he is a struggling artist with a dynamic personality and many respond positively, wanting to help and happy to have him around once a week. He then sorts the positive replies by the quality of their meals and personalities and works out a schedule. Thinking of this for my own situation I immediately see why it will never work: a) I’m not a struggling artist with a dynamic personality. I’m a half-assed musician washed up at the age of twenty-five who is repulsed by the idea of getting a job, and b) I only have one friend.

I’m in the streets again in the evenings after feasting on bread and butter sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. When the butter runs out I eat the bread, first nibbling off the crust and then rolling the rest into a ball imagining that I am eating meatballs and spaghetti with a fragrant Italian tomato sauce, licking my lips with pleasure.

On O’Farrell Street I pass a bar with a sign in the window: FREE HOT DOG WITH YOUR BEER! THURSDAYS 5 TO 7 PM. What luck, I’m just on time! The beer is .65¢ but the hot dog is Polish, fat and juicy. Also, they have a condiment bar with Dijon mustard, ketchup, chopped onions and tomatoes and pickle relish. I pile it all high, concocting my meal for the night and settle down at a small table near the juke box. Every bite is delicious. In fact it’s so damned good I splurge on a second, eating this one slowly, chewing each bite twenty times, counting each chew and resisting the urge to swallow until I get to twenty and then feeling the over masticated gruel slide down my gullet into my happy stomach, washing it down with the cold beer in a frosted mug, wiping the foam from my lips with the back of my hand. Man, oh man! This is the best food I’ve ever eaten! I’m thinking that being broke ain’t that bad. Your senses are enlivened, heightening even the smallest pleasures! Looking around the bar, the faces are happy, the voices boisterous, the click of the pool balls blending nicely with the Country music on the box. I’m happy to be alive right where I am sitting at this little table completely anonymous in the crowd of strangers, all eyes and ears, beautifully alone.

In the Men’s Room there are two urinals. I snuggle up to the one that is available and take a long and satisfying piss. Suddenly, the guy next to me says, “Ah, nothing like a good wiz.” Speaking to a stranger at the urinal is a violation of Men’s Room ethics anywhere. I keep my eyes forward and say nothing, wondering if he is a fag about to hit on me. I shake, zip, wash and exit quickly and return to my private spot next to the juke box where I imagine myself to be invisible. But the guy walks right up to my table, pulls up a chair and flops himself down with a sigh and looks around the room sharing my view of the crowd. I look directly at him with my best “Who the fuck are you” look. “Hey, hey”, he waves me off, not in the least bit intimidated. “I’m no queer. We’re OK. OK? I know a friend when I see one.” Shit, I’m thinking. Time to move on. I grab the pea coat and stand to go. “Hey buddy, slow down”, he says, “Really, I’m here for the hot dog just like you are. Why else would we be wasting our time in a dump like this? Listen to that crap on the box. Hank Snow! Give me a break!” “What’s wrong with Hank Snow?” I say, stuck in mid-stride to make my exit. “Well, he ain’t no Bob Dillon, now is he. Sit down a minute. Take a load off.” I sit back down and shrug a shoulder to myself. I’m thinking maybe this guy is legit, just another soul in transit like me.

“Are you going to the party?”, he asks. I frown at him, “What party?” "THE party. The Friday night party. Don’t you know about The Party?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What party?” “Every Friday night there is an open party somewhere in the City. It’s The Party. They have it in a different place every week. All you have to do is call the party number on Friday and they tell you where it’s at. Man, if you don’t know about The Party you’re missing out, my friend.” “What’s the number?” “It’s a different number every week and you have to know someone who is on the inside to get the number.” “And you’re on the inside, right?” “No, but I know someone who is. That’s how they control who comes to make sure everyone is cool. Man, let me tell you, these parties are something else! Food, wine, smoke, hip and friendly chicks. I get laid almost every Friday night! Dance, have a good time and then get a piece of ass! Not too shabby!” “Sounds pretty good.” I’m starting to relax with this guy, thinking he’s just a nut. He’s a bit younger than me, stocky, short cut hair flat on his head. His energy is high. I’m thinking he’s twirling on bennies. I’ve seen these guys way too many times and know they quickly become a pain in the ass. I don’t mind hanging with him a bit, but I vow not to let him know where I live.

“Look”, he says, suddenly standing. “I’ve got a thing to get to. Meet me here at 10:30 tomorrow night and I’ll take you to The Party. It’ll blow your mind. I promise.” He reaches out and we shake hands. “I’m Richie”, he says and walks out.

The place is changed after he leaves. The music is corny and I’m surrounded by a room full of hicks. “He’s fucked up my groove”, I say to myself and head for home.


After debating all day with myself about what I’m going to do, I find myself back at the bar the next night as planned. I’m there at 10:30. Being on time has always been one of my greatest faults, but Richie doesn’t show until 11, just when I have decided to leave.

“Hey, what’s happening! Glad to see you made it. I got us a ride with three chicks. Sometimes I bang the blond one driving, but the other two are up for grabs. Do your thing!” His mouth is running all the time, but, as with most people like him, he seldom says anything. For now, he serves the purpose, however, of filling up the awkward silences and gives me a chance to share some smiles of dismay with Jamie and Martha, the two girls in the backseat.

Richie is into a narrative about his part-time job as a car salesman in South City, waving his arms and giving directions to Laura, the blond, without missing a beat. “They’re all flakes”, he says. “They wander onto the lot because they don’t have anything else to do. A fucking waste of time, every one of them – turn left at the corner – fucking flakes! The real buyers come in the evening after work. That’s why they put me on the day shift, those bastards – watch out for that taxi! Stupid shit!”, he yells out the open window. “Hell, I told Saltzman, the Barry Saltzman, the one you see in the TV ads, I know that guy, I told Saltzman he needs to put me on a salary.” “What did he say?”, asks the blond. “He told me to go fuck myself!” He roars in laughter over this and we all join in. “Here, here! Park here!”

I have no idea where we are except that it is a steep hill and the house is one of those great old Victorians with two flights of concrete steps to get up to the porch. The place is lit up and boiling with music. People are sitting on the steps and porch smoking cigarettes and pot. I ask Richie how they can get away with smoking dope right out in front without getting busted. “These people are rich”, he says pointing up at the house, “and besides that the cops don’t give a shit as long as things stay peaceful.”

The front door is wide open to help cool off the heat from about a hundred people who are packed into a large chandeliered living room. The music is coming from every corner and is so loud that it is impossible to have a conversation. But these people aren’t here to talk. Everyone is dancing, most of them with no one in particular, dancing for a while with one and then drifting on to someone else, writhing, smiling, joints floating around the room from all directions. Not being one for dancing, I slip through the crowd, taking a toke here and there, working my way into the next room where there is a table of food and several tubs of beer, wine and sodas. I fix up a plate of meats and cheeses and fill a paper cup with white wine. Already my head is filled with smoke, my eyelids are heavy and there is an impromptu grin on my face. The music is unknown to me but is happy and energetic. The lights are dancing, the people are writhing and I notice that there are many more girls than men. The girls are like flowers, spinning, and they seem to me to be all foxy and sexy. I feel as though I have stepped into a new and wonderful world where there are no issues of rent, or food, or of finding a job, where there are only pretty girls and time has come to a stop.

I realize that Laura, the blond, is dancing in front of me inviting me to join her. I smile in return, but don’t join in. “Come on”, she shouts over the din. “I’m eating”, I shout back. She rolls her eyes, shakes her blond head and floats away. She’s tall and thin with blue eyes that seem to be made for laughter and fun. I wonder about her and Richie and why she would go out with a guy like him.

It is now past 2:00 AM.. The crowd has thinned considerably and the music and noise has fallen several decibels. I am sitting on a couch in the living room where the party continues, mesmerized by the dancing girls, their sexy movements and blank faces, and I am righteously stoned. Laura, the blond, squeezes in between me and the skinny black guy next to me and looks at me with a half smiling, half challenging look on her face. I see her eyes, and her mouth. Janice Joplin is singing Bobby McGee. Impulsively I lean forward and kiss her softly on the mouth. She does not return the kiss but keeps looking into my eyes. She speaks while my mouth is still on hers. “Your eyes are green”, she says. “Hazel”, I correct, while continuing the kiss. Then she kisses me back, holding my head in both her hands. It is a soft and dreamy kiss, the first I have had from anyone in several months. When she pulls back I say, “Would you like to go home with me?” “No”, she says, “but I’ll give you a ride.” “Where’s Richie and your friends?” “They caught a ride to another party.”

She parks near the apartment. I pull her into my arms and we neck like teenagers for a while. “Come in with me”, I urge. “No”, she says. “Why?” “Because I don’t want to.” She extracts a small notebook from her purse and writes her phone number on a blank page. Handing it to me she says, “Call me.” “OK.” I get out of the car and watch her drive off.


A week later I haven’t called her and have no intention of doing so. The last thing I need right now is a girlfriend! I have put an application in at a few employment agencies asking for any kind of work that is available. The rent is due and I find myself creeping in and out of the building to avoid the landlord. I’m listening to music with the headset so the landlord doesn’t know I’m home. In between tunes I hear a knock on the door and freeze like a lizard. I wait and the knock comes again, this time with a muffled voice, “Hey, open the door!” It’s not Maxwell, and no one has buzzed at the downstairs door. But I know it’s not the landlord either because the sentence contained more than one syllable. I open the door to find Richie standing there with a packed duffle bag over his shoulder. “Richie! How did you find me? How did you get in the door downstairs?” He blusters past me ignoring my questions and throws his bag down in a corner. Looking around, he says, “Not bad. Not bad. I once had a place up on Divisadero a lot like this.” He checks out the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom saying, “Only one bed. That’s not a problem. Look”, he says finally looking at me, “I need to crash here for a while. They threw me out of my pad, those bastards, and I’m a little short on cash right now. That fucking car gig is a waste of time. But I did convince them to give me one Saturday a month. Shit, that’s like throwing a hungry dog a bone. I need meat, man, meat! Know what I’m saying?” Finally I regain my balance and bust into his monologue. “Hold it, man, hold on a minute. Slow down, will you? No offense intended, but I don’t want no fucking roommate. I’ve got enough problems as it is, and there ain’t no meat here, not even any bones!” I don’t like conflicts, but this guy is starting to get on my nerves. I have come to value the privacy of this small apartment which is my refuge from the churning issues that are represented by the busy street outside. At least here I’m not a trick for the hucksters and down-and-outers who wander the streets. “Spare change? Spare change?” I’m getting sick of hearing it. I don’t have any change much less spare change. And I don’t want to give up my privacy to this motor mouth who comes uninvited and unwelcomed. “I don’t mean to be cruel, Richie, but you’ve got to keep moving.” I open the door and stand by it looking at him with a small smile. I’ve learned long ago that when you have to give someone bad news it’s best if you do it with a smile. He looks at me dumbfounded, the air slowly leaking out of his body, and he seems to be shrinking like a deflating balloon. For a long moment he doesn’t say anything, which is out of character for him. I’m doing my best to hold the smile, but it is gradually fading of its own accord. “Look, man”, he says finally, “just a couple of days. Really. No shit. I’ve got a thing happening next week that’ll bring in some bread, then I’ll move on. Hey, I’ll pay your rent for a month,” his eyes starting to light up by this impromptu plan. “Yah, that’s it, I’ll pay your rent for a whole month, just in return for a few days right now when I really need them. No problem. There’ll be plenty of bread next week. Big bucks! It’s all set up! No shit! And not only that, I know where we can get some food, tonight if you want, all the food you want. Easy as pie, you see what I mean?” He’s all animated now, his body pumped up again with hot air. I feel the air leaking out of me now, and he’s bouncing around the room like an excited dog ready to go for a ride in the car. It’s hopeless and I know it. I push the door shut and light a cigarette. Richie goes over to the window and looks out on the street below. Suddenly he throws open the window and climbs out onto the fire escape. I’m hoping he’s going to jump, but no. He emits a loud whistle through his fingers and shouts, “Hey! Where you going? Come on up. Yah, hi! Come on up for a beer.” He turns to me, “Three chicks”, he says nodding his head, “See, I told you.” Told me what?, I’m thinking. “Yah, number 6”, he shouts down at the girls. “Hey, pick up a six-pack at the corner, will you? I’ll pay you when you get up here. Just ring number 6.” He watches as they apparently head for the corner to get the beer. I’m thinking they won’t be back, but I’m wrong and soon the bell rings. I buzz the front door. Richie opens the door and looks down the stairwell. “Yah. Hey, how you doin’? Come on up.” It turns out to be a guy of about 23, and two foxy but young chicks. They are Latino and we quickly learn that they are from Peru, in the City to visit some family. One of the girls is the guy’s girlfriend, and the other is his sister. They don’t speak much English but are friendly and cheerful. I don’t like the situation because it is obvious that the girls are under age, and that’s the kind of trouble I’m not ready to risk. The best time to fix a problem is before it occurs. I pull Rickie aside. “I’m outa here”, I say. “Here’s a spare key. Be careful with these girls. I’ll check you later.” As I turn to leave I have a thought and turn back to him. “And get some fucking food, will you?” “No problem, man, no problem. This group is just what the doctor ordered”, and he turns back to his new friends.

When I return that evening the place is empty, but there are four tubs of Chinese food in the middle of the floor. Egg rolls, a shrimp dish, fried rice, a beef and broccoli dish. There are even two beers in the fridge. “Not too shabby”, I’m thinking, and dive into the feast.



Part Two: Orientation
Summer 1964

The next day is another day with the same old problems: no money, no food. “OK, we’re going to take care of this thing tonight”, says Rickie, “but we’ve got to wait until one or two in the morning”. “What are we going to do, blow up a bank?” I ask. “Not quite”, he responds, “check this out. I know this chick that lives in a girls rooming house up on Larkin near Russian Hill. The girls get room and board so they have a dining room and a big kitchen. She works in the kitchen sometimes and says there’s always loads of good food in there. And dig this, there’s a back door they use to get to the dumpster and it’s never locked. How about that! It’s not like we’d be breaking in ‘cause we’ll just be walking in. Are you into it?” I nod skeptically, thinking I can just split if it gets dicey.

At about 1:30 AM he wakes me from a slumber. “Time to go to work”, he says. He’s got a flashlight and a small backpack and puts a pillow case in it for me to carry part of the load. I’m thinking this isn’t such a good idea, but I’m also thinking about the haul we’ll be making. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I keep saying to myself. This is all new to me. I’ve never stolen anything except a candy bar in a market when I was fifteen, and I got busted for that! I broke into tears and the owner took pity on me and let me go, making me promise to tell my mother what I had done, which I actually did. I think she was more amused by my honesty in telling her, than she was upset by my crime. But this is different, yet it sounds so easy. I’ve got to at least check it out.

We walk up Larkin to Union, which is only about six to eight blocks, and past the three story house. It’s as dark as a tomb. “Perfect”, he says. We come back down the alley and there it is, big and dark, and there’s the dumpster, just like he said. But there’s a tall solid fence which we hadn’t anticipated, and a gate which is latched from the inside. “No sweat”, he whispers, “hold the pack”. He climbs up on the dumpster, steps over the fence and drops down on the other side with a thump and a small groan. “You OK?” I whisper. He doesn’t answer but I hear the click of the gate latch and the gate squeaks open. “Shhh”, he says as if I had made the gate squeak. There is a short stepping path up to the back of the house and a door with a window next to it. He points at the door, indicating that it’s the one to the kitchen. We sneak-step up to the door like the amateur criminals we are and try the knob. Locked! “Fuck!”, he whispers. This is getting creepy and I’m ready to split, nodding my head toward the gate. He shakes his head No, and holds up one finger indicating Wait. He pushes on the window to see if it will open and sure enough it opens easily and wide. Without hesitation he is through the window and opening the door from the inside. I’m feeling sick to my stomach and all I want to do is turn and run, but he waves for me to follow, turns and disappears. I hold for a moment to argue with myself, and then step into the darkness.

We are in a carpeted hall that leads to the interior of the house. On the left is an open doorway. Rickie flips on the flashlight and there before us is the kitchen. He gives me a big grin and nods his head as if to say, “See, I told you!” We take three steps down to the cement floor. There are work tables, sinks, two stoves, and two large refrigerators. Richie opens one of the refrigerators. It is empty except for about ten flats of eggs. He opens the other refrigerator and it, too, is empty except for a dozen or more heads of green cabbage. We look around the room for the stash of food we expected, but nothing. Richie walks into the dining room but there is no food in there either. “What the fuck do these people eat?” he whispers. “Get the eggs”, he says and hands me the pillow case. I fill the pillow case with flats of eggs and he loads up the backpack with cabbage. We slip out the door and the gate to the ally and make a clean getaway. But I’m still feeling creepy because if a cop passed us now we would never be able to explain the load we are carrying. But, no, we make it back to the apartment without incident.

In the morning we buy a loaf of bread and a pound of butter in an attempt at making our next several meals palatable. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone on an egg and cabbage diet, but let me tell you, after a day or two you become plagued by a profuse and merciless attack of very high octane gas. It isn’t long before we can’t stand one another, throwing open all the windows all the time. Maxwell walks in one evening, stops as if he has been slapped in the face, turns around and splits, unable to speak, leaving the door wide open, which we quickly close, not wanting to infest the entire building. The situation is so bad we can only laugh at ourselves, our stupidity, and our deserving bad luck.


It’s the next Tuesday and Richie is off to do his “thing”. He says nothing about it, but I’m guessing that it’s a pot deal. How else could he get his hands on what he has been calling “big bucks”? All I’m thinking about is getting the rent paid, now two weeks late, and getting some honest-to-goodness groceries in the frig. The Peruvians come by looking for Richie. When I say he’s gone for the day they seem nonplussed. “He said to come today”, the guy says, pointing to Richie’s duffle bag and pile of dirty clothes in one corner, as if in validation. The girls are cute and playful but the guy shows concern. Just then the phone rings. It is one of the employment agencies saying that there is a job available at one of the big banks in the computer operations department and am I interested. “Absolutely”, I say, “anything they have I can do.” I am to go to an orientation meeting in two hours where they will explain the job and interview me. Then they remind me that the agency’s fee is fifty percent of the first month’s pay. “No problem. Absolutely. You got it!” I respond, thinking that it’s a small price to pay to get a foothold somewhere. I shoo the Peruvian trio away though they are reluctant to go and keep repeating that Richie said to come today and that they will be going back to Peru tomorrow. When I close the door I’m thinking that he owes them money. Money I doubt they will ever see. But I can’t dwell on their problems right now. I dress in clean jeans, my last white shirt and my only tie, and head for First and Market Streets.

At 50 First Street the building is twenty or more stories tall. There is a glass turnstile and a marble lobby, just as one might expect. In the lobby is a tall semicircular desk at which sits the uniformed security guard, an old white guy with thin gray hair combed straight back and a lined and blotchy face that tells the story of a hard life and a battle with booze. He asks my business, has me sign a log book, checks my driver’s license and issues me an ID card with some numbers and, in tall letters, the word GUEST, which I clip to the pocket of my shirt. I advance to a metal turnstile in front of which I stand until the red light turns green and I hear a buzzer which allows me to push my way through and advance to the elevator. I press UP and the doors open to a dimly lit car that is carpeted on the floor, walls and ceiling. There is the sound of soft, innocuous music. I step in, press 17 and wait. The doors close and the car moves. I am overwhelmed with the feeling that I have just stepped into a time machine and am traveling to a time and place that has been designated by some random non-human process, or mind – some alien consciousness that has examined me, head to toe, and determined the use that I would best serve. My life is out of my control and my personal consciousness is just going along for the ride, and is permitted to do so just as all long as it does not interfere and makes no trouble. The only alternative is to submit. Looking down at myself I see a white shirt, a tie, and a card that says GUEST attached to a pocket. Already, I don’t know who I am.

The 17th floor is the cafeteria and is buzzing with activity. People are standing in a line holding trays. Others are eating at tables just large enough for four, talking among themselves, completely comfortable with where they are. Everyone is wearing a badge. As I emerge from the elevator, what I see is a huge room full of tables and people and tall windows at the far, far end of the room. I don’t know where I am nor where I should be, until I notice a small sign on a stand right in front of me. The sign says, ORIENTATION and has an arrow pointing to my right. Looking right I see, at the far end of the room, a door. Above the door is a sign that says ORIENTATION. When I reach the door I hesitate for a moment, unsure of myself, and then open it and boldly step in.

There are several rows of folding chairs facing a podium and a pull-down movie screen. Six or eight people are scattered among the chairs apparently waiting for something to happen. The room is quiet, and then a voice speaks to me from the left. I turn to see a woman of about sixty in a gray high-buttoned business suit sitting at a table. Her name tag says: MISS WRIGHT. “Are you here for the new employee orientation?” “Yes”, I smile. “Name?” I tell her and she looks down a list of names. When she gets to the end of the list she turns the page and looks down another list. She turns the page again and finally says, “Ah, here we are!”, smiles proudly and gathers together a packet of papers, slips them into a classy folder with the bank name and logo on the cover and hands it to me saying, “Take a seat anywhere you choose. We’ll get started in about ten minutes.” I find a seat equidistant from everyone else and open the folder.

In a few minutes the door opens and about fifteen people file in. Each is carrying a folder just like mine. They fill in most of the seats and Miss. Wright steps to the front of the room behind the podium, tests the mike by tapping on it and says, “Welcome! Some of you have just completed a tour of the facility and I trust you found it interesting and informative. You others will take the tour at another time. Now, let’s open our folders and take out the packet titled OUR BANK – THE HISTORY AND PURPOSE.”

For the next hour she takes us through three packets of information. The other two packets are titled A WEALTH OF OPPORTUNITIES and EMPLOYEE BENEFITS RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. There are slide shows accompanied by recorded music, graphs and charts of lines and bars, and Miss. Wright’s cheerful presentation. I am immediately overwhelmed by this long stream of information and fighting to stay awake, but my eyes keep rolling back in my head involuntarily. I do everything I can think of to stay conscious, reciting lyrics to songs in my mind, chord changes, names of everyone I have ever known, important personal dates, places I’ve been. I scribble on the pages as we turn them one after another, underline words randomly, draw faces, fill in typed letters, and then finally it is over. “Thank you all for your kind attention. That’s a lot of information, isn’t it”, she jokes, “and we don’t expect you to remember all of it, but you can keep your folders and will want to review them at home. Now, those of you that took the tour are free to go. The others should please stay so that I can have a chance to talk for a few moments with each of you.” I consider sneaking out with the tour group but lose my nerve and stay put.

There are only seven of us remaining and she calls my name second. I advance to her table in the back of the room and take a seat. “Do you have a resume?”, she asks. A jolt of fear shoots through me. “No, ma’am”, I say meekly. “Not a problem”, she assures me and goes on to quiz me about my work experience and education. The conversation is short. Fearful that everything is slipping away I take my best shot, turning on my voice and face of sincerity and telling her that all I want is an opportunity to prove myself. “There isn’t anything I can’t do when I put my mind to it.”, I tell her. “I’m especially good with numbers and am positive that I will be an asset to the Bank” Then I remind her that I recently completed a four year tour of duty in the United States Air Force and though I have been struggling a bit since, I am now ready to buckle down and build a career. Apparently all this works. She offers me a job in the Account Reconcilement Department on the midnight shift starting the following Sunday night. I should report to work at 11:30 PM. She fills out a form that I will give to the security guard, stands up and shakes my hand, and calls the next name.


When I return to the apartment I notice that Richie’s duffle bag and dirty clothes are gone. He’s flown the coop! My first reaction is one of relief: He’s finally gone, along with that high twirling energy. I have the place to myself once again. Then I remember the rent money he had promised. A quick scan of the room and I know he has left nothing and blown me off. “That fucker!” I’m thinking, but then say to myself, “What did you expect? This is Richie, just one line of bullshit after another. The up side is that he’s gone and even if he does return I’ll never let him back in. I’ve got my privacy back!" Then I think of the landlord and shiver as I consider the options. I start work on Sunday night but I won’t be paid until two weeks later and then I owe half of that to the employment agency. I know what I have to do.

I leave the apartment, drop down the two flights of stairs quickly and find myself knocking on the door that says: #1 MANAGER. The door opens almost immediately and there he is, smiling and nodding his bald head. “Yes, yes”, he asks. “Hi”, I say, “uh, I wanted to talk to you.” “Yes”, he asks again. “Yes”, I say, then lurch forward. “Uh, I know I’m late with the rent.” “Yes”, still smiling. “And, uh, I just got a job today!” “Yes.” “That’s the good part, but the bad part is that I don’t get paid for two more weeks.” “Yes, yes”, like questions. “And I was just wondering, uh, can you wait two more weeks? I mean, I’ll pay this rent then, and two weeks later when I get my next check I’ll pay the next month’s rent.” I’m running along kind of fast now, having caught my line of gab. Richie pops into mind and I realize I’m sounding just like him, but I want to be sincere about what I am saying. I really will pay the rent, and I want him to know that. “I’ve got a great job, you see, at a bank, I work the midnight…” “Yes”, he cuts me off completely, still smiling, by raising his right hand slightly and looking directly into my eyes. “OK”, he sings, “OK”, pauses, then closes the door leaving me standing in the silent hall, wondering what just happened. I climb the stairs slowly. “Is that it! That’s all I had to do? There’s something real about this guy.” In a short few minutes Richie has back stabbed me, and the Chinese landlord has saved my ass. It’s not always easy to know who your friends are.


Feeling high and relieved I call Maxwell to give him the news. He and Clara invite me over for dinner to celebrate my good fortune.

They have put out a great spread: baked potatoes with butter, sour cream and chives, corn on the cob, and thick New York steaks grilled under the broiler with onions and mushrooms. A true feast! We sip the two bottles of red as we work our way through the meal. At times like this all the suffering and doubt one has endured fades away. We don’t remember our pain nearly as vividly as we remember our joys and ecstasies, and they are emblazoned in the mind so that even forty years later they can be recalled and appreciated complete with moods, tastes, sounds and smells. This was one of those meals, one of those moments.

Maxwell is telling a story about his family in the Northwest, railroad workers, hard drinkers, and always slightly off key, at least the way he tells it. “Amigo”, as he likes to start his stories, holding up one finger to capture my attention. “I’m visiting my cousins, you see, and Uncle Horace and Aunt Frankie up in Cheney, where they live right next to the railroad tracks. Almost everyone around there works for the railroad, you see, and on a regular basis the trains rumble by, vibrating the house with a metallic roar that brings everyone to silence until it passes. ‘That’s the 8:41 for Coeur d’Alene’, says Uncle Horace consulting his railroad watch which is always on-time to the second. Then we pick up right where we have left off, hardly aware after a while of the interruptions.” He takes a pull from the wine direct from the bottle, then holds it out to me.

“Us three boys”, he continues, “sleep on the top floor of the three story house. We fight for space on the two beds that have been rolled together, then yank and pull at the blankets all night. It is cold, under 15 degrees at least, so that ice forms on the branches of trees and then cracks when the sun comes out in the morning, making sharp snapping sounds. Crack. Ping”, he says, making a humorous face for dramatic effect.

“At night, not wanting to go down the cold staircase to the bathroom on the second floor, we pee out the window onto the composition roof where it freezes solid before reaching the eaves, creating a slightly yellow ice slick.” He pauses again for effect, then continues, “Now, it just so happens that Aunt Frankie has been pestering Uncle Horace right about this time to go up on the roof to adjust the TV antenna so that she can tune in her favorite programs…” and this is where I start to crack up, now knowing just where this story is headed. But, it isn’t usually the story itself that captivates us, what holds us is the telling, the acting, the song. Story telling is an art that some of us appreciate in great part because of the theatrics, motions, interpretations, laughing, shouting that goes into the telling. We want to get pulled into the story, and not only that, we want it construed for these times and these conditions. This is where history meets the future, the imagination, while the essence of the story holds together and is passed on.

“So, Uncle Horace is inching his way along the crest of the roof this Sunday morning, grumbling about the imposition just for some stupid TV show. The antenna has been attached to the window dormer to our bedroom and Horace is feeling more confident with each step he takes. Instead of crossing the dormer on the up side, he decides to pass below the window where he has the window sill to hold on to as he passes.” Pause. Dead-faced grin. “Big mistake! In an instant Horace has stepped on the ice slick and is shooting helplessly down the roof with a rumble that startles us boys inside. Instantly we realize what has happened and turn to the window just in time to see Uncle Horace shoot off the roof, arms flapping, and disappear into thin air. There is a moment of silence followed by a loud crunch and splintering sound with an ‘Oomph’, another moment of silence and then a deadening thump. Now complete silence, as we look at one another in wonder, and then break for the stairs to find out what has happened to Horace.

“He has been very lucky, but at this moment he isn’t feeling that way. He is half buried in a snow bank at the foot of the house. After shooting off the third floor roof, he was fortunate to land on the roof of the old abandoned chicken coop which buckled and crunched under his weight, serving to break his fall. From there he rolled off and into the snow bank below where he now lay, stunned and disoriented, but none the worse for wear. We see him blinking his eyes and looking about in a stunned wonder. Before he can focus in on us we turn and scatter like snowflakes, feeling the rising up within us of the laughter and joy that only children, at such precious times, can ever know.”


Clara goes off to bed, leaving Maxwell and me to finish off the wine. “Remember the bull fight ring that night with Tomiko?” asks Maxwell to get us started on our favorite subject, our days on Okinawa when we were in an Air Force band together. “Wasn’t she the one that had that long straight arm pit hair that opened like a black fan whenever she raised her arm?” “Yah”, he says with a dreamy look, “marvelous woman!” But I’m not thinking of Tomiko, I’m thinking, as usual, about the woman with whom I had lived for more than a year over there, Hiroko, my first pure and honest love. Women and love and all that comes with them are enigmas to me. I know nothing of love, coming only from my feelings and instincts, which seldom serves me well. We knew from the beginning that I would be leaving the island on the next May 11th and this relationship, this love, this fantasy life we lived would come to an end. It was given, unavoidable, set in stone. And one day it arrived, just as we knew it would. I was sitting with her on the bed when we heard the noon whistle which was the final cue. We embraced, looked at one another for a moment and I turned and left, barely able to breathe. Love, I remember thinking, now I know what it is. A great wind blew between us and we never met again.


Maxwell is driving me back to the apartment, still running through our Okinawan highlights, while I am reminiscing about Hiroko and love in general. Six years have passed since I came back to the States and I haven’t had a girlfriend since – a few flash involvements, but nothing real, nothing even approximating the love Hiroko and I shared. Perhaps I was locking it out, how would I know. I only know what is in front of me now, in this moment. Maxwell has driven off and I am standing on the street in an empty state of mind. I look around me, taking it all in. The City! Churning in all directions with an energy all its own, its own personality. I have only been here for a few short weeks but I am becoming a part of what the City is, a resident, I am beginning to belong here. I have a job, an apartment with a Chinese landlord who is wise, generous, brief and to the point. I have made some friends and lost some friends. I have struggled to find my bearings and am now rising up on wobbly legs, gaining confidence and strength with each day.

As I enter the apartment and flick on the light. I sense that something is different, out of place. I notice the lamp is on next to the bed. Stepping to the open doorway I am shocked by what I see. “Laura, what are you doing in my bed?” “Waiting for you”, she says with a smile. “Really?” “Yes, really”, a little impatient. “But, how did you get in here?” I am incredulous and caught off guard. “Richie gave me his key”, she says, “He’s gone now. Went back to Ohio.” “Ohio? Richie’s from Ohio? I always figured he was from New York or Chicago, L.A. maybe, but Ohio?” “Yep, a farm boy gone wild.” But at this time I am not interested in Richie. “So, Laura, what are you doing – here?” “Well, I can leave if you want”, she says, kind of put out, “but you did invite me in the other night, didn’t you?” “Yes.” “So, OK, here I am – in”, she says. “Do you want me to leave?” I just look down at her, my mind and body empty of sense and sensibility. I have no thoughts. There is a pretty girl in my bed. She has blond hair and blue eyes that are ready to laugh. She is offering herself to me. I unbutton my shirt and kick off my shoes. I pull off my pants and am standing there nude and empty in spirit, hallow. I slip into the bed and she is folded into my arms. Her neck smells sweet, like star jasmine. She is a flower, unknown and unknowable. She is a mystery that I welcome into my being for this moment. For this moment, this one moment, I am offered love and my heart opens. I am loved and I am lover. At least for now, in this moment, there is love.