(In '85, I was using this very humble digs on O'Farrell
Street, as seedy a nabe as it gets. The hookers, the winos, the
junkies, the rifraff. And I cherished it. I was working alright -
home health care with about three different services, VNA, Western,
this and that – but as broke as you could be and staying at that
level. You could really almost say I didn't have a pot to piss in or a window
to throw it out of. Yet I remember my landlord very fondly, and his
lady-for-life, very dear people. I remember being in my "wife-beater"
undershirt and sitting out nights on my fire-escape some 6 flights
up, playing on a second-hand 120-bass white accordian to the fighting
drunks and strolling prostitutes and general traffic down below – my
sole repertoire: everything from "Never On Sunday," from the
theme to the other fun melodies giving us the loves of Piraeus. I
don't need to speculate on the appreciation of this down on the street
but I was having a gas, puffing on my cheap cigar.
Now one late
night I got a call to have a bundle of laundry left with me ready for
someone from the house in Mill Valley to drive by and pick up. No
hidden insinuations here, it really was just about some laundry. I
was seeing myself as the house idiot, but that didn't matter, I was
soon going to be deciding to enter the military, join the Army, see
the world. But in the meantime, and on this particular evening, I
had taken the only cooking pan I had, and made a nice little soupy
stew, with onions and maybe rice, and I don't know what else, but I
had precious damned little and was now using up the last of that. I
did not even have garlic, on that I had to pass, which I hated to do
but sometimes in life you just don't have garlic. And I had
something in mind with this, something I was going back and forth
about, if and whether I should - because with a certain group of "who-are-the-people-in-your-neighborhood" I still felt skiddishly
apart and self-concious, and I wanted to bridge that and embrace
them.
Sooo: around
5 a.m., still dark, the car rolls by as arranged and I'm down on the
street passing over the armful of laundry - and after mutual
greetings from these Dharma-sisters of mine, I'm standing there
alone, about to go back up. Then I see her, Black and hooking,
standing on the corner, not trying to get me over, just hanging at her
corner, so I'd have to approach her. Which I did, saying – just to
break the ice and leave her flabbergasted - which it oddly did: "Hey,
kiddo,it's rather cold out here! You can't be making any business at
this hour on a Sunday morning – everybody's in church!"
Well,
she was somehow quite normal, natural, okay to me, not bombed or
aggressive or whatever else may have inhibited me. I invited her up,
lightly insisting, to a stew - no tricks on my part and no tricks
needed from her trade. Just between us. "You haven't had
breakfast yet, right, hon'? I don't have much, but I did just rustle
something up for ya and would be obliged for you to taste it, c'mon!"
She did, she
followed me all the way up, she told me she hooks to cover groceries,
her mother watches her child thinking she has some night job
somewhere. So oh shit, she's REAL. I really hit gold here, so she
got her stew alright, maybe even a second helping. I got her to
remove her heels, got out my water basin and towle and oil, and
happily massaged her tired feet. She asked about a wife, I said,
yeah, mine will come by soon just to crash after night shift as
nurse, butnot to worry, she's not due yet and she's very
understanding. So I asked her how she liked the stew, honestly now.
And what did she have the gall to tell me: "It's not bad, it's
alright, but it's lacking something... ...yeah, I know – it's
missing garlic."
Every word of this is true. And yes, I was just
bringing her to the door to personally escort her back down to the
street, as my wife came home, irritated at finding someone in the
flat, and I sent her to bed – or rather, to futon. My guest,
thinking she was about to be murdered or at least dissed, I assured
with, "Now don't you worry a bit, I'll take care of her - she's just
tired, actually she's very understanding.")
TENDERLOIN
(San Francisco 1985)
Pacing the curb
all those hours for a thirty-dollar trick or two
to feed those
twins your mother is watching over, she doesn't know
where the
groceries come from – you look hot for me, baby,
for a
dirty-thirty you'd let me put an unwashed shaft in you
or a
bourbon-soaked tongue between rotting teeth- maybe then
not thirty, but
fifty? and I could jerk my contempt off
into your belly
and I would never have to know you . . .
Honey dammit
come in outa the cold just this once I've got a
hot homey stew
I made it just for you take off those heels no hurry
let me rub those
ankles with a skill and a salve, ok it's not your routine,
but indulge me
this once -
my prayers for
your well-being are stirred into this stew it's alI
I want to put
into your belly.
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