the neighborhood

I'm looking for the Real Foods on 20th and Geary. At least I think there's one around here. I ask someone and she points me to a Russian produce store. No, that's not it. I keep walking. I like this part of Geary. There's a funky old ice cream place. And that place that's a diner and video store in one. The booths are occupied by solo senior citizens eating pie and drinking coffee. I want to hang out there in the future. I ask another person about Real Foods and then the adventure really begins. She doesn't think there's a Real Foods around here. But she know all about Rainbow and their twenty percent off coupons in the Yellow Pages. She tells me at least three times. She tells me about the Tokyo Shop on Clement which has cheaper green tea than in Japantown. The Chinese restaurant with a happy hour. A sushi place. She's third generation Japanese. She keeps all this information inside her for when someone needs it. She tells me to always bless my food. I say okay, but I won't. I thought this would be a five-second conversation but it must be more like ten minutes. After the eighth time I say thank you and wave good-bye she offers me orange. are you sure? Yeah, it's from the senior center. So I take my orange and get back on the 38 Geary.

platinum cum dump

I went to see the film Sex Positive at the Roxie mainly to get out of the house. I was supposed to see it with mattilda but the timing wasn't right. Timing, timing, timing. So I went alone. But before that I stop at Whole Foods and spend $19.73 on dinner. Macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, pomegranate chana masala, tofu curry, and a dolma from the prepared foods bar, an acidophilus drink, a sweet and salty energy bar, and a gingerade kombucha. The movie depressed me more than I already was. I might never have unsafe sex again. Hell, I may never have sex again. I'm worried I aspirated some food into my lungs. Just had to throw that in. David Berkowitz invented safe sex in the early eighties as a response to AIDS. People thought he was crazy. Being gay meant you never had to use a condom. He also thinks that hiv is not the only factor that causes aids which leads him to classified as quack by some. He was an S/M hustler too. But he doesn't really want to focus on that. He gets really defensive talking about hustling and drugs at first but eventually opens up about it. Micheal Callen talks lists all of the STDs he's had and it's like every STD in existence and it's a little too close to home. I wince, I cringe. Syphillis, gonorheraa, shingella, giardia, claymidia-I can't spell them, but I know there horrible. He thinks having all of these diseases, taking antibotics, taking drugs, drinking, lack of sleep etc have led him and other gay to contracting AIDS. They call it the multi-theory factor which nobody in the mainstream believes in. When I walk out of the theatre I see Kyle. I'm already depressed, I don't that. But I don't think he saw me. He turned the corner on valencia otherwise I would have said hi to him even though he hasn't returned my call from three years ago. The last one where I said, kyle I can't believe you're not going to call me back. And he didn't. He looked very adult like. He must be like twenty-four now. He looks smart and employed and purposeful. Happy maybe. Then I'm thinking about how the last time I saw him on the street and how that was the last straw-I had to get out of san francisco. It was in the castro on 17th just past cala foods. I was walking with jeff and there he was walking past us. It just a flash but there he was. He was laughing I think. It felt like he was laughing at me. But maybe he was just happy to see me. It was a flash. He didn’t say hello. I looked back and he was laughing I think. Laughing at me for walking, for existing? Yes, I'm still existing even though you never called me back. I don't know, why but I know I just wanted to lay down and cry right then. But why? He's just a boy and so I am and if he wants to laugh or think that I'm a loser because I kept dropping my speech class well does it really matter? So now I'm in oakland. But I can't blame kyle. He went to stanford, he can't help but be an elitist cow.

mr. clump clump

My father drives some kind of Plymouth that was produced for about two years. It's gray, a hatchback. So economical. Frugal, not cheap-that's what he calls his lifestyle. I call it cheap ass cheap. We're driving to meet my Mom at the Bills Dollar Store parking lot in Ringgold-the mid-way point between Coushatta and Minden. This happens every Friday night-I escape from living with this sad clump of life called my father and enter the more lively but still troublesome world of my mother's house. I put Boy George's single The Crying Game into the cassette player. We whizzing by all the staples of Coushatta life on Highway 71. The Piggly Wiggly, The Dollar Store, Fausto's Fried Chicken, the Cheverolet dealership, a few gas stations, the Dairy Queen, the nursing home, the motel-but whoever stays there, I can't imagine. I ask him if he likes the song. I tell him it's Boy George. He says, if it's radical, you're all for it. You got that right. I'm bringing the Crying Game to Coushatta like it or not, Sag Bag. Of course, I know Boy George is far from radical, but there's no telling that to Mr. Clump Clump. We're out of the strip now, thirty miles to go to Minden. There's lots of pines trees and pastures along the way, cows and broken down farmhouses, long abandoned stores waiting for a fire and time, time, time. God, just step on it. I'm counting down the minutes now. I'm always counting down the minutes until this will all be over. We ride mostly in silence but sometimes we have political conversations. Never religious ones cuz he goes ballistic when I question his beyond scary beliefs. He thinks Boy George is radical from his early eighties days. But he has no idea about The Crying Game. First there are kisses, then there are tears. Jaye Davidson is cute, that's what I'm thinking about in my silence. I can't imagine what he's thinking about. Finally, we make it to the parking lot and there's my mom in her car waiting for us and what an amazing yet most likely momentary feeling of relief. I have escaped yet again. Drive like hell, lady.

skipping

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class

In the seventh grade is when I accept that I'm into other guys dicks. This is the year when they seem to be everywhere at school. Hard and soft, black and brown-that's right, none of the white boys were showing off- they're popping out all over the place and my eyes are glued to the spectacle. Most classes are a free for all where the teachers can only pretend to be in control. I don't think learning ever really entered into anyone's mind. We were off the streets and getting fed and that was enough. It was non-stop acting-up, cutting-up, beating-up, and yes, getting it up. In Science class, Richard is the most ready to get it up and I'm all too eager to encourage him. Maybe we don't even have a teacher at this point. Mrs. Leggit got fired-maybe for wearing slutty clothes-and then Mrs. Jones comes out of retirement to "teach" us, but I think there was a lag. I use my friend Joey as a ruse. Richard, Joey wants to see your pubic hair. He's all grin and instantly hard in his lose fitting pajama-style pants. He comes over, pants lowered just enough to show of his tight, neat black pubic hair. Joey's all giggles, screaming no, no! But I know she wants to see it as much as me. Show her your cock! But he doesn't and I'm so disappointed. At least I'll have good masturbation material this afternoon when I get home from school.

sleep

All during the time I live in the matchbox house, I'm afraid to sleep by myself. Or at least from age four to fourteen. i can fall asleep in my bed as long as someone is awake in the house. Usually my father stays up to watch the ten o'clock news. And maybe my sister stays up writing in her diary. That's before she moved out. But I always wake up in the middle of the night, scared to close my eyes for too long. Or even worse-I don't fall asleep at all. I'm dreading the night as the TV is turned off and everything gets dark. Sometimes I pretend I'm sick so that my father will let me sleep in his bed. Having a sore throat works for a while, but one night he's just not having. There I am next to his bed telling him that I have a sore throat but really meaning that I need to get in your bed if I'm going to get any sleep. But tonight he doesn't understand, he thinks I've really got a sore throat and that it needs to be treated. Into the kitchen we go, bright lights, looking down my throat, yelling. Is there a flashlight involved? He has a stash of antibiotic samples because his boss's brother is doctor and because he's paranoid. He wants to give me an antibiotic for my sore throat. I don't want to take the antibiotic and then I'm crying. I just want to go to sleep. I won't take the antibiotic which means I'm lying about the sore throat which means I have to go back to my bed. For now anyway, maybe I can sneak back into his bed without him noticing. Fuck antibiotics, give me a sleeping pill! Maybe it's hereditary. My Mom was like that when she was a child and my uncle too. Now I can't sleep any other way than alone.

make my day

Technotronic's Pump Up the Jam is my favorite song to dance to in the seventh grade. This was before I discovered Tina Turner, but that's a whole different story. And it's before my Dad comes home, otherwise he would get pissed about me having my door closed and playing loud music. Oh, the things I did when that motherfucker wasn't there. I mean, I really cranked it. I would dance until I was sweaty and exhausted. I think there was a lot of bent over head banging. Not that Technotronic makes head-banging music, but it just feels good. Nobody would think I was a good dancer. I mean I probably wasn't a good dancer but I wanted to dance, I wanted to move, and people would have trouble believing even that. But I work hard at it. Make my make my ma-ake my day. Then I feel better. It's another small way of being connected to the rest of the world. Thank you Technotronic.

It's a red brick house in a dead-end all-white neighborhood just off of highway 7. We're in the low-rent section of the neighborhood closest to the highway. The bigger houses with the kids who go to private school are farther back. A matchbox with three bedrooms, it's badly designed. The door off the carport leads into the kitchen. White linoleum floors with an abstract pattern of black squiggly lines. Pink formica counter tops and some shiny-looking wooden cabinets. Girl, I'm ready to puke. There's a door to the left that goes directly into my father's room or one straight ahead which leads into the living/dining room and that's where things really get ugly. Forrest green shag carpeting and gold yellow walls, what were they thinking? It's a big room divided by a wood burning stove-that's for heating not cooking, it's cheaper than central heating. And I guess he likes to make fires, but I don't think he likes to chop wood. Linoleum floors, some pale orange color in the rest of the house including the bedrooms and ugly wooden sliding doors round out the full-on ugliness factor of the house. My father says the man who built it, built for a woman but she said it wasn't good enough and left the man, so he sold it. My father finds it dumbfounding that the woman thought it wasn't good enough, but I understand completely. But the mortgage is one hundred and thirty-three dollars a month, so hey. I wonder if I'll inherit it? And if I do what will I do with it? Go back and remodel it and reclaim my past? No I'll just sell it. There used to be five giant pine trees in the front yard by the street, but he cuts them down because he's worried about the roots messing with the water line. He's always worried. I was always afraid to sleep by myself in that house.

hill castle

The truth is my whole life is dependent on credit. Without my credit cards and student loans life as I know it would be over. But I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. I'm worried about running out of cash before I get my student loan money when the fall semester starts so I use my credit card to buy groceries. The cute one, the one with the reproduction of the impressionist painting "Paris: A Rainy Day." And that's fitting because that painting captures the time of the rise of consumerism. People say, I like your credit card and I say thanks. I can hardly take a walk without having a shopping goal in mind. And if I don't find something, anything, then it feels like a waste of time. That's why walking to Whole Foods is always a good option. I can always find something in that dump.

The fireworks are starting, it must be the forth of july. My neighbor, the one who can't call herself gay or even bi, even though she did have a relationship with a woman for six years, invites me to the roof to watch the fireworks with her friend from the east coast. They're both psych nurses. Scary, I say. What's really scary is that she's sixty and has absolutely no wrinkles. I didn't even know we could go on the roof. Isn't the roof slanted? This is a tudor style building after all but I guess the key word is style. The slant is just an effect, it's all flat on top. I can't believe I've never been up here. I adore rooftops. The views, the privacy. I'm way more excited about the rooftop than the fireworks. I mean I'm not at all excited about the fireworks but I'm trying to be friendly. More people arrive to enjoy the spectacle. We think we might have to hit the ground because of the errant rockets being fired from other roofs.

neopolitan

i don't want to get out of bed. Nothing's wrong exactly, but ain't nothing right either. i don't want to be this person today. i want to wake up in a different body, or at least better clothes. i don't have anything to wear. never nothing to wear except rubber band bracelets. I think about good intentions, about living in the moment, but instead I keep wallowing in old memories. I know I'll feel better once I get up, but still that's not enough motivation. When I finally get on the street after three hours of moving towards presentable, that's when I feel good, feel alive, feel okay. It's just walking. Walking to the station, waiting, sitting, riding. These things I can do.
Rahim tells me I'm autistic, but he's an arrogant a-hole from hell. He's all cheerful about it. It's a good thing, you can get help, there's drugs you can take. He not serious, but he is serious about me taking drugs to be normal. To rise to his level of normalcy. I'm socially retarded, but not autistic, there's a difference. He thinks he's got me all figured out. Why? Because he went to Davis and before that Berkeley and now he's a lawyer so he should be able to figure me out. But now I'm thinking maybe I am somewhere in the austism spectrum. Asperger's syndrome, anyone? I read an article about in the newspaper and convince myself that I have it even though the paper doesn't really list the symptoms but apparently a lot people have it. I rush to the library and look for books about autism and then I feel silly and I know I don't have it. I'm just broken. Are there any drugs for that?

rituals

There is a point in the seventh grade when I think about suicide. I get all after-school special-y about it. This is something that teenagers go through. I ask Tara if she ever thinks about. I'm trying to stand out amongst the rednecks and hillbillies with my depression - suicide is so urban and sophisticated. Being alone inside the house after school before my father comes home, I can process the horrors of the day. After escaping the last possible opportunity for harassment for the day, getting off the school bus, now I'm ready for my breakdown. I take out the serrated kitchen knife and run it across my wrists. It's the isolation, I can't breathe. I know I won't do it, but take comfort in the option. And as long as I have the option I can keep going. I know my existence doesn't have to be like this, but I'm trapped for now. I take a few sips of my father's vodka to be dramatic. I was never into getting drunk even back then, but apparently I am into wallowing in my misery. It's the fear, never being able to relax, never feeling safe. Sitting on linoleum floor in the kitchen, leaning against wooden cabinets, wanting to hide, to disappear, I put the knife down. The insanity of being harassed and never fighting back, hiding it, being ashamed of it, never talking about it to anyone is hurting me. I'm living two lives now, both bleak. There's no help, no hope, not even a glimmer. Sometimes I pray before I go to sleep that when I woke up in the morning everything that I have known to be my life will actually have been just a dream. TV helps. I watch Oprah everyday after school. I put a frozen burrito in the microwave before the show starts. I eat a Little Debbie snack cake while I wait for my burrito to be done. I drink nothing but coca-cola, day after day. I take my burrito to the living room and eat it in a blur of gagging despair while I watch Oprah.