 |
|
 |
OVER WITH
I'm outside the second story men's room of the lifeguard tower on Pacific Beach. Three boys around fourteen are posing by the boardwalk with their boogie boards and chatting up two girls around twelve. After the girls sidle off, one boy nonchalantly says, "I think I'm going to be into her pants pretty soon. Maybe next weekend."
His buddy asks, "So, are you in love with her or anything?" He squints at the surf and says, "Nah, I just want to fuck her and get it over with, you know?
OBSH
I'm writing and copping rays in the rock coves between Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs. About a dozen high school boys are drinking beer, pissing, and talking trash on the riprap below. One of them is incredulous, "You'd take pussy over beer?"
The other one, sensing a putdown coming, mumbles something. The other says, "Oh man. Anybody who'd take panocha over a beer...Look, you have a few beers, what do you do? Go out, raise hell, have fun. You get laid, what do you do? Lie there, probably go to sleep--it's all over. You gotta get your priorities straight, homeboy." I look down at a bunch of blond crewcuts. Somebody has painted "Ocean Beach Shit Heads" on the cliff above the rocks.
WHAT KIND OF FOOL?
They're sitting across from me on the San Ysidro Trolley; a hard, hip-looking young Mexican and an even younger Chicano who'd like to be hip. They're mostly talking about running drugs across the border. They are halfway across the Rio Tijuana foot bridge before the Mexican says, "What would you think of somebody smuggling heroin INTO Mexico?" The kid laughs and says that would take some kind of a fool. He reaches into the pocket of his Pendleton shirt and pulls out a half-dozen foil-wrapped packets and says, "Well, you're talking to a total fool, Cabron." I'm as surprised as the kid, but his explanation make perfect sense: buying smack in TJ can put you up against some real major assholes, wholesale outlet people, dangerous and unpleasant. On the other hand, you can get small quantities cheaper and easier from any old homey in Barrio Logan. So he picks a little up for his cuates whenever he's across. He stands on the bridge, pointing to the "pollos" waiting to cross. "I've seem two guys walk out there and talk into radios, then the "Migra" just split while two trucks drive across. It's big business, Compa. Coming this way is chump change."
OF THE LATEX KIND
The graffito in Soho said, "What to do in case of Alien Encounters.
1. Don't make eye contact.
2. Don't many ANY contact.
A puce-haired punkette pointed it out to her friend and said, "And if you do, for God's sake use a condom."
OF THE KIND KIND
A cutie-face AIDS poster boy in a jumper, talking to a friend in front of Blue Door Books, "It's just the kindest place, but a little cruizey."
RAM TOUGH
I'm sitting in the TV room at the joint at Donovan hoping all the little crips and creeps want to watch football instead of Hip-Hop Heaven or something. An older black, new on the block, comes in and asks if they're going to watch the Rams' game. A gang-banger yells, "Shit no, Fuck them Rams." The man smiles and says, "You must be from LA."
The kid comes back with, "Mother-fucking right, I'm an eight trey gangster." (An obvious lie.) His buddy says, "We felony niggers, Pops. Be watchin' some Raiders is what."
CODDLED MASSES
They're fairly yup, Del Martians sitting at outside tables at Neptune's. She asks him something, he laughs and says, "What can you expect from a city that keep Mexicans out at gunpoint, but lets New Yorkers just come in and start up as they please?"
MORDIDA
Some rich young married Tijuanenses are entertaining out-of-town guests at "Free Day". They're talking about crime and the local women are indignant about the lack of action on rapes. One says, "Lots of police stations won't even let a woman REPORT a rape."
The guy with her shrugs and says, "That's because the PRI hasn't yet figured out a way to take a cut."
WHITE BOY GETS BLUE
I never saw them. Two young guys came and went while I was sitting in a stall in the public restroom at the Imperial Beach pier. They were going to a party with a bit of tradition.
"So anyway he got some 'good' heroin for a change and OD'd so bad he turned blue and his heart stopped."
"Holy shit? How'd he live through that?"
"I guess a friend came over, with his old lady, and they knew what to do. They walked him around and stood him up in a cold shower. When he got worse, they shoved ice cubes up his ass."
"No way!. Up his ass?"
"Well it worked, right? So now he celebrates not dying by having this party every year."
"Righteous."
"And you'll see--all the ice cubes will be the round kind."
SHARPER IMAGE YET
I'm cheating the breeze with some coffee on the glassed-in patio of the Surfer on Pacific Beach. A nice looking couple (very Banana Republic) are having a few Coronas while she does something on a laptop computer. The guy at the next table (International Male meets Wall Street with Vuarnets) with the "dress for success" corporate cutie and artlessly displayed cellular phone leans over with a knowing masculine heartiness and asks, "How many 'K's' you got?"
The chick knocks it out of the park. She gives him a long look, looks back at the computer and says, "Well there's a little one and capital one." then ignores him.
He makes the mistake of telling the MBAette something about laptops being for peripheral people who don't interface the full technology. The guy at the computer woman's table doesn't even look at him, just tells her, "Those pocket phones are so sad. It's like having some sort of electronic leash. Or a sign around your neck that says you can't even go to the beach without being at somebody's beck and call."
The necktie guy is stunned. You can almost hear something inside whining, "No, no--this is a power symbol." The briefcase'n'Reeboks chick chuckles. The computer woman can't pass up the coup de dis and says, "What would piss me off is a guy taking me out to a restaurant and making it obvious that he'd interrupt our conversation to talk to any nitwit that can get his hands on a telephone."
SHORT EYES AND T's
Two grungy beach "trolls" are sitting on the boardwalk wall in front of the Mission Beach lifeguard station, facing away from the beach. So am I. A stream of very young girls is rinsing off under the shower, the cold water tightening their nipples under thin suits. One of them says, "You're right, bro. This is the place to park."
The other says, "Yeah, on weekends you've got to get here early to get a seat." You do, too.
BLUE HEAVEN
She's about fifteen, a non-descript street drifter, and very determined as she goes around the downtown taping up Xeroxed posters. The posters have a guy's name on them, and a picture of herself, younger and cuter. They say "Remember me?" and remind the kid of how they met last summer and had such fun in San Diego. "I've thought about you a lot and can't wait to see you again. And guess what? We have a darling baby that would love to see her daddy." There are instructions on how to get in touch with her. She puts them up all over the center city, but they don't stay up more than a week or two.
EQUALITY TO BURN
They're sitting in the bar side of Croce's, typical executive hitter and femfox ballbreaker swapping licks. She's been on him all night with a bunch of standard Libspeak putdowns (though she looks dressed for heavy man-trolling). He's putting up with it for some reason, but finally he finishes his drink just as she says that men seem to think sensitivity is something you can buy at a bookstore. He gives her a gentle, understanding smile and says, "We're more sensitive than you think. It's just that men's emotions are kind of complex for you sperm ditches to understand." People at three other tables laugh, then really crack up when she jumps up to flounce off and drops her purse all over the floor.
NOTES FROM THE UNDERDOG
This hand-scrawled note by somebody called Roger G. was crammed behind a seat on Route 2 bus.
How to act normal
1. Put on clothes in morning
2. Try to cover your face with towel, so you won't scare people
3. Move your neck; so people will know you're alive
4. Wash your hair; we have enough Italians as it is
Remember:
1. You are Human
2. You are a man as far as we know and the doctors know
3. You have rights, but not as much as humans
4. You are not dead, even though you act like it
Tell yourself:
1. I will not attack dogs when they are in heat
2. I can walk down a staircase
3. I'm not gay; I just run funny
4. I'll try my hardest to speak English
