Mr. Rosenberg, I said, I need to stay away from work one more week, the doctor told me so, --and my fever is going to get worse not better in a few days. I had two molars pulled and my face is like a balloon, I hope this is all right? Im sure he heard all the stories in the world for not wanting to come to work, but I was too simply minded back then to produce such a good lie.
Sure, he said, and that was that. But of course I knew it would be with no pay. But what could you do.
I arrived back on Market Street and Collingswood where the dojo was, within the hour, but I didnt go to the dojo, I went to the bar. There was Ted and Joe, and the elder husband and wife team, the Palaces. Everyone greeted me with high spirits, and Joe came over saying, The party is tonight Chick, coming? I was low on funds so I said, sure, and he gave me the address. It was 5:00 PM already, a long day to say the least. So I left the bar and went to another one up the street on t he corner and sat and drank. I had not been in this one before, it was a different crowd.
As a few hours passed sitting at the bar an avalanche of people came in, one big guy with several of his friends. He had not been there long when he caught my eye. If anything I had good senses. He was trouble. Joe had told me the party started at 7:30 PM and that is what time it was, but I did not want to get there too early. So I got up and went to the bathroom, the big man hit my shoulders a bit, Watch were you going Mister, he told me. I looked at him, You hit me, not me you, whats your beef
So I did, I just dont like you.
I know you dont, but do what you think you can, right here
No outside he said.
Well, if thats the case how about me going up to the dojo and getting my friends, just like you have, and then well go out side. You got your protection all around you I see. He didnt like that comment.
Ill see you out side Mister.
As I e xpected; I then went to the bathroom, and back to the bar, had two more beers, and then called a cab to take me to Joes house. He lived a ways from this area, by Telegraph Hill, where Coit Towers was, I liked the area, and the Tower, with all its surrounded shrubbery, and its lording over the hill.
When I lived in St. Paul, I never seem to have to go very far to get drunk or find a bar, we had two neighborhood bars, and St. Paul, was only about 240,000 people compared to this big city. But I liked it.
I knocked on the door, Joe opened it, Haw, its you, come on in my young good looking stud. My eyebrow went up: --thinking what is he talking about. He grabbed me by the arm and showed me around his apartment; when he got to the bedroom, he said If you need to use it later you knowwwwwhere I am. I got the message, but not the desire.
Odd I thought why is he talking that way. It was every one from the bar at his house, and there was Ted, tall and lanky, w ith a half serious smile. Joe was the heavy set one, jolly and in slow motion for the most part. As the night went on I was getting drunk and eating oysters one after the other. I was really hungry. I was getting the impression Joe thought Id get so drunk hed get me into his bed. But I assured myself this would not happen; I memorized the cab companys phone number.
In those days, I never knew who was who, but I was getting my senses to tell me they were not heterosexual bar tenders, yet, I feared to say anything in case I was wrong, but how wrong can a person be, I mean he was coming on to me; yet back home, us guys goofed off with on another while and after drinking, no big thing. We did some pretty out of sight things, but no one carried it to the bedroom level. Finally, I told Ted and Joe, and the rest of the folk at the party I had to go. I had eaten two dozen of them boiled oysters, which I had never eaten before, and drank about ten beers along with the be er I had prior to arriving. I think I was drinking myself sober. It was 2:00 AM in the morning.
Joe called the cab and as I got my ride back to the house, I could taste those oysters throughout my whole body. In the morning I felt sick, and every thing I did I tasted oysters. For the rest of the week, I had that oyster taste reeking out of my pours along with the beer, but I was over my fever, and the red mark on my neck had gone away.
Chapter Four
Dolores Street
One always knows when things need to change. The winters in San Francisco were not like Minnesota by far, but I knew it was creeping in, and I had to leave the Latin families hospitality. When I conveyed this to the boy, George he had a tear in his eye. I was never really sad in San Francisco, but I knew Id miss him. Part of you stays behind in such cases. I never did beat him in chess. George knew as well as I, when the frost and dampness came in a little more, I would be getting s ick if I did not find another place. I had an idea, there were rooms for rent in many of the huge mansions on Dolores Street, and I liked the street besides. It was a bit frightening to start all over again to find a place to lay my head; this was going on number three, of the five times I would move. Once at my friends when I had first arrived in San Francisco, across the bay, then the hotel downtown San Francisco; the dojo, and now the Latin family, and hopefully Id find something on Dolores Street, in the near future.
As I walked up and down the lovely Dolores Street I found a mansion, I stared at it. Leroy, an elder man of about forty from the bar had told me about this one, it just dawned on me, and he did odd jobs for people up and down this street. He drinks at Sammies, matter of fact, about three weeks ago one night he and I had sat outside, and he gave me his life story. He seemed to like me to. I really wanted to get away from him, he looked as if he could be dangerous, but nothing happened, and he was a good conversationalist. I looked in my wallet, yup, sure enough, 206 East Dolores Street, here I am; --I kind of knew I might be using this number, but was not financially ready. I wanted to pay Goesi back for all the money he lent me, and for my karate lessons he was putting on a tab. He said an old woman had just bought the house, a retired Colonel from the Wax, the female branch of the Army. Her name was Dorothy Hamburg.
As I knocked on her door, an elder white haired woman came to the entrance,
She said:
How can I help you?
Miss Hamburg I said, and she commented Yes, with a surprising look to her eyebrows. She was well kept for an older woman, but must have been in her fifties, about 56, 130 lbs, stern looking, sold built; kept her posture erect as she looked at me, and she seemed to look you straight in the eyes, no fear, just assurance, no insecurity in her direction.
A mutu al friend of ours, Henry from the bar in the Castro area told me you might have a room for rent.
Yes, Henry has done some work here, and just who are you?
I am Chick
Yes, yes, I remember Henry saying you might be looking for a place to stay; youre from Minnesota, and do the karate thing up in Castro. Is that right?
Yes, and I work for Lilli Ann.
Thats good, you have a job. Well I can show you the room, it is not too big, and you will have to share the bathroom with whoever moves into the big room across from you. Both your room and that big room have the bathroom between them, so you will have to share.
I dont mind sharing. She then took me in and showed me the room, it was about 150-square feet, and the big room was about 200 square feet.
Well, she said, What room do you want?
How much are they, I asked.
The small room is $15.00 a week, and the big one is $20. If you want room and board, it is $25.00 a week. I had j ust got back to work, and surprisingly, the whole 200-people that worked on the three floors within the building and across the street in another one floor building, Mr. Shuman owned, took up a collection, and gave me $70.00, a weeks pay.
I can pay for two weeks right now if that is ok, and pay you every two weeks, I told her.
That will do, --and just when do you want to move in.
Today. She smiled, Ok, that sounds fine, and I handed her the money.
٭
I didnt own much and so it was a simple matter of collecting the few things I had, which I would do, and bringing them back, by way of walking; --for it was only about a mile away between the house I had been living in and my new apartment. She then gave me a key, and showed my room on the second floor.
As you went up the winding stairway--which the railing was made of varnished oak--you almost could walk into my room, just shift to the right about two feet; ----to the left of me was the big room, and across from that by the stairway, was even a smaller room, maybe one hundred-square feet total, all three had beds in them.
Then she took me to the attic, where a man and his girlfriend lived, the woman was pregnant lying down by the chimney on a mattress. It was huge, the attic; they paid $40.00 a month for it, and were on the third floor. The chimney went right through their living space and through the roof like a rocked. They had mattresses all over. I guess they had been there when the old lady bought the place some six months ago. Jane, the pregnant woman told me the person who was living in my room before me was a young man going to school to become a doctor. He had one night parked his car in the garage and the carbonados had killed him. Jane looked a little like being art of the hippie scene. Jane explained she was unmarried, but had a lover named Phillip.
Jane and I took a liking to one another right away, Phillip I would find o ut would be gone most of the time, and when not gone he was high on pot, laying about, or out riding around town with his friend Lance.
Dorothy took me downstairs to the basement, there was a huge fire place down there, it was like out of a Frankenstein movie, I loved it. I knew by looking at it, I would be spending sometime down here in the near future, drinking and resting. Then she showed me two huge dogs German Shepards. They were wild looking; she kept them tied up in her back open area, which must had been used before as a small court yard, which had high cemented sides so the dogs could not jump out. They barked at me. But I walked into the lions-den none the less, and touch them, and for some reason they did not attack me. I touched them again; --Dorothy was so impressed she told me I could feed them and run them everyday if I wanted. That she could not even get near them anymore. I simply did not show any fear. Either out of stupidly or some kind of a nimal sense I must have displayed.
Chapter Five
The Fillmore West & the Indian Maid
I just left the Fillmore West, I didnt stay long, I wanted to see the concert, but after stepping over two or three dozen bodies sprawled out in all direction in the theater, blocking the door ways, some sitting on top of others, others laying down, drinking alcohol, smoking pot all in another world, --yet I got through the mess, right up to the bandstand, in spite of the odds. I seen the Turtles playing, yet they were foggy to say the least. I must have been fifteen-feet in front of them; I heard the song Sound Asleep, a little on the wild-eyed grab-bag psychedelic side; --then Elenore, a little satire for the bones. The vocalists sounded good, but I just really never new much of the group. Then the song came, That will be the Day, I knew that one for some odd reason, and after that, It Ante me Babe, kind of a schizoid aspect to it.
Henry, a friend of mind told me about the Turtles, to be quite honest, otherwise I would not have know them, although I had heard a few of their songs on the radio.
Henry left for LA a few days ago after almost hitting another car with his van. Henry was on heroin all the time; --no, not all the time, often hed get high for three or four days, go puke his guts out, and walk a straight line for a week or two, then go back into the same routine. Getting back to that van, it chased us for an hour around San Francisco, I think --now that I think about it, Henry did hit the side mirror off the guys car. But we got away.
I walked across the street from the Fillmore West, where there was a bar, and so I went in, sat at the bar, and ordered a glass of beer. To my left was a women, she looked a little older than I; say about twenty-four or so. She had long black hair, thin, dark eyes; for some odd reason I thought Minnesota was the only state that had all the Indian tribes around. My neighborhood had one family of Indians to it, the St. Clairs; I used to date one, the younger one named Jackie. Not sure why it didnt work out, but it didnt, she was cute, thin and nice eyes. That was a few years back though, maybe when I was fifteen.
Buy me a drink my young good looking friend. She asked, and then sat down besides me.
Sure, why not, what you drinking?
Whisky and coke, with a beer chaser, the coke on the rocks, and the whisky on the side, She new exactly what she wanted, that was for sure.
As the night lingered on, she ordered a few more rounds.
You like Indians, she asked me.
I like pretty girls with black hair and dark eyes, and you fit the bill. She smiled, Wheres your apartment? she asked.
Not far from here, lets go, I said.
First lets get a six pack of beer to go. I agreed, and bought the beer, and had the bartender call us a cab. It was going on 12:30 AM.
The Thief
As we got to the apartment, we wal ked up to my room quietly not to disturb the Colonel, she somewhat frowned on anyone bringing in strays. Then as we opened and shut the door, Joan, my new Indian-date, was in bed quicker than I could shake a stick, her cloths left on the floor; she looked very comfortable in my bed, too comfortable.
You come? She commented.
Need to take a leak, be out in a minute, I ended. As I opened the door she was moving about in the bed trying to get situated. I had left my pants on the floor. I picked them up and put them on the chair by the door when I came back out, then jumped into bed. She quickly grabbed my dick and moved it every which way to get it hard, and then she positioned it to go into her opening. We had intercourse for about twenty-minutes, and I was bushed, too tired to go on, and fell quickly to sleep.
4:00 AM
Whats that, I asked myself, I tried to focus my eyes, I seen a shadow by the chair, I looked beside me and Joan was gone, then I tu rned the light on, she had my wallet in her hand. She quickly dropped it.
I need money, just a little.
You need a kick in the ass, I jumped out of bed and she covered her face. She had her pants on already, and shirt, only her jacket was left to be put on, I grabbed her jacket and threw it at her.
You got four minutes to get the f*ck out of my sight, or Ill kick your ass all the way down the stairs and out.
Please, I need the money I put my pants on, and started toward her, I was outraged. She quickly opened the door, grabbing her jacket tighter at the same time, ran down the stairs and out the door. I watched her walk down Dolores Street, trying to tidy herself up.
Whos out there, said the Colonel.
Its just me, I needed some air.
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
Author:: Dennis Siluk
Keywords:: Chapters
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