I couldn't wait to stretch my legs after sitting in that tiny car which had been our home for the past month. Bell parked her car and turned the motor off. The four of us looked at each other and sighed. Our heads were still buzzing from the two day car ride from Colorado. Bell giggled a little bit and asked: "Are we ready?" I laughed to myself and thought, "Good question, I know I'd been ready for two days, I just don't know what for, and after all I was just along for the ride." I don't know why we sat there as long as we did, maybe we were all reflecting on our journey or maybe we were just too tired. Karen, who couldn't appreciate the meaning of stillness if her life depended on it, jumped out of the car with the notion that we would follow, as if she were the new found leader. I couldn't wait to be rid of her and her stupid little ferret. She just had to bring the ferret. The only thing preventing me from throwing that little finger biter into traffic was that it was potential food. Ah, food. I could smell it coming from the shops down the hill. That was motivation enough for me to get out of the car.
I started off down the hill toward Haight Street, leaving my companions behind. I did this a lot, and they were used to it by then. I didn't like hanging out with these girls much. I got along well with Bell and Jessica for the most part, but they were consumed by their new found relationship and too wrapped up with one another to acknowledge the rest of the world. Karen, on the other hand, was a wet blanket so I tried my best to ignore her.
About a block away I found a Mexican restaurant. I paid for my burrito and sat down at a table so I could see the street. As I sat there eating and watching people walk by, I was approached by a pretty young girl who asked me for a dollar. Her blond hair was dirty and knotted and I noticed bruises and red marks on her arms. I told her I didn't have anything to give. I had a hundred dollars in my pocket but I still had a long trip ahead of me. She sat on the stool next to mine and stared at the floor. She seemed out of it like she was starting to come down from whatever drug she was on. Thinking about her addiction made my stomach turn, but that was the way things were here. And I had learned from experience that it's unwise to extend a hand of generosity in public. That would surely attract a con artist, so I kept eating my burrito, wondering how long she would sit there staring at the floor. After a short time, she got up and dragged herself out the door. As the years went on, I was starting to grow cold and desensitized to scenes like that, and besides, I was enjoying my visit in San Francisco and I wanted to take in every aspect, good or bad.
I always wanted to see Haight Street or "The Haight" as it is often called. This was the happening place in the 60's. It inspired poetic writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Watts, and musicians like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. It gave birth to 1967's summer of love. These were stories told to me by my elders, and remnants of that generation were still present. It was now mid September 1997. Phish had just ended their summer tour and it was two years after the Grateful Dead stopped touring due to the death of Jerry Garcia. As a result, when it was all over, the followers of these two bands came home to Haight Street, where it all began, a type of pilgrimage. A massive displacement of groupies over ran the Haight. And there I was, witnessing the tail end of something that started thirty years ago.
I finished eating and headed back to where I left the girls. It was getting close to sunset and I wanted to see if they had figured out where we would sleep that night. That was an easy answer while we were traveling on the interstate, because in the eye of the general public, we were simply weary travelers, but on an urban side street we were vagrants. I was really hoping we would find a place to sleep indoors. I had had my fair share of bridges and parks.
Bell and Jessica were wrestling each other when I returned. Watching them was amusing but I had to interrupt. "Do we know where we're sleeping tonight?" They ignored me as usual and continued wrestling. I had a lot of faith in Jessica out here on the road. She understood the streets better than anyone I had ever traveled with. She seemed to know all the ins and outs. She was the best spanger I ever saw. One time she hit me up for twenty dollars, and I declined at first, but when she said she would pay me back by the end of the day, I got curious. I tried to hand her the twenty and she told me that I had to buy her the stuff she wanted. I was puzzled by this, but I was still game. She walked with me to the door and told me she'd wait for me out side. I bought the stuff and on my way out the door I saw her working her stuff. People were amused by her antics, she didn't just ask for change, she played with them, she made them laugh, she seemed to read people well, and she always knew who not to mess with. After seeing this, I had no doubts about her paying me back. It took a few more stops but she did pay me back by the end of the day.
Jessica and Bell took a break from wrestling each other, and Jessica asked me, "Do you want to stay in a hotel tonight?" I said, "You know I do." "How in the world did she hook that up?" I wondered. I wasn't thrilled about the plan; Bell was going to meet us there after she gave a couple kids a ride some place while Jessica and I, along with Karen, met up with five other street kids who had been driving around in a stolen Ryder truck. That was the first thing that bothered me. The other thing that bothered me was our destination, which was Oakland. I was a little uneasy about going to Oakland after dark to rent a forty dollar room at a hotel that would let us split the cost nine ways, and allow three dogs and a ferret. That could mean only one thing: bad neighborhood. But what the hell, it beats sleeping in the park.
I liked this group of kids we were with; they had a pleasant nature about them. I had met Patches and Tweedle in Fargo, North Dakota about five months earlier. Karen had a thing for Patches, and the first thing she did when we arrived in San Francisco was track him down. Thank God for suckers because he was stuck with her now. Tweedle was disgruntled and angry, so I didn't talk to him much. I didn't talk to Rubix much either, because he fell asleep as soon as we got there. Jay and Wingnut, however, were pleasant company. We hit it off pretty well when they saw I kept a journal. Jay kept one too. Jay was the motherly type; she had a soft voice that carried with it a sense of concern for her people. She was in her mid twenties but she looked so young that you couldn't tell. Wing nut had a mean look to him, but once you started talking to him you knew he was just fine. Talking to them I learned a great deal more about this culture. They told me how they came from abusive homes and the things they went through when they got here. After hearing their stories I felt even more out of place.
When I finally lay down to go to sleep I couldn't help but think about all these kids, why they were here, and what they were running away from. The streets are tough, most people know that. Until you see it firsthand you can't fully appreciate the trials these kids face day after day. And unless you live it, you will never know what really goes on here.
New street kids were called virgins and although they had support from the experienced street kids, they were still expected to make their own way. To do that, you needed money to make it through the ranks. You could tell which kids were experienced; they made their money by selling things like drugs, glass pipes, hemp jewelry, and any other thing that might be needed by a street kid. I saw one kid drop a duffle bag on the ground by a group of his peers and unzip it; the bag over flowed with cigarette packs. He must have had three hundred packs easy, and at two dollars a pack that bag was empty in roughly fifteen minutes. He knew what he was doing. A few days later I witnessed the same thing in Portland. This is where every street kid wanted to be. Making money the easy way and making it fast. The virgins on the other hand, had it rough. They could spange for cash but that was only good for a meal and didn't really improve their existence in this place. They could steal or run drugs, amongst other things that did not require a capital investment, like prostitution, the one thing that bothered me the most. I had seen the fancy new Cadillacs with tinted windows stopping on the street to let a street kid get out. And I had seen them get picked up. That's the way it was; corruption is not restricted to any one class of people and sometimes they mix.
I tried to understand their position in life, but I'm not one of them. I arrived here by car, fully aware of my intensions for being here. I was secure in the fact that I had a way home and I had a home with family who loved me and treated me well. These kids were lost to the world they were born into. This was their new world, far better than the last. They abandoned one cruel world for another, but it was a cruel world; one to which they could relate, a world that would take them in and accept them for the sole purpose of exploiting them. These were the ingredients that gave birth to the Manson family. I saw more than I could stomach in that city.
Six years later to the month, far away from San Francisco, I laid my infant son down for a nap. The house was quiet and a breeze made its way through the windows. I lay down on the couch to clear my head and I started to daydream. I thought about those kids on Haight Street. I always worried about them, and I'd often pray for their safety, but on this day I missed them. Suddenly I felt the hardness of my heart grow soft. All the times I turned away or disregarded a person's plight came back to me. All those years of traveling came home to me.
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