Yearbooks

While I was at my grandparents house last Friday doing laundry in their basement, I got bored and decided to be nosey.  Well, during the cold war my grandparents decided to build and stock a bomb shelter in their basement, and if one wants to be nosey, there is no better place to be nosey than in his grandparents' bomb shelter.  I didn't just go down there to be nosey, but I also imagined how I would fortify the home in case of a zombie apocalypse.  You know, guy stuff.  Anyway, while I was in the bomb shelter, I noticed a bookcase full of yearbooks from when my grandparents were in high school, and in my ultimate display of noseyness, I thumbed through them.  I noticed that everyone who had signed the yearbook wrote in cursive, and every entry was of a serious nature.  Most of the entries wished my grandpa luck during World War II, and others told of how the school had to make due with war time rationing.  Then I thought of my yearbooks... I remember that during my sophomore year I had to get a new one because someone had drawn a penis on the autograph page, and nobody had written in cursive because most people didn't know how.  And somehow someone thought it would be classy to write things like "HAGS" and "School's a bummer, have a great summer."  That makes me scared for what's going to be written in my kids' yearbooks...

Welcome

Well, here it is.  My blog take two.  I'm hoping I'll be able to keep it up a little bit better than I did before my mission.  I thought about starting a journal, but that idea simply exhausted me.  I haven't quite decided where I want this blog to go.  I'm hoping it's in a good direction.  Until then, here is a story I wrote recently.  It's called "Mission Street," and it's based on some of the things I saw and experienced while I was in the Mission District of San Francisco.  Normally, San Francisco isn't too hot in the summers, but every once in a while, it would practically boil.  I hated the weather at the time, but now I look back on it fondly.  I don't think I'll ever forget the sticky, warm air, the constant pattering of feet hitting the sidewalk, and the sweet smell of bacon wrapped hot dogs.  Oh yes, the latter does exist, and from what I've heard they're delicious... if you don't mind foodborne illness.

Mission Street

            As the bus doors opened, the heat and stink of San Francisco washed over me.  Shoving the business card I had been fiddling with into my pocket, I loosened my tie.  I didn’t have to unbutton my top button because I had lost it since the last time I had worn the stiff, white shirt.  Still, the collar was nearly unbearable, irritating my neck and causing a rash.  Nearing the Mission and 24^th Street BART station, I had six blocks to walk to my apartment.

            Trudging down Mission, I saw an old Latina woman selling flowers wrapped in brown packing paper by the BART entrance.  A teenager dressed in a sun dress started talking to her, and the flower vendor lit up for a moment.  But the young woman shook her head, waved, and walked off, leaving the Latina looking discouraged.  Her entire bucket of flowers was clearly wilting, but at least the flowers must have covered some of the nasty smells.  I would have liked to have bought a bouquet just to cheer the woman up because I knew what it was like to have a bad day, but I didn’t have a cent.  All I had was a torn bus transfer slip, and it was only good for another half hour.

            Mission Street, the main street in the Mission District of the peninsula, runs from the top of the district to the bottom, splitting it in half.  On the west side, a trendy, bohemian neighborhood housed all the kids who went to the college.  Poor Latinos of dubious legal status lived on the rough east side, which was poorly lit at night and heavily littered.  Because the sewer line ran directly under Mission Street, venders always tried to put duct tape over the quarter-sized holes in the manhole covers, but the smell would always leak out.  Generally, an eastward bound breeze carried the stench away, but today the air stayed stagnant.

            I passed the San Francisco College of Cosmetology.  The glamorous name didn’t do a good job in disguising the rundown place, and as if to prove the dilapidated condition of the college, an enormous crack ran across the massive storefront window through the prices for hair extensions.  Pacing outside the store, a woman in a white coat and purple tinted sunglasses smoked a cigarette and shouted on her cell phone.  She would alternate from taking long, frustrated drags on her cigarette to putting it between her middle and index finger and waving it around as she yelled at whoever was on the other end of the line.  I couldn’t hear what she was yelling about, but as other people passed her, they gave her curious glances. 

            Back on my side of the street, several people sang their praises in the Iglesia de Jesus while listening to a rock band.  I wouldn’t exactly call it a church, but Mission Street had several storefront Pentecostal churches like this one.  The church looked worn down as well.  The collapsible gate meant to keep vandals away at night was rusted, and the awning suspended above the doors was sun beaten and torn.  The church’s sign was nearly illegible because the paint was chipping off.  I couldn’t imagine why anyone would go to church to hear a band sing praises late on a Tuesday afternoon.  I could hear the music clearly just outside of the doors.  I could barely understand a word of it because it was all in Spanish, and the people were screaming more than they were singing.

            I still had a couple more blocks to my apartment, but the heat was unbearable.  I hadn’t drunk much water that day, and the water I had drunk was pouring down my red face.   I would have loved a glass of cool water, but I doubted I could get a drop in this city without paying.  I sat down on a bus bench to rest, and dabbed my forehead with my sweat-laden handkerchief.

            An older man was already sitting at the bus stop.  He was a thin, pale man, unshaved and unshowered.  His hair line was receding, and his face was covered in a thin glaze of sweat.  He wore a button-up flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of threadbare jeans.  Red needle marks ran up and down his left arm and a grimy, red bandana was tied around his bicep.  The man looked at me with his big, bloodshot eyes, and it seemed as if he was examining me.

            “Ya look terrible,” he said.

            “Excuse me?” I replied.

            “Ya look terrible,” he repeated as he picked at one of the holes in his jeans.

            I wasn’t sure how to respond.  Was it cruel to tell him how terrible he looked?

            “I mean, ya look uncomfortable.  Ya look like ya carryin the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said.  “Can I give ya advice?  Don’t worry.”

            I wanted to get up and keep walking to my apartment, but when he told me I looked like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, I became keenly aware of how tired I felt.  The little booth that we sat in only covered our faces from the sun, and bystanders kept walking up and down the street tirelessly.  The stench of the street made me nauseated, and someone smoking nearby added to my discomfort.  I was so exhausted my limbs felt like kids waking up for school, begging me for just a few more minutes of rest.

            “I don’t worry, and I couldn’t be happier.” His grin revealed some missing teeth.

            “Could ya say something so I don’t think ya just a hallucination?”  He said, pulling the bandana down to cover a cluster of needle marks above the inside of his elbow.

            “So that’s your secret, huh?  If I stop worrying, I’ll be happy?” I said.

            “Exactly.”

            “Okay.  Tell me how to stop worrying.”

            “The first thing ya need to do is get rid of your tie.  It’s impossible for a man to relax when he’s wearing a silk noose round his neck.  It’s almost like ya begging for someone to strangle ya with it.”

            “I’m not taking off my tie,” I said.

            “Then ya won’t ever be able to stop worryin.”

            “Maybe worrying isn’t such a bad thing.”

            “Are you kidding?  Worryin is an epidemic!” He threw up his hands. “Listen, I sit on this street every day, and I watch people.  Everyone worries too much about what has happened to em, what is happenin to em, and what will happen to em.  Nobody ever just takes things as they come.  Well, nobody but me.” He grinned.

            “But what will you eat if you don’t worry about food?  Where will you live if you don’t worry about paying rent?” I said.

            “Consider the lilies, my friend.” He nodded. “Consider the lilies.”

            “The world can’t all be bums, buddy.  Some of us have to work.”

            “I am workin!” He said, indignantly. “Do ya think not worryin is something that comes easy?  It takes work, and it ain’t easy!  But I love my work, and I’m real good at it.  I could write books about not worryin.”

            “So why don’t you?” I said.

            He slapped his knee, and as he did, drops of sweat splashed on the ground. “Because then I’d have to worry bout writing the dumb book!” He laughed.  I looked at the place on the sidewalk where his sweat had fallen.  I noticed he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

            “You don’t have shoes?” I asked.

            “No, I do,” he replied.

            “Then why aren’t you wearing them?”

            “Because I like the feel of the grass between my toes!”

            I looked up and down Mission Street but couldn’t see any plant life, much less grass.  The nearest park was Caesar Chavez, several blocks east, and Caesar Chavez was not a park I’d walk in barefoot.  Drug dealers favored the spot to deal drugs, and junkies liked to do drugs there.  The city put biohazard boxes so addicts would have someplace to put their dirty needles, but it seemed as though some always found their way to the ground.

            “Look here, boy.  You have two options.  You can keep walkin, worryin, and hopin things will work out, or you can stop worryin and be like me,” he said.

            “I think I’ll keep worrying.  I like my shoes.” I stood up.

            “Well, sonny.  I gave it a shot,” he laughed.  I could hear him laughing even after I crossed the street to the next block.  His laugh echoed as I walked into my apartment complex and started climbing the stairs.  As I climbed the stairs I stopped, shrugged my shoulders, took my tie off and put it in my pocket.  I took off my shoes, tied the laces together, and slung them over my shoulder.  I enjoyed the smoothness of the wood, and the sound of my sweaty feet pattering up the stairs.  As I entered my hall, I watched my feet walk across the cool linoleum tiles and the reflection of the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.  I approached my apartment, and I thought the old man might have been right about shoes.  Then I looked up and saw an eviction notice on my door, and I had never been more worried in my whole life.