SAN FRANCISCO: The Castro

(I came to love that San Fran quite intimately, man to city I mean.

As one sees here, I still carried my clichés but also appreciated much, and I was still developing and coordinating my grasp vis-à-vis the gay world/gay community.here or anywhere else. This graduated later to real work-place friendships and still better contact. But re-reading this and judging myself less, I have to say (to any detractors gay or straight): I was undeniably there, certainly observing, and forming honest reflections on it. Not to forget: this was also the exact period there where I had my AIDS patients in care giving, and that story of holding the one dying in my arms on the bed while havnig read to him from the Tib. Book, as he wished, and now together with his lover, whispering as he wished in his ear, Amitabha, Amitabha........and then I washed his body, much to the very touched, very moved, astonishment of his gay circle there in the livingroom who had seen in me a bit of an intruding hetero – until then. I cannot be gay and never could – had I been I'd long since have lived it out here in Berlin at least, it was never my orientation, not even bi-, not even to experinment...so why would I bother.

 

However, that being said, I have since my teenage years made the effort ot understand and really grasp them as fellow sexually-oriented human beings, as a group with very very definite civil-and-human rights issues, and I have always rejoiced at every breakthrough in our or any society in this direction. Oh, I could go on for hours sharing my relfections, observations, theories concerning gays, gay history and society. But we'll save that for a rainy day.)

CASTRO (San Francisco 1985)

Like an ethnos all of its own this neighborhood

leave them alone this gay ghetto:

here they have their self-defined culture

                          within a culture,

like gypsies are they,

after a fashion – flamboyant unabashed

                                                       and different.

The Mission is where men speak to men in Latin dialects,

                                                 the Castro is where men speak to men

                                       in each other's ear whispering the language of the body,

                                                                          using the tongue generously.

Meeting openly in over-gesticulated celebration

           of their common difference flaunting

       their preference as you might your national heritage.

Like eighth-grade girls I muse minus the plaid skirts and knee socks,

as I watch the display of carefree giddiness in grown men.

Conversations dominated by a sexualectric charge

          a sense I perceive of imminent gratification

      and every day is Friday – is it possible,

I reflect, that emotionally they have remained eighth-graders,

choosing at that crucial age that to relate as a man

to a real woman was untenable?

Man-lover reading this, worshipper of Adonis rather than Aphrodite:

don't be distressed or indignant everyone is learning -

Don't judge the gap between us,

after all you could be my son.

I don't wish you dead I wish you well.

Overlooking the leather the studs the makeup gawdy jewelry affectations,

I'm not abashed to add, even Peter Pan could grow up

 

and still be himself.

SAN FRANCISCO: The Tenderloin

(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.