On a day off, I like to stay in my room, alone. No interaction with anyone except the dog. Solitude makes any day a good day.

It means there's nothing to write about, though, so for lack of anything interesting, I'll present some memories from a corner of my past where I don't usually like to loiter.

Meet me when I was a kid: Our family was repressed, religious, boring but not unbearable. I knew kids who had it worse, so I ain't complaining, but let me complain.

There were six kids, Mom and Dad, my grandma lived with us, and God made ten. God was always there in our house. We said grace to Him before every meal, and every snack. My grandma probably said grace before brushing her teeth. She was always talking to God, and she thought it was a conversation.

Mom or Dad or Grandma would lead us in prayer for a safe journey whenever we got into the car, whether we were going camping or going to the grocery store or going to church. I once joked that we should pray for a good prayer before we prayed, which got me a whack on the head from my old man.

We attended church religiously, every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, and sometimes on Fridays. All six kids went to Christian schools when Dad could afford it, public schools after he got laid off from Boeing.

Seeing both public and private schools, the big difference was that the Christian schools were meaner to the kids, stricter, with more beatings. More boring classes, too, like Laws of Moses 101, or Advanced Begats. Public or private, though, the teachers were almost all dull and disinterested, and I remember several who took special delight in humiliating the quiet kids.

The teachers weren't why I hated school, though. I hated school before I even went. One of my earliest memories is the day before starting kindergarten — dreading it, because even then I didn't like crowds. A crowd of kids my own age? Hell, I knew I wouldn't fit in, but my mom said there was no way out and I'd have to go. She said I'd love it if I gave it a chance. Boy, she was wrong.

All through my eleven years of education, I hated almost all of the other kids, and they hated me. Depending on any day's threat level, I was somewhere between ill and ease and terrified. At recess I'd walk the perimeter by the fence, alone, or often I'd sit on the toilet in the boys' room, reading a good book and waiting for the bell.

My only escape was escaping, over that fence and away from school. Truancy was my home away from home, and it started at home — I faked the flu so often my mom thought it might be leukemia. When Mom didn't believe it any more the school nurse might, and I'd cough at her and she'd send me home early. When that stopped working, I'd take a book into the janitor's broom closet, or walk into the woods. By high school I was taking the bus to movie matinees, or working an extra shift at my fast-food job when I was supposed to be in class. I'd do anything to get away from the crowd of mean, stupid kids and boring, stupid teachers.

When I was old enough to quit school without a truant officer pounding on the door, I dropped out, and never regretted it. Remember teachers talking about how important a high school diploma would be? Bullshit, all bullshit.

Now I do lowlife, low-paid work, sure, but that's been my own choice. Until I got bored with ordinary jobs, I earned more working with computers than either of my college-educated brothers in their chosen careers, but not as much as my criminal brother in his lucrative line of work. It's what you know that matters, not what you've been taught.

As for the rest of my miserable childhood, aw hell, it wasn't all that miserable. Time to shut up about it, Doug. There was too much Jesus and too much school, but there were some happy moments, too. We went camping every summer, and I'd sneak away from the family for day-long hikes alone, which was well-worth the whupping waiting for me when I got back to camp. Other cherished memories include my first kiss, and the first fight I didn't lose, and my first expulsion from school.

Mostly, childhood was only an unending monotony, year after year being told what to do, what to say, what to think. I wouldn't wish that on any kid.

That queasy feeling I always had in school, from the day before kindergarten until the day I dropped out? I still get that feeling, whenever I'm stuck somewhere I don't want to be, doing something I don't want to do, surrounded by people I don't want to be with.

I've gotten better at cloaking my insecurities in a protective coating of anger or aloofness, but I still want less than nothing to do with any crowd of my peers. Generally, it feels like I have no peers. I'm stranded on this planet where I look like part of the dominant species, but absolutely I'm not one of them.

♦ ♦ ♦

Whenever I start writing about my boyhood, it's usually a whiny, self-pitying story like the above, but that's enough complaining for today.

Anyway, family and school and a dumb old god that doesn't exist made me who I am — a grumpy recluse with no religion, no patience for being told what to do, no family I'm in touch with, few friends — and I like who I am.

At school, at church, at work, in any crowd, there's no telling how many assholes you'll be surrounded by, but when I'm alone there's only one ass in the room, and he and me, we're on good terms.

Jeez, I was double dumb today.

Walked all the way to Telegraph Ave, rolling the fish-cart, did the dumb lottery as required by local loony law. Rolled to the space I'd selected, and unfolded the table off the cart. The magnets are always displayed, but the stickers aren't, because they could blow away, so I put one fish magnet of each design on the big metal display stand, and then the fish stand was open for business.

The first customer wanted an LSD-fish sticker, so I reached for the folder full of fish stickers, but — there was no folder of fish. I'd forgotten to pack the stickers!

Fortunately, I'd brought the box of sushi (raw fish pre-printed on mylar sheets), so I quickly scissored an LSD-fish for the customer, but I can't do that all day. If/when things get busy, I wouldn't be able to make fish-stickers fast enough.

So I asked the vendor at the next table to watch my stand, found a phone booth, and called Jay, my fish-monger boss. Asked her to bring me more fish stickers please, and she said OK, but boy, I felt like a big fat dummy.

Selling fish is what I do, and I'd forgotten the fish? That's like calling out for pizza, and the delivery guy gets there in thirty minutes or less, but he's forgotten the pizza.

When I called Jay, she didn't bawl me out of anything. She laughed and said it was funny, said she'd drive over with some fish as soon as she could. I was kicking me, though.

When I've done something dumb (or when I'm nervous, or angry, or bored) food is the answer, so I opened my backpack to get one of the sandwiches I'd packed — and sigh, there was the fish folder. I'd put it in my backpack this morning, instead of bungeeing it to the cart. Why? Because I'm an idiot.

So I called Jay again, and told her not to bring fish after all. No, I'm not as stupid as I thought I'd been, but I'm still pretty stupid.

She thought the second phone call was funnier than the first. I don't think any of it's funny, but I have nothing else to write about today, so there's my story for Wednesday.

Christians are often offended by our semi-sacrilegious fish, but today I sold an Evolution fish to a chatty guy who told me, "I'm a Christian, but I also believe in evolution."

I had to stare at him and think for five seconds to think of something to say in response. "Adam and Eve were just two fish in the sea, eh?"

He smiled, but I thought my dumb joke had cost the sale when he claimed he had no cash. I can't take credit cards, of course — I'm on the sidewalk, don't even have electricity, so I pointed him to the cash machines up the street, and he walked away.

Never to return, I thought, but he was back in a few minutes, out of breath from jogging, almost running back to my table. "You didn't have to hurry," I said. "I'm here all day."

He laughed and said, "I am in a hurry. My wife and two kids are waiting in the car, and I only stopped in Berkeley to see my dealer and score some weed."

That's what we call a California-style Christian.

♦ ♦ ♦

A teenage girl didn't understand the fish, so I explained as always about the persecuted Christians of ancient Rome. She didn't care, of course, and really neither do I. She didn't buy anything from me, but she asked, "You know the area, right? Do you know where I can get my labia pierced?"

We weren't talking about anything remotely like that, so I don't know why she asked me, unless she was kidding around and trying to shock me.

I almost answered by just pointing at her groin and saying, "Somewhere down there," but she was clearly underage, and I figured a crack like that might get me in trouble.

"Pierced?" I said instead. "That's lightweight. Why don't you get 'em tattooed?" She smiled and drifted away, maybe looking for a tattooist.

♦ ♦ ♦

Two pedestrians had an argument in the crosswalk, twenty feet from me and my table. I didn't see what started it, didn't look even when it got loud, because people scream all the time on the Ave. Eventually, though,enough already, I got borderline curious and turned to see.

It was a couple of twenty-something white men, one yelling at the other's face, with what seemed like an inch of clearance between their noses. Anyone who gets that close to my face dang well better be about to kiss me.

One of them kept screaming a whole encyclopedia of insults, and the other just talked, so softly I couldn't hear what he was saying. After a few minutes of the first guy screaming, the second guy smiled and shrugged and walked away. The screaming guy didn't follow him, so the argument was over.

I admired that second dude's patience. What better way to antagonize someone who's screaming at you, than by refusing to respond? I couldn't do that. I'm a screamer.

Then the second guy, the talker, came walking past my table, so I said, "Hey, man, that was a very zen performance." He smiled at me, but didn't say anything, and his eyes were glowing. Clearly he was high on something, and it seemed like a terrific high.

Just another day on Telegraph Avenue.

Most days selling fish on Telegraph, someone comes by the table to check that our street vendor's license is in order. It's a waste of time and it's an annoyance. If my vendor's license was in order yesterday, the day before, and all five days I worked last week, how could it not be in order today and tomorrow as well? The damn thing is supposed to be good for all of 1995.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say it's like passing through Checkpoint Charlie every dang day, and when the daily schmuck comes by demanding my papers, I usually say nothing, just point at the license. Yup, there it is, same as yesterday.

Today's city schmuck looked at the license, and then looked at the display of Jay's poetry chapbook, What Lesbians Do. "So this is the book that has everyone up in arms," he said casually, leafing through the pages.

"That's the book," I said. "Have those narrow-minded old biddies filed a formal complaint?" One of those old biddies was working three tables down the street from me, so I said it so loud she couldn't not hear it.

"Yeah," he said, "but I was at the meeting months ago, where the book was approved. They have no grounds for a complaint."

He smiled as he said it, so I nodded, and maybe, maybe I slightly smiled back, but I hate the whole idea of schmucks carrying clipboards. It's nice that the city has decided it's legal for Jay to sell her poetry, but the concept of the city deciding what's art, what's poetry, and what's not, is simply wrong.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maybe I feel more strongly about it because today I had a long conversation with Umberto the anarchist, one of too few "free speech" vendors on the Ave — people who sell their stuff without a license, without any hoop-jumping or approval process or fees for licenses. Umberto simply refuses, says it's his right to sell his bumper stickers on Telegraph, and the city no longer hassles him.

You might remember, I hated Umberto when we first met, but I'm coming around, slowly starting to like the man. Selling anarchist bumper stickers isn't just a job for him. He's an activist. While he's selling the stickers, he's all day talking about very left politics, the importance of liberty and justice for all as more than a mere slogan, and reminding his customers and anyone passing by about upcoming marches and rallies.

It's his life. When he's not on Telegraph, I've seen him carrying a picket against police brutality, and when we talked today he mentioned a march he's attended a few days ago, hoping to restore Affirmative Action. Umberto is that rare old hippie who hasn't forgotten his ideals, and I have serious respect for that.

We seem to believe most of the same things, Umberto and me, but I've mostly given up on working for the cause, any cause. I'll buy the Ⓐ sticker and slap it on the back of my jacket, but from many years of marching and picketing, I've come to believe that the protests accomplish nothing.

My turning point was the nationwide series of giant protests against the Gulf War, George Bush's 1990 boondoggle/slaughter. Neither Bush nor anyone in power gave a damn about the protests, or the subsequent deaths of so many for so little. The protests didn't even slow the stupidity. The powers that be paid no attention whatsoever.

The world is an awful place ruled by rotten bastards, and there's more to protest than I could possibly list in this zine's 26 pages, but if nothing's accomplished, fuck it, I'd rather sit at home and eat a sandwich.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tonight Judith told me she's seen two roaches in her bathroom, which is on the other side of my bedroom wall. Damn it, a few of the pesky pests must've come with me when I moved from San Francisco last month.

I've seen three roaches in my room — two live ones that I squished, and a dead one, stuck to an inch of exposed wrapping tape, but that third roach was dead and dry, so I think he was dead before the move.

Really really really I don't want to be the guy who got this place infested with roaches, so I went in halvsies with Judith on the purchase of a three-pack of fogger-type insecticide. Before I leave for work tomorrow, we'll bug-bomb my bedroom and Jay's bathroom and kill every damn roach. I sure hope.

The very moment I'd finished setting up the fish-stand and sat myself down, the vendor to my right waved this morning's New York Times in my face and threw a long rant at me, about how the American military should intervene in Bosnia, preferably before lunch.

Meanwhile, setting up her table to my left was a vendor I already knew, and knew she was nuts. At the morning lottery a few days ago, some poor guy had politely dared to have a different opinion than hers about one of the city's hundreds of rules and regulations for street vendors, and she'd started hollering at him. She was still hollering at him as I'd rolled my cart so far up the street the hollering faded into the distance.

So when that same woman started unpacking her wares and setting up shop next to my table, I inwardly sighed but outwardly said "Good morning."

Manners, damn it. Always manners.

Meanwhile, my right neighbor's anything-but-brief briefing on Bosnia continued, and I stiffed a yawn. If he'd simply said his warlike piece and then shut up, I would've worked quietly beside him all day, but he didn't shut up. He went on longer than the Times report, sometimes pounding the paper on his table, telling me how quick & easily American troops could disarm every Serb and every Croat, and how grand and glorious a US invasion would be for everyone involved.

And I still would've kept quiet, if he hadn't explicitly asked my opinion on all his war talk. "Don't you agree?" he asked at the end of several minutes I didn't agree with at all.

"No, I don't agree. America does nothing but war, and I'm tired of it. The world is tired of it."

"Oh," he said, frowning and sighing, "you're one of those idiot peace-niks."

"And you're one of those idiot war-nicks."

"No, man, peace is what we'd be fighting for!"

"That's not how it works," I said. "Never has, never will." He sighed again and sat down, but it wasn't over. Whenever there was a lull in foot traffic, he'd say something else, and I'd answer, and we'd argue for a bit and then shut up for a bit and then argue for a bit again.

This worked in my favor, actually. In a hurried argument I'll always say something I regret, but in a slow argument, with more time to think, I don't sound quite so stupid, at least not to me.

"Never has, never will?" he asked after a few minutes. "That's just wrong. We beat the Nazis and we beat Japan—"

"Japan attacked America, and the Nazis declared war on America. That's different. Like if you and me were fighting, and the US Army comes along and blows up all of Berkeley to establish 'peace' — that's what you're proposing."

"That's not what I'm proposing," he said, and then we sat there and said nothing for a while, until he said, "We can't just sit here and do nothing. There's a slaughter going on over there, and we're the most powerful country in the world. We ought to put that power to good use and stop the bloodshed."

"By bombing them off the face of the earth," I said, which to me is a logical extension of what he was saying.

"No, we don't bomb 'em off the face of the earth. C'mon, man. We send in our military, best fighting men there are, and we end it." He then explained exactly what the American troops would do in his fantasy, speaking too fast for me to remember much, but the details don't matter. Every US intervention is the same — a flurry of death until the Americans walk away from the rubble, and in the end it's better for nobody except the American companies making money from all the death.

After a few customers, I said something like, "We could send the Army and the Marines into every country that ever goes to war, and the USA could kill a lot of people. That's what always happens, and Americans die too, and then when the US or UN troops pull out, the wars begin again."

"It's like what the police have to do sometimes," he said. "They break up fights, to preserve the peace, and sometimes people get hurt. Send in the military, and some people would die, sure, but not as many as if we just let the genocide continue. Are you for genocide?"

"No, I'm not for genocide," I said, and also I'm opposed to police, and opposed to America pretending it's the world's policeman, but I said nothing more, hoping that silence would lead to an extended truce.

Not much later, though, he picked up where we'd left off. "If you're opposed to genocide, this is how we stop it," he said again. "We send in the US military."

"Another invasion. How come the answer is always sending the US military? Did it work in Vietnam?"

And I regretted it as soon as I'd said it. Say 'Vietnam' to the wrong person and you'll get an earful of tired bullshit about how America could've won but our hands were tied by the politicians. Yup, that was this guy's response. It went on and on and ended with, "The way to win renewed respect for America is to use our military might to prevent senseless bloodshed," and jeez, my mind reeled.

I don't give a damn about earning respect for America. I don't think America's is respected for all the wars and bombs and invasions launch by the USA, and it never prevents senseless bloodshed, it simply is senseless bloodshed.

But I sat quiet. Wanted the conversation to end. I always want all conversations to end, but this one, especially. I hate politics. Anybody's politics but mine is stupid and frustrating, and I don't want to talk about it and don't want to hear it, but I heard it all day.

Eventually he stopped talking, too, and maybe the day would've gone better if I'd stayed quiet. That would've been smart, though, and I'm never that. I wanted to say something more, wanted to win the argument, and this is what I came up with:

"'Senseless bloodshed', man... Maybe other countries should've sent their troops to stop America's 'senseless bloodshed' in 1776. We'd all be drinking tea and watching Upstairs, Downstairs!"

He looked at me and said, "It's not funny, Doug," and I wondered how he knew my name. I didn't know his name, and still don't. We've never shaken hands and we don't wear nametags on Telegraph. "They're raping women and killing children!" he said next.

"You think the Serbs and Croats invented raping women and killing children? That's what war is," I answered my own question. "Senseless bloodshed and raping women and killing children. Send in the US Army, and you'll get more of all that, not less."

"It's genocide, damn it," he said, and started telling me about the atrocities.

The atrocities sounded awful, and I'm against genocide, against atrocities, against war, and against raping women and killing children. I don't have a solution that'll end all that, but sending America's army to fight against other armies is war, not a path toward happily ever after.

I may have said that, doubtless more clumsily than I wrote it, or I may have said nothing for a while. It's hard to remember every line of loud dialogue all day, harder to distinguish the shouting in my head from the shouting in my ears and outta my mouth.

At one point the man's eyes started to bulge out, and he said, "There are death camps_!_ Mass graves_!"_

"And there will be again, come the next war," I said. "If you're against that, then you ought to be against war in general."

"I am against war in general," he said, "but just this once..."

Always it's just this once.

On and on it went on between us, but I'll let the argument end there, on paper. It went longer, on the Avenue.

And I don't know whether I'm right or he's right. I don't know what the Serbs and Croats are fighting over, and barely know what Serbs and Croats are. The man to my right was probably better informed about it than me. He reads those articles in the New York Times, but after a few years of the same war and the same atrocities, I only skim those articles, or skip them entirely.

I'll just say, we fought "the war to end all wars" 80 years ago, but the wars keep coming. America is not the moral force that's going to end war. It's the opposite: War is America's past, present, and future, war is America's habit, and I'm against it. Against using the US military for more bombings, more invasions, and more endless war.

Anyway, me and the vendor to my right kept arguing every ten or twenty minutes, and after several hours I'd almost forgotten about the vendor to my left. At first I thought she was a customer, and I almost said 'Good morning' again. She was standing at my table and holding Jay's booklet, What Lesbians Do (but not opening it).

Great, I thought, here comes another argument — it was written on her face.

"The book is supposed to be funny," I said, trying to forestall whatever anger was waiting behind her dull eyes.

She looked at me and said, "All of us working the Avenue try to be professional about what we do, and when someone sells something like this, it makes all of us look bad."

Her lecture didn't stop there, but my listening took a break, because I was instantly furious. Since two censorious vendor biddies tried to have What Lesbians Do removed from my table last weekend, it's been a constantly simmering controversy among some of the vendors, and I'm tired of it, but it's given me time to plan how to respond, so I was kinda ready.

I interrupted her. "You don't like the book?"

"I certainly do not like the book," she answered harshly.

"Then don't read it_!_ Don't buy it_!_ But put it down, unless you're brave enough to actually open it."

"You don't have to yell_!"_ she yelled, and she was right about that. I'd been the first to yell.

"No, I don't have to yell," I said, not quite yelling, "just like I don't have to sell poetry, but it's my right to. There's this annoying concept called freedom of speech—" and she interrupted me, to say something stupid about the difference between free speech and filthy pornography, waving the book at me.

I took a long slow swig of water from my jug, more for time than for thirst, wanting to compose myself and come up with a good zinger. Swallowed some of the water, and spat the rest on the ground between us, but a little closer to her than to me.

That of course set her off again, but she weirdly shut up when I said not at all loudly, "I've heard enough. It's time for you to either put the book back and get out of my face or—" and I don't know where that ultimatum was leading, but I (wisely) swerved in a different direction and finished, "—or just open it, take a look inside, so you'll know what you're so angry about."

To my surprise, she opened the book. She expected to find something disgusting, so she flipped through some pages, looking for disgusting but never finding it because it isn't there. Then she started reading, and a new maybe-customer approached my table, while this lady read a little more, turned another page. I'd sold a fish before she spoke again.

"It's poetry," she said, and very briefly, she smiled. It was not a good look on her, but at least she was trying, maybe comprehending that despite the title, What Lesbians Do is not a how-to manual aimed at converting girls and women into queers. "I still don't like the book," she said, but she put it back on my table.

"That's OK," I said, and gave her a smile that was probably as uncomfortable as hers. "You don't have to like everything anyone writes."

And that was the wrong thing to say, in retrospect. Before I said it she'd been on a calming trajectory, but after I said it she said something else, a long something else, and clearly she was still (or again?) pissed off.

Another customer appeared, so I shot the vendor a glare and she shut up — a courtesy that's almost universal among vendors. My customer bought something, and then started browsing through that lady's t-shirts, so she left my table to tend to her own. When that customer walked away, we said nothing more to each other, which was lovely for a few hours.

On both sides of me, though, the right- and left-vendors were talking now and again and again, not to each other, but with friends and with passers-by, and mostly about politics.

The lady to my left, I should add, was politically of the left, too — very "Democratic Party." With one friend, she made an impassioned anti-Gingrich speech, and with another, she spoke of restoring the safety net of social welfare programs, and griped about the "fucking fascists" in Congress. These are generally my opinions too, only more so, but please, I'm not on Telegraph to talk politics.

Usually there's a lull in foot traffic in the mid-afternoon, and with no-one to talk to both my neighbor-vendors were finally quiet for a while. I was reading my right-vendor's New York Times, since he'd put it down where our tables touched.

When someone's shadow fell over the pages, I looked up, expecting to see a customer, or maybe the vendor from my right, annoyed that I'd swiped his newspaper. Nope, it was the vendor from my left, and again she was holding a copy of What Lesbians Do.

I smiled at her, because of good manners again, dang it. My mom taught me manners.

"I still find this book offensive," she said.

"The book that made you smile a few hours ago?"

"The poetry is all right," she said, quietly, not as angry as earlier, "but the title is unacceptable."

"Unacceptable to you." I said, "but why should I care?"

"I've been talking to some other vendors, and the consensus is that we all find the book offensive."

"Lady, if you talk to every vendor, talk to every man woman and child in the state of California, and it's unanimous that they're all offended, I'm still selling the book. So give it up and go back to your tie-dyed t-shirts."

She raged on for a while, and I was quiet for a while, cuz the concept of free speech is beyond a Berkeley Democrat's intellectual grasp. Why keep trying to explain it? I gave her the raspberries — pthth — ignored her, and started reading the Times again.

And then a second shadow fell over my table and The Times. It was my right vendor, the guy who wants to send American troops to the Bosnian Peninsula. He'd been hearing about Jay's chapbook, and now he wanted to look at it, so both left- and right-vendors had a copy and were looking through it, standing in front of my table.

Left-vendor started telling right-vendor why he ought to be offended by it, but he shook his head no, and said to her, "Adrian, you're wrong about everything you ever say" — guess they know each other — "and if you hate the book, it can't be all bad."

I do dearly wish I could report that the vendor to my right and the vendor to my left came to blows, or at least argued for a long time, or my favorite fiction would be that the right-vendor loved the book so much he bought two copies. None of that happened, though.

My right-vendor just stood there, flipping through the book for a minute, and then he said, "Poetry, huh. I was hoping for pictures of what lesbians do."

"Fish!"

That's my sales pitch — short and droll. Over and over every day on Telegraph, I say "Fish!" as people walk by. If it gets their attention, they'll stop and look and maybe buy a fish sticker or magnet.

If the fish aren't jumping, I might reel people in by saying, "Fish, damn it," but that's everything I know about sales technique.

Today I said "Fish, damn it," as the wrong man was walking by — a Christian who stopped, frowned, and asked, "Do you have to use such language?" Then he looked at the fish, and began an angry spiel about taking God seriously, because God must always be taken seriously.

Weary of Christians who lack a sense of humor, I replied, "If you don't like the fuckin' fish, then go to fuckin' church and fuckin' pray for me." Umberto, working next to me, thought that was funny, but the Christian didn't. It's my cross to bear.

If you want to talk about the fish, even tell me the fish are offensive, talk to me reasonably and I'll converse. You want to threaten me with the wrath of your god? I am simply not interested, and I'll laugh at you, ridicule you, fart at you.

That guy shook his finger at me, and said, "I'll be back," and I had no idea what that meant. Should I have been afraid? He was a thin, smallish man (which is why I'd so courageously told him off), so visions of Schwarzenegger didn't dance in my head, but the thought that he might return with a gun did. I've seen a few scary Christians on the Ave.

♦ ♦ ♦

Later on, who walked by? The lady vendor who'd worked to my left yesterday, and complained about the book, What Lesbians Do. She gave me crap about it again, and then she said, "And anyway, what do you know about what lesbians do?"

"I don't even know what straight women do," I said, "but my boss wrote the book, and she's done plenty of lesbians, knows all about what they do."

"Then why isn't she out here selling her smut?"

And you know what? Enough already. Enough with Christians angry about fish, and enough with Democrats angry about lesbians. "Leave," I said, pointing to her stall half a block down Telegraph. When she didn't immediately leave, my follow-up line was, "Just get your face away from my table. And I mean, right now."

At that very moment, the "I'll be back" Christian came back (which his Lord and Savior never will). He was accompanied by a large woman I assume was his wife, and she was immediately angry about the fish. No warm-up, no studying the display, she walked right up to me and started shouting, "This is blasphemy!" and some similar stupidities.

I've heard it all before, and have I mentioned? I wasn't in a good mood.

The vendor from yesterday, angry about the book, wouldn't yield to the jumbo fanatical Christian, angry about the fish, so both women were yelling at me at the same time, a ca-ca cacophony. I sighed and stood there for too long, sort of enjoying the show but also sort of furious. Thought I'd have to hose them down, like my dad drenched some dogs that fucked in our yard once.

Instead I grabbed two copies of What Lesbians Do, one in each hand, held out one for each of them, and said loudishly, "Here_!_ A free book for each of you, with my compliments. Why don't you both read it, and then go fuck each other?"

The Christian woman took the book from me, and threw it onto my table with all her might, but all her might wasn't much; the book wasn't even damaged. "We'll be back," she said, same as her husband had said, and then she stomped away, huffing and puffing and dragging him behind her.

The vendor from yesterday, though, wouldn't take her free chapbook, and wouldn't shut up. She wasn't screaming or anything, but she was giving me a tirade that never seemed to end. Jeez, lady, I thought, how much can one person complain about a silly book of poems with a provocative title?

Several stalls down the street, there were dozens of t-shirts with no vendor watching them, because she was at my table, screaming at me, instead of at her table, selling her tie-dye. So I announced in my deepest, most 'official' voice, "Free t-shirts, everybody! Right this way," and I pointed at her stand.

"You're an asshole," she said to me, shaking her head as she walked away, but the best part was, she walked away.

"Works better if you stay calm," Umberto said to me. He often takes crap for his anarchist stickers, so I reckon that's expert advice, and I thanked him.

Only a few minutes later, before I'd calmed down much, yet another idiot Christian came by. He paused at the table, looked at the fish, and I'd never seen him before but I'd seen that look on his face, so I knew what was coming. I smiled and waited. Here it comes. What's he gonna say?

He said, "Don't you have any real fish?"

"No," I said, expressionless but exasperated. "Real fish would get real stinky out here in the sunshine."

"That's not what I mean," he said, because the complaining Christians never get any jokes. "Don't you have the Jesus fish?" His eyes narrowed, and I could see that he almost understood. "Or are you making fun of the Jesus fish?"

"Exactly," I said, smiling my fattest, fakest smile. "Isn't it obvious? Would you like a 666 fish?"

He walked off, leaving a cloud of righteous indignation, but at least he didn't threaten "I'll be back." I sold that 666 fish to a guy who'd been walking by, and thought the conversation was all very funny, but was it? You tell me. I'm weary of it.

And all afternoon I kept looking for the jumbo & pipsqueak Christians who'd said they'd be back. It would be a lie to say I wasn't a little concerned. Didn't see either of them again, though, so a devout Christian lied to me. No surprise.

When I started selling these novelty fish on the Ave, the worst reaction was a frown, but starting in mid- or late-June, there've been Christians in my face fairly regularly, and they seem to be getting hotter with the summer. For the last week or so, when it's not someone angry about the fish, it's someone angry about What Lesbians Do.

Fuck 'em all. Better yet, crucify them. I just want to sell fish, so I haven't liked my job much these past few days. Maybe I need to carry a squirt gun with me on Telegraph. Maybe I should wear a bulletproof vest. What it's all building up to, I don't know, but I am tired of taking crap about fish and poetry.

They've improved bug-bomb technology since the last time I used the stuff, five years or so ago. Back then it stunk up the place so bad that even with the windows open afterwards, the room I'd bombed smelled like mustard gas and was uninhabitable for days.

This time, I bombed my room Saturday morning and slept in the guest room that night, but by last night the room didn't smell any worse than the average woman wearing perfume, so I was back in my own bed.

There were some dead roaches on the floor, but not many. Another one came crawling out from under my blanket, but it was staggering like a drunk, weaving this way and that and tripping over its own head. It wouldn't have survived even if I hadn't smashed it between my fingers. I'm declaring roaches extinct at my place in Berkeley.

♦ ♦ ♦

BART got me to my weekly gig at Black Sheets kinda early, so I stopped at the little grocery store near the train station, grabbed a newspaper and stood at the counter to pay.

This was in my old neighborhood. I've been to that store a hundred times, and standing at the counter waiting to pay is ordinary. The counter-guy always has something more important to do, and today he was talking on the phone about his weekend. Hell, that's more important than me standing at the counter.

There was nobody else in the store, just him and me, me standing there waiting while he talked on the phone about the concert and the band and the seats and the drugs. With ten minutes to spare, there was no big hurry, but I didn't have the patience, so after half a minute I twirled the newspaper over the counter and into the air at the boob on the phone.

It was a fountain of news — the business section flew north, the sports pages fluttered north by northwest, and arts & entertainment missed the clerk's head by mere inches.

"What's your problem?" I heard him saying as I walked out, but I didn't answer. He'd been talking on the phone longer than I'd been in the store, so he was probably still talking on the phone, right? It would've been rude of me to interrupt.

Today was a day off, so I read some zines, played with the dog, played with myself, mailed out a few sample copies of the zine, and worked on making some recent entries make sense. Ate too much, and kept my door closed, typewriter clacking, and mind misfiring. I do dearly love a closed door.

Nobody knocks on my door — no friends, and by choice, no family. They're a long ways away and we're not in touch, but I wasn't thinking today about how much I miss 'em. Kinda the opposite.

This is delicate, difficult to say it right, easy to misunderstand. I don't hate my family. I frickin' love each and all of them, but loving them is easier when I'm here and they're there, which is (part of) why I moved away, alone.

I like being in charge of myself, and when my family's around that's a battle. They want me to be something I'm not, someone I haven't been for a long time.

They're always in my business with questions and judgments, and their questions probably make sense, their judgment might be better than mine, but that's irrelevant. I want to live my life without those questions and judgments.

Nobody in my family understands that, and some of them haven't respected that.

Some of them are eccentric, and outspoken, and odd. Sometimes they say things better left unsaid. My family takes some getting used to, and I haven't gotten used to them yet.

It's like garlic bread — delicious if you use the right amount of garlic, but not if you shake it on and keep shaking and shaking. My family is too much garlic.

There were other factors, sure, but it's not merely coincidence that April, a woman I'd dated for five years, dumped me a few days after spending an afternoon with me and my family.

"One day I'll drop by unannounced, just to surprise you, and stay a week or a month…"

That's what my mom said, when she visited me in San Francisco last summer. She meant it. It's her favorite daydream — to fly down to San Francisco without me knowing she's coming, to be suddenly at my doorstep, then inside my door, to read my zines, see my mess, cry about my porn, pry into my secrets, ask a thousand questions, and judge me a thousand ways.

I'm a man more solitary than most, but even by normal standards, could anyone hear something like that — "One day I'll drop by unannounced, just to surprise you, and stay a week or a month…" — as anything but a threat?

It's a credible threat, so I take it seriously. When I moved in with Pike, in March, I 'forgot' to give Mom my new address. Then came another move, to Berkeley with Judith, and heck if I didn't forget again to file a change-of-address card. Now nobody in the family knows where I live.

They do have an address for me, but it's a mail drop. If Mom flies to California to surprise me, and pops in at that address, she'll meet the middle-aged Asian man who sorts everyone's incoming mail into their boxes, for $12 p/month. Mom might try to sweet-talk my real address out of him, but if she does, my address on file at the mail drop is a vacant lot.

A few months ago, I switched to a new voice mail number for phone messages, but goodness golly, I 'forgot' to tell the family about that, too. I've been very forgetful lately.

So it's been a while since we chatted, but either everyone in the Holland family is getting along just fine, or one or more of them have died, or someone's getting divorced, someone else is getting married. Whatever's up or down with the family, it's news that'll keep until I'm ready to hear it, which might be a while.

Again I'll say it and again I mean it, I love 'em all and wish 'em well. Maybe I'll send a card in six months. Or a year.

♦ ♦ ♦

I've been part of Judith's house here in Berkeley for a month, and it suits me. It's an enormous mess, so I never have to be embarrassed by my own slovenly habits. The neighborhood isn't quite so whitebread as I'd originally thought, and my commute to work is a breeze. Judith is sweet, kind of a friend, and the three other men living here barely know I'm down the hall, and they leave me alone.

That's how I know this place is my home — people leave me alone.

A half-dozen street kids came up the sidewalk, chanting, "Jerry's dead, Jerry's dead." It was barely noon, I was awake but not widely, and the scene seemed surreal. For just a moment I wondered whether this was a dream. No, this was Telegraph Ave, which is always a little dreamlike.

Next I wondered whether street kids are a reliable source for the news of someone's dying, and lastly I wondered which Jerry they were on about.

The Jerry of Ben & Jerry? He's made my life better, and I'd be sorry to hear he's left the ice cream business.

Jerry Lewis? He's not funny and I'm not French, so my grief would be only momentary.

Jerry Lee Lewis? Isn't he already dead?

Jerry Rubin? Jerry Falwell? Jerry Mathers? Jerry Rice? Jerry Brown?

The vendor next to me said, "No, Jerry Garcia," so I must've been talking out loud. It's a bummer, babe. Of all the world's Jerrys, Garcia from the Grateful Dead might be the only one I'd miss. Damn it.

You have to have seen them in concert to call yourself a deadhead, and I never have, but I've heard them in concert. Local performances of the Dead are sometimes broadcast live on non-commercial radio, at least here in SF, so I've had that pleasure. Guess you could say Jerry Garcia pleasured me.

There's no money at KPFA and no commercials. If the station paid for broadcast rights, it must've been less than ten dollars, and I'll bet it was nothing. Is there any other band that would allow that?

Truly I am saddened at the news that Jerry's dead, as reported by street kids and confirmed on Telegraph Avenue.

Mr Testosterone was especially in mourning. He's a local head-case whose habit is to stand on the sidewalk and roar like the MGM lion, or the Incredible Hulk. He's a bare-chested, rather ugly hairy-headed and muscle-bound psychotic — harmless, but when he's roaring at random every few minutes, you can enjoy watching pedestrians jump. His roaring today was certainly sadder than its usual loud.

Soon a news crew came, in a van marked BBC News. Several people got out, and I watched as they worked their way up the Avenue, sticking their camera in people's faces. Berkeley was a good choice for gathering person-on-the-street responses to Jerry's death, I thought, until they approached me.

It was a moment when the fish stand had no customers, and BBC News isn't a joke like ABC NBC CBS et al, so when their reporter, a woman with an English accent of course, asked if she could ask me a few questions, I smiled and said, "That's one."

I wondered what I could say about the passing of the late, great Mr Garcia, but instead the reporter said, "Have you read any of the Unabomber's manifesto, and do you agree with his principles or his practices?" Their camera was focused on my face, and the video must've shown a fat man in great confusion as that bogus question rolled around inside my ears.

"Did the BBC send you across the ocean to Berkeley, hoping to find some idiot who might be sympathetic to a murdering lunatic?" Then I went on to say that sure, I've read some of the Unabomber's maifesto, edited to fit the Tribune, and it's as boring as any bullshit political speech. And yeah, I probably do agree with some of it, but bombing random people is despicable, and who does he think he is, Henry Kissinger?

That's when the reporter said "Thank you," and signaled for the cameraman to shut off his machine. I wasn't the man on the street they were hoping to hear from, so don't bother looking for me on the Beeb tonight.

I've been living on peanut butter sandwiches and cold beans and hot ramen, and in the midst of another thinly-spread PB sandwich, it was quite a treat when Yacoob in the next booth offered me a bite-size chocolate-chip mini-bagel. In chewing it, though, one of my teeth began to disintegrate, leaving a sizable cave for food to get stuck in. Fortunately, there was no pain.

My mouth has enough caves already. Tonguing my teeth for a quick oral census, I now count seven teeth in various states of obvious rot, and three more teeth no longer present, even in fragments. The rest of my original 32 are generally intact, at least from the outside, though many are filled, dating back to jobs that had dental coverage. Selling fish doesn't.

♦ ♦ ♦

Father forgive me, for I have sinned. Today I had impure thoughts.

She might have been a college freshman, but more likely she was still in high school. Should I be ashamed of admiring a 17-year-old? Well, I'm not. I didn't drool, didn't stare, didn't even smile (the teeth, remember), but… I noticed. No hetero man could've not noticed.

She bought a slice at Dagwood's Pizza, then sat on the sidewalk against the building's wall, directly in front of my fish table. With her butt on the cement, her knees at about 10:00 and 2:00, I followed her legs to their natural conclusions. Her shorts were baggy, pink panties were visible at the crotch, and from behind the pink panties what appeared to be several curly black pubes were poking out.

I was perhaps 15 feet from her legs and everything, especially her everything, so to bring it into sharper focus, I reached into my backpack, found my glasses, slipped them on, and… Yup, I was not seeing things that weren't there.

It took her ten minutes to finish her lunch, and it was the highlight of my day, though she'll never know it. I said nothing, not even to Yacoob, but if I'd been willing or even able to speak to that stranger on the sidewalk, I would've said thank you, ma'am, for spreading good cheer.

Even the blandest of ordinary media likes running articles about zines, and a couple months back (6/21) Interview interviewed me. I figured nothing would come of it, because I was sorta curt with their reporter on the phone, and 'cause I told him no, I wouldn't send him a damned photograph or pose for one, and 'cause the interview lasted about as long as it takes to make toast — it was not exactly in-depth.

Three times weekly I check my voice mail, though, and this morning it told me, "You have… five… new messages," and they were all from Interview's reporter, Tony Moxham. In the first two, he asked me to call him back, and in the next three he said I could reverse the charges.

I hate phones but love calling collect, and Interview has decided that Pathetic Life should be "prominently featured" in their October issue, and they need my permission to run some excerpts.

"Permission granted," said I, "provided that you include my address, the zine's price, and that it's gotta be cash." Yeah, I want that small flood of $3 orders from people I'll never hear from again. And I'll bet even if it says "cash only," most of them will send checks payable to Pathetic Life, which are worthless to me, of course.

♦ ♦ ♦

After the phone call, I rolled the fish cart to Telegraph Ave, and it was a normalish day with a brief moment of What the hell? I was picking my nose between customers, when a young white man approached and said, "Are you Doug?"

"Yes," I foolishly confessed. At work I'm supposed to be friendly, and I was at work. That's what tripped me up.

"I'm Scott," he said, "from Sacramento. Pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand for a shake, but I hesitated.

"What is this pertaining to?" It couldn't be alimony, couldn't be child support, but there are some unpleasant things it could've been, so I immediately regretted saying "yes" when he'd asked my name.

"I love your zine," he said, and he said more, but I didn't catch most of it and I was instantly uncomfortable.

On Telegraph, I play the role of someone who loves to talk about fish, but it's a performance, and I'm only prepared to talk about fish. In reality, I'm uncomfortable in almost any conversation, especially idle chit-chat with a stranger, or listening to someone tell me he likes the zine. I don't compliment well.

You'll get better dialogue from me if you tell me you hate the zine, but my preference is not talking at all, and I'd triple-rather not talk about the zine on Telegraph Ave, surrounded by other vendors who don't know the zine exists and don't know I write about them in it.

Before I found the words to say any of the above to Scott from Sacramento, he said, "Well, I just wanted to say hi. Bye!"

I said "Bye," said it smiling, and he walked away, waving back at me. Thank you, Scott from Sacramento, for at least keeping it brief, but that was awkward and I didn't enjoy it.

In the zine, I've described myself and what I'm selling on Telegraph. Everyone knows where Telegraph Avenue is, so it doesn't take a detective to find me, but please don't.

Anyone who's reading this, and likes the zine and imagines you'd like the author? You're mistaken. I am boring and grumpy and have nothing to say.

If, however, you foolishly want to say hi to me in the flesh, my number and address are at the back of the zine. Who knows, maybe we'll have a good time sharing coffee and donuts, especially if you're buying.

All I ask is, please call or write first. That's important. I need advance notice, so I have time to plan and dread our time together. No surprises, please.

Today a family of street preachers set up their mission from God across the street from my fish stand, at Telegraph Ave & Haste Street. Some vendors were complaining, because these particular Christians are well-known for their electronically cranked-up volume.

It's very difficult to conduct business when the gospel is being broadcast at fifty decibels. Amplified street preachers cut into sales by maybe 25%.

Free speech, though, is especially for the most obnoxious among us, so I tried to be patient, and even said that to one of the vendors complaining near me.

As if on cue, a homeless green-haired street kid suddenly started shouting at the Christians and passers-by, things like, "Fuck your Christianity" and "Satan is a better choice," and I knew a bad day was about to get worse.

Some of the vendors were cheering the heckler on, hoping he'd drive the super-loud Christians away, but weirdly, just this once, I was rooting for the Christians. They didn't deserve to be heckled, at least not yet.

Later, yeah, but not yet. At first they seemed to be Christians in the good sense of the word, and yeah, there is a good sense. They weren't threatening the crowd with hellfire and damnation, or yelling insults like the Christians a few weeks ago (7/29). They weren't even preaching, mostly just singing Christian folk songs. It was nauseating, sure, but so am I. So are you.

When the street kid ripped down a banner the Christians had tied to a fence, and cussed 'em out, and called the Christians cocksucking buttlicking motherfucking assholes, there was no doubt who the asshole was, and this time it wasn't the Christians.

I briefly heckled the kid, even tried to get some of my neighbor vendors and others to join in the heckling. It was just me, though, so after hollering a few insults, I shut up and worked my stand, just watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

Jesus, some of the things that stupid skinhead said and did. He screamed at the Christians, pounded on a garbage can to drown out their music, flipped 'em off a thousand times, raspberried them, did a swivel-hips 'fuck you' dance, echoed them, and did everything short of dropping his shorts to give them a bare-ass salute.

And you know what? The Christians never screamed back at him. They talked to people, off-microphone, quietly sharing their dingbat gospel, and they politely talked to the obnoxious teenager, which only made him shriek even louder. After a few minutes, the punk got bored and walked away.

After that, though, the Christians turned their microphones over to their children. One-by-one, each well-scrubbed rosy-cheeked preacher's kid sang a solo, and — Holy Mary, mother of God. Hearing "Jesus Loves Me" sung by a 5-year-old who can't carry a tune, at top volume through jumbo-size speakers, is not an experience that brings anyone closer to God. It brought me close to insanity.

Then the 5-year-old handed the mike to a 4-year-old, who made it through about three bars of "Jesus Loves the Little Children" before forgetting the lyrics, which gave Telegraph Avenue ten seconds of blessed silence — until she started the song over again, for Christ's sake.

The third and last kid was the kicker, and I wanted to kick her. She might've been all of three years old, and by the diaper bulge over her butt you could tell she wasn't even potty-trained. She could barely stand, and she couldn't sing, and yet her parents had ordered her to belt out, "I've Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in My Heart."

God, it was depressing, and more than I could tolerate. I asked my neighbor-vendor to watch my stand, ran across the street, and cornered one of the grown-up Christians I thought might be the father of one or more of these abused children. "What have we done to deserve this torture?" I yelled in his face.

"I think it's beautiful," he answered, all calm and Christ-like. Is it live, I wondered, or is it Thorazine?

"She's making my ears bleed," I said, pointing at the kid, "and how can you be so damned cruel to these children?"

"She wants to sing," he said, still pleasantly, "and isn't she cute?"

"Cute?" I asked, unbelieving. "It ought to be illegal what you're doing to these kids, it's hell on earth hearing it, and don't you lie to me—" and at that the man opened his eyes a little wider, showing some human reaction at last "—that 'she wants to sing'."

"She does!" he said earnestly. "She's my daughter, and I should know." He still wasn't angry, so I had to try harder.

"Yeah, damned right you should know," I said. "You should know that's a load of horseshit. She didn't want to play in the park? She didn't want to stay home and watch Mr Magoo? No, she frickin' wanted to stand on the corner and sing a song she doesn't know the tune for, let alone the meaning? My ass."

Then came the finest moment of my day. Just when I thought I'd made a fool of myself, and was ready to give up and go back to selling fish, a voice interrupted from behind. "While I wouldn't put it quite so emphatically as Doug, I must say, I do agree."

I turned to see who was taking my side, and it was Midget, another vendor. Midget is a giant man, hence the nickname, and he sells intricate metal-works on the Ave. A few days ago he'd said something kind about the fish, and we'd briefly chatted, so I knew he was all right, but until then I hadn't known he was All Right.

For a few minutes we argued together against that Christian, Midget without my increasing vulgarities, and me without his even, measured tone of voice. It was pointless, though. What, we're going to talk a Christian out of Christianity?

When the kid had finished screeching her song, a cop approached, so it seemed like a good idea for me to go back to hawking fish. After I'd walked away, Midget talked to the cop, and asked him to enforce some little-known and seldom-used city law that regulates the max volume of amplified sound on the street. To my pleasant surprise, the cop spoke to the Christians, and they pumped down the volume.

As Midget passed my table on his way to his, I shook his hand and gave him his choice of any fish on my table. He took LSD (the fish, not the drug).

♦ ♦ ♦

As I wheeled my cart away at the end of the day, a woman selling jewelry at the corner smiled at me and said hi. Wasn't sure who she was, but I'm never sure. She looked sorta-kinda-maybe familiar, but I'm lousy with names and faces. Lousy with humans, really. Knew I'd seen her before, so I smiled and waved as I walked by.

It was a hundred footsteps until the realization — she was one of the censorship queens who'd tried to have Jay's poetry banned in Berkeley. Why would that woman say hello to me?

People are such peculiar things. After what she'd tried, now she wants to be on decent terms with me? In what world, bitch? I wanted to backtrack to her table, withdraw my wave and smile and trade 'em for a well-earned hand gesture.

She was half a block behind me, though. I was walking away, and 'away' felt like the place to be.

It's been hotter than a jalapeno's groin all summer. Or maybe it's that I'm usually an indoor boy, and selling fish on Telegraph makes this is my first summer with significant outdoor time. Either way it's too dang hot.

Even changing my underwear every third day like usual, I still get a sweaty itchy rash after a couple of particularly hot days. It makes me cranky, too, day after day. Feels like I've been in a bad mood for a month, like everywhere I go there's someone else who needs to be yelled at.

And then today, I was stuck selling fish on the wrong side of the street — in the sweltering sunshine, all day long. I was sauteed in sweat before I'd finished setting up the table.

All the other vendors, though, and everyone walking by, and indeed everyone on Earth except me seemed to be in the shade.

My booth was hot hot hot, and far from the maddening customers. That's bad for business, yes, and bad for my recurring rash, but at least I didn't have anyone to argue with. Nothing much to do at all, except sit there wishing I wasn't sitting there, while scissoring out more fish.

Came home dead tired from the heat, said a few words to Judith, and she made me smile. It felt like my first smile of the day. She can do that — make people smile, even me. She has a knack for being human.

Then I came into my room, closed the door, and banged out this grumpy soliloquy. Now I'm going to grumpily read a book, and then grumpily go to sleep.

This morning, Judith told me she'd had a dream, but she called it a premonition, which sounds more serious but actually isn't. In her dream, I'd received a kiss-off letter from Sarah-Katherine. It wasn't a mean letter, but it was definitely goodbye.

It's weird that Judith is dreaming about Sarah-Katherine, and weirder that she told me that particular dream, but who among us isn't weird?

Anyway, it's a dream — or premonition — that didn't come true. Instead, a very nice letter from Sarah-Katherine came in today's mail.

In too many ways to detail again (see last month's issue), Sarah-Katherine is the best thing that's happened to me in the past, oh, 37 years or so. I haven't had many real relationships with many sane women, and I'm self-aware enough to know that I'd probably swoon for any dame that smiled at me and held my hand. Sarah-Katherine isn't just any dame, though. We click, I think, in ways I rarely click with anyone.

Of course, there's some truth to Judith's premonition. Sarah-Katherine will "Dear John" me sooner or later, because that's what women do.

When she dumps me, I'll keep bumbling along. Been dumped before, and I'm not a slash-my-wrists guy; suicide is far too exciting for a dull dude like me.

Nah, I'll just go back to my natural state — being alone. I'm good at it. Way better at being alone than at being with anyone else.

♦ ♦ ♦

BARTed into the city to have breakfast with Mark Hetts, who writes the Mr Handyperson zine and newspaper column. You know and Mark knows that I abhor anything social, and last week I'd actually weaseled out of a tentative lunch with him ("It's too hot and sweaty").

Today wasn't hot and sweaty, I didn't weasel, and we met and dined in splendor at The Cove on Castro Street. We had omelets, coffee, and conversation, and all of it was good.

I like Mark. He's a nice guy, and we have some psychosis in common. We could pass for brothers, too — we're both big white guys with beards and minimal hair on top, we could both stand to lose some weight, and we're both not trying to slim down.

Memo to Mark: If I fall into my normal hermit habits and don't call again within a few weeks, please remind me. Breakfast together was fun, and I'd like to do it again.

♦ ♦ ♦

While I was in San Francisco and only a few blocks away, there was a work-related errand to run. Remember that lady in March, who'd hired me to clean her garage, but then slept in instead? I'd been there at the agreed upon time, my wage is $5 per hour, and my minimum for any job is four hours. So she owed me twenty dollars, but she'd refused to pay.

Well, that debt has now been forgiven, because I'm a magnanimous man. And also because it'll cost more than twenty bucks to replace both windows in her garage door.

Judith and I had breakfast at the Berkeley Bowl. No, it's not a bowling alley. It's an organic grocery store that also serves breakfast. We had blueberry hotcakes and coffee, nothing on the side, and it came to $13, before tipping. Way too pricey for me to ever eat there again, but it was good, and Judith paid, so muchos gracias.

We talked about this 'n that, but mostly housework. Her son is coming to visit, so Judith needs the guest room shoveled out, and the rest of the house at least borderline presentable. After the pancakes, that's what I did all day.

I don't mind doing housework. It's something this house could use more of. I just never want to do it today, you know?

When I moved in, I was supposed to be the maid, but I've been selling fish five days a week, basically uninterested in being Mr Clean, so I've been paying rent instead. And the house we got so sparkling clean before Sarah-Katherine came, is a mess again. My natural habitat, and Judith's too.

One of the cats peed on the bed in the guest room. The sheets are being laundered, and the mattress got scrubbed and deodorized and I think it'll be sleepable.

Before cleaning the stovetop, the pots had to be emptied and washed. One was full of rotting rice, the other a strange green liquid with wormy things growing in it, which smelled awful, so of course I had to sniff it several times.

i wish there was a way to keep odors as mementos, like photos in an album, music on a mix tape. I'd want to keep the smell of that green wormy stuff in a stinkbook.

Scrubbed the toilet lots, and got most of the accumulated griz, but not all of it. The porcelain will be stained forever. I never see the point of cleaning a toilet anyway — it's where shit goes, so of course it's icky — but I gave it my best effort.

The second bathroom, the one we cleaned a month ago, is unusable again. The door is blocked, covered with dirty laundry and old newspapers, so there's no way in except through Jake & Judith's room, but that's where the mess is deepest.

Got a lot of work ahead of me. Five bucks an hour.

♦ ♦ ♦

Taking a brief break in the kitchen, I sat in one of Judith's chairs., and broke it. It was an 'arty' chair, one of a set of four that's now a set of three. Instead of having four legs like a logical chair, it's the letter L on top of the letter C. You sit on the L, with the C under you. It's very lovely, but what do you suppose happens when a fat man sits on such a chair?

The aluminum tubing of the C couldn't take my weight, and suddenly buckled, dropping my flabby ass to the floor. I apologized to Judith, and she told me not to worry about it. I wish it hadn't happened, but there's no embarrassment. Some chairs are so stupid they deserve to doe.

WEDNESDAY — I took today off from the fisheries to finish cleaning house for Judith, for her son's visit. It won't pass the white glove test, but I don't think Judith owns any white gloves. He's her family, so he's gotta not be expecting the Hilton.

His name is Oliver. I met him when he got here tonight, and he seems like a nice college-aged kid. Kinda laconic, like I was at 20, and like I still am, especially around strangers.

Cleaning house was my entire day, and then I wrote a letter to Sarah-Katherine. I like her, dream of her often, sometimes even when I'm asleep.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — Still don't know that woman's name, and still don't want to, but again today I worked beside the old shrew: the woman who'd tried to have poetry banned last month, and then smiled and waved at me a few days ago.

Her smiles and waving are inexplicable to me, as was her chipped demeanor toward me all day today, and I told her so. "We're enemies, lady. When you smile at me, all I see are fangs." She told me again, it was nothing personal, and she said it with a smile. That woman is chutzpah and charm, all at once, and it might work with some people but it doesn't work with me.

It's nice that the city hasn't removed Jay's poetry, but this woman tried to have Jay's poetry removed. It'll never be as if she didn't.

That said, after the 'fangs' wisecrack, she was cordial, and I was cordial back. I even broke a twenty for her, so she could make a sale. Vendors on Telegraph watch out for each other when they can; it's a given, even for asshole vendors.

Some people can't work or walk or think without music, but my life usually doesn't have a soundtrack. I don't wear headphones while I'm working the fish stand. My work and my thoughts, they comfort me.

Today, though, my stand was between an old guy with six tables of tawdry rings and bracelets, with a booming box of country-western wailing geetars, and a black lady selling beads and incense, with CDs blasting rude rap. They each seemed to find the other's music annoying, and turned their music a little louder, and soon it was very loud indeed. Neither would yield, and I never heard a note of music, only noise.

There was one brief stretch when both my neighbors turned their ghetto blasters down. It started when a man's voice shouted, "Stop right there!"

Looking up from the zine I was reading, I saw a purple-haired street kid with a surprised look on his face, being hassled by one of Berkeley's jokes on wheels, er, cops on bicycles. "What did I do?" the kid asked.

"Just stop right there," the cop repeated, though the kid had already stopped.

"Unless you're gonna arrest me," he said, "I'm not stopping. I have rights." He took a step away, and the cop calmly got off his bike, put the kickstand down, and tackled the kid into a storefront window. Miraculously it didn't shatter; their bodies bounced off the glass, and onto the sidewalk.

"Police brutality!" shouted another kid on the sidewalk, presumably a friend of the tacklee. "You can't do that with no reason!"

The kid who'd been brutalized, still lying awkwardly under the cop's body and arms and anger, said nothing. The cop snarled, "I don't need a reason, and I can do anything I want." I remember the words like Memorex, because you don't often hear a policeman describe his work so succinctly.

The cop and the kid picked themselves up off the sidewalk, and the kid asked, "Why did you do that, man?"

"You're getting a ticket, you snotty punk, for jaywalking." At this the kid, his friend, several onlookers, and I all broke into laughter. There are 25,000 jaywalkers on Telegraph, any day.

While the officer of the law scribbled a ticket, the purple-haired kid's friend taunted the cop, with supporting insults from other kids on the sidewalk. One of them was the same obnoxious skinhead who'd heckled the Christians on Saturday, and he's an expert in annoying. "Fascist pig!" he shouted. Other said, "Dickless cop!" and "Porky bastard!" My contribution was, "Everybody hates a shitty cop, shitty cop."

Nobody was arrested, and the policeman eventually mounted his muscular bike and pedaled away, but I'm sure he'll be trouble for ordinary people for as long as he's alive.

I told the kid who'd gotten the ticket he was nuts trying to tell a cop about rights. Might as well tell an elephant about suntan lotion.

Also told him I'd testify to what I saw, if he wants to fight the ticket in court, or complain about cop misconduct. Can't say whether the kid jaywalked, your honor, but I saw a dozen other jaywalkers while the cop was holding that kid down on the sidewalk. The only reason that kid was stopped was because the cop didn't like the way he looked — leather jacket, spiked and painted hair, through his nose, tattoos all over him, etc.

"Thanks, dude," said the kid, "but I ain't fighting it and I ain't paying it. The pig and the judge are both working for the mayor," and he was right, of course. It's a con, and they're playing all of us.

Are you tired of reading about my days as a fishmonger on Telegraph Ave? Well, I'm tired of writing about it, but working the fish stand is the only remotely interesting thing going on, day after day. You want more thrills, read Tom Clancy or some such drivel. Reality is lots less riveting, especially my reality.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today I'll introduce you to JoAnne, another street vendor who annoys me, and what annoys me most is why she annoys me.

When we're working near each other, she's kept an eye on my stand while I've gone to the john, and I've returned the favor. She knows my name, and usually says hello. We've exchanged semi-sociable sentences, several times. She's never complained about the poetry, never been a smart-ass, and I've never heard her say anything Republican. Never once has JoAnne given me any valid reason to dislike her, but dislike her I do.

She's a young woman, very pretty, with a huge smile. When she has no customers and none of the other vendors are flirting with her, when there's no-one around and she's simply tidying the merchandise in her stall, her smile fades to merely a grin. Never once, though, have I glanced in her direction and caught her neither grinning nor smiling.

Her teeth are a marvel of modern dentistry. Her complexion is so super-smooth you'd swear she's never had a pimple. Her eyes are green, her cheeks lightly freckled, her hair almost mustard-yellow in a 1970s Frarrah-cut that catches the sunlight just so, and it's always perfectly coiffed. She seems to brush it hourly, and habitually runs her fingers through her hair every few minutes, then shakes her head wildly to keep the locks fluffy and free.

All day long, she holds her head at a slight angle, which seems engineered to be endearing. When she talks, her voice is high and girlish, a tee-hee giggle is always ready to burst through when she's even slightly amused, and she's easily amused.

Her body is supermodel thin, so wispy she'd be bruised or broken in normal handling. When she's working, she wears something upscale, colorful and attractive, and at least a little sexy — low-cut or hanging off her shoulders. Today she wore a full skirt, slit 3/4 up the side. Nice legs. Nice everything, really.

I've never seen her dressed down or casual, except when she stops by Telegraph on her days off, and even in blue jeans she looks great.

JoAnne, you see, is beautiful. She is as gorgeous as any movie star, centerfold, or TV weatherbabe. Every straight man she meets is no doubt drooling on the inside, and I'm not immune. Obviously, I notice JoAnne.

She's so damned attractive, though, so perfectly presented, I have to wonder — does she ever pick her nose and wipe the boogers on her pants? Does she need to wipe her ass, or do her bowels emerge sweetly scented and leave no residue? Does she even have bowels?

I ask seriously, can anyone who's so top-level physically attractive have ever experienced loneliness, insecurity, isolation, or even the existence of Friday nights without a date? Could she conceivably have any experience with being rejected?

Clearly, admittedly, undoubtedly, all the above is sexist, judgmental, ignorant, mean, and offensive. JoAnne has done nothing wrong. All she's done is try to be attractive, and she's succeeded.

The problem is me, not her. I'll stand by the spelling, punctuation, and grammar here, but what I'm saying pisses me off. I've written it because it's in my mind, and what's in my mind goes into my diary. It's not fair, though, and I ought to be embarrassed, and I am.

Like every American city, Berkeley has many, many street waifs, kids whose parents are so awful, whose life at home was so hellish, living on the street feels like the best alternative. One of these children, a girl who looked about 15, sat on the sidewalk near my table for most of the day.

Some kids on the street wear a 'poor' costume, with artificially distressed jeans, their faces a voluntary scowl, but they're playing at it. It's obvious that a Mom-made meal will be ready when they're done playing.

Other kids are absolutely adrift, miles from any shore, and might go underwater at any time. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. It's desperate, and it's not pretending.

That was this girl.

I didn't say anything to her except "Hi." What else could I say? What can ya do? Can't adopt her, and anyway, there's a thousand kids in this town every bit as doomed.

In the afternoon, the vendor in the next booth, an ancient woman I'd seen around but whose name I don't know, motioned for the girl to come over. The two of them talked quietly for a while, the kid said thanks, and she looked so relieved as she walked off down the Avenue.

"What was that about?" I asked my neighbor. Had she referred the kid to a shelter? Offered her a hot meal? Passed her something tangible like a McDonald's gift certificate? Hell, maybe she'd invited the kid to take the spare room in her house? It sure looked like something charitable, something helpful had happened.

"She looked so lost, so helpless," said the lady, "so I gave her my best mantra."

This is how we help the helpless in Berkeley USA, but hey, it's more than I did.

If you missed the last few issues, or haven't been paying attention to this one, you might not have noticed that despite the zine's San Francisco address, it takes place in Berkeley. That's a sleepy college town, across the Bay Bridge from SF.

Once weekly, though, I ride a train back to the big city, to pick up my mail and then work a shift at Black Sheets, a small but lovable smut mag.

Every time I'm back in Frisco, climbing up from a subway station, I'm greeted by the scent of urine. You smell it all over in the city, and it's probably as much a part of most tourists' memories as the cable cars and the wharf.

This morning I walked around old pissy San Francisco for a while, breathing it in, and missing it even as I was there. I miss the scum of the slum, half-price hookers with open lesions, bag ladies arguing with the air, drunks slobbering in their sleep on the rare park bench that hasn't been cruelly bum-proofed with rods or spikes, and yeah, I miss the city's smell of pee.

Judge me if you must, but the urine still smells like home. Not like Berkeley, with its odd upscale odor of not-pee.

♦ ♦ ♦

At a corner, a crusty crackhead was earning drug money by selling stolen bus transfers. He wanted half a buck, but I talked the price down to 30¢ for a hot Muni round trip, then illegally rode the #22 bus to the Fillmore. There were no seats, so I stood and surfed and squished a stanchion all the way, just like old times.

The bus held a hundred other idiots, all of us lurching along through traffic, one by one fighting our way to the door to step off. I hated all of them, and that's something else I miss about the city — the invitation to think snarling, hateful thoughts about every stranger on every bus, every corner, everywhere. The unconscious lifting of my shoulders, curling of my lip, toughening of my attitude as I walk the streets of San Francisco.

Without that defensive aura, that need to always be alert, and the sweet smell of strangers' urine, Berkeley seems so civilized by comparison. Maybe too civilized for me.

♦ ♦ ♦

A few months back, SF's cartoonishly villainous mayor Frank Jordan had a front-page photo op as the first politician to step into the city's sparkling new public john at Market & Powell. Then he locked the door behind him, and one can only wonder what Jordan did in there, because he's certainly still full of shit.

Incredibly, Jordan wanted voters to be happy that the new toilet, an ugly green free-standing and self-cleaning eyesore, cost the city nothing. The deal is that the city is supposed to get a hundred ugly self-cleaning public crappers, which will probably malfunction and be out of order most of the time, in exchange for letting some French company build a thousand or so even uglier kiosks (read, billboards) along the sidewalks.

That's a shitty trade, if you ask me.

And meanwhile, two blocks from that first of the doomed green crappers, giant city-owned restrooms remain padlocked 24/7 under Union Square. Those johns are fully functional but they've been closed for years, because the city would rather spend millions of dollars prosecuting homeless people for peeing on the sidewalk, than pay the wages of a washroom attendant and unlock those toilets, to let people pee when they need to pee.

♦ ♦ ♦

BARTing back home, I'd usually prefer a seat to myself. That's my first choice, but if somebody's gotta sit next to me, my second choice would be a pretty woman. This afternoon I got my second choice, as a very attractive woman placed her very attractive rump on the same train bench as my bum.

I didn't say anything to her, just buried my face in a newspaper. It's a courtesy. She spoke to me, though, and I'm kinda repulsive, so pretty women don't usually do that.

"You're the fishman, right?" she asked.

Criminy, I don't want to be a celebrity, and if I ever am famous, I don't want it to be for selling fish. I raised my head out of my newspaper, and when her eyes met mine my grouchiness softened and something else hardened. This was a very pretty woman. She had skin the shade of coffee with cream, and she smiled and waited too long for an answer.

"It's my calling, " I finally said. Not great, but also not the dumbest line I've ever come up with.

She smiled and said, "I bought a 666 fish from you."

"Ah, the Anti-Christ. You have good taste — that's our most radical fish. Where did you put it?"

"On my mom's back bumper," she said, "right next to her Jesus fish. She hasn't noticed it yet."

With that most of my nervousness faded. I liked this lady, and before the train came up from underwater we were making conversation. Nothing deep or memorable, no phone numbers were exchanged, and I worried about my permanently bad breath, but we small-talked until the train pulled into Berkeley. Then I stood up to step off the train, and said, "Bye."

"Bye-bye," she said, and then "My name's Andrea?" she added, saying it as a question.

Of course, I was supposed to introduce myself. The bell had sounded, though, and the train's doors were about to close, I was walking away, and too dull-witted to even remember my name. Instead I said, "Bye, Andrea," and stepped from the train to the platform. The doors whooshed shut behind me, and the train pulled away.

"My name's Doug," I said to the taillights, fading down the tunnel.

After walking some of San Francisco yesterday, I wanted to walk some of Berkeley's streets today. Aimed myself to the south, because a few blocks in that direction is something of a slum, or as much of a slum as you'll find in Berkeley. Since making the big changes in my life, the slums have usually been my home.

I was hoping for the sweet smell of pee and a few bums and crackheads spare changing me, but nope. Even the sorriest corners of this town smell fine, and the crackheads and tweakers of Berkeley are unfailingly polite.

There came a slight chill after I'd been walking a ways, a shiver from forgetting my jacket, or perhaps from remembering that I always walk alone.

Not long ago, I talked to an almost-friend, and he seemed mighty lonely. I gave him the expected bullshit line, that eventually he'll find someone. Ha. Walking today, I replayed bits of that conversation, and remembered that I'm lonely myself.

Always I say I'm a hermit — don't knock on my door, don't dial my phone, and don't expect friendship from me — and certainly that's who I am. Solitude isn't really a choice, though. It's a tactical retreat, and sometimes it's sad. Sometimes it gnaws at me like a rat in a trap, chewing its own leg off.

And yet I whistle a happy tune. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay. My, oh, my, what a wonderful day. Tell myself that lie every day, and after thirty years or so, why, sometimes I believe it myself.

♦ ♦ ♦

Marijuana is too expensive, and it's never been a major fascination for me anyway. But today I worked next to Buckeye, the jewelry vendor who lights up joint after joint every afternoon. The scent was everywhere, and after I jokingly complimented him on his aftershave, he offered me a few hits.

It wasn't necessary. The wind was gentle and in the right direction, so simply breathing the air meant enjoying his buds, almost as much as he was.

Now the day is done, and I don't feel much like writing. Corn chips, man. I really really really want some corn chips, and maybe some Twinkies on the side.

My flatmate Cy says he saw a cockroach in the bathroom yesterday. Damn it. We've already bug-bombed my room, so Judith says we'll bug-bomb the entire house next.

From years of cockroach experience, though, it's hopeless. Once the roaches are in, they're in.

To have any hope of getting them out of the house, we'd have to clean every room like never before.

We'd have to vacuum and spray every inch of carpet.

We'd have to pull the stove out from the wall and sweep away the crumbs that are under it.

We'd have to retrain all the flatmates to stop leaving cupcakes on the kitchen counter overnight.

All these and a hundred other areas of the house are perfect roach-hiding habitats, and until everything glistens in the sunlight, we could bug-bomb every room every week and it'll only keep the roach colonization "under control," but it won't eliminate them.

A few cockroaches almost certainly rode over with me when I moved here from San Francisco, so it's my fault, and for that I'm mighty dang sorry.

Roaches are forever, though. They're a curse that can't be reversed without hiring an exterminator, paying whatever price the pros demand. And even then, hell, I've never dealt with a pro exterminator, and I'm skeptical.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's the same at every job everywhere, I know, but I'm tired of some of the bullshit on Telegraph.

Today my neighbor-vendor began haranguing me as soon as I put my backpack down and started setting up the table. He wasn't even an old enemy; just another middle-aged white man, selling candles on the Avenue. I'd seen him around, but we'd never before been near enough to speak to each other.

I dropped my pack on the asphalt, started un-bungeeing my table and merch, and said good morning to him.

"You're two inches into my space," was his reply. At first I smiled because he had to be kidding, right? He wasn't kidding.

Yeah, my stuff was over the line, but there was nothing else in those two inches, and it wasn't my intent to claim that sliver of pavement in perpetuity, like the American flag planted on the moon. It was just my backpack and notebook, out of the way, for as long as it would take to set up my table.

"No problem," I said, sweet as I could pretend to be. I moved my backpack far into my space, then unfolded my table, but it wouldn't fit, because the vendor on my other side was several inches into my space.

It happens. White lines mark the vendor spaces, but the lines are years old, faded, only a few inches long, and probably weren't measured quite right in the first place.

See, some of the vendors have tables 4'2'' long, but sign up for four-foot stalls. My table is about 3'10'' in length, so it fits in on Telegraph better than I do, but not this morning.

So I approached my non-complaining neighbor, and explained the situation. Asked if I could help her shimmy her table a bit to the north, so I could fit my table into my space and stay out of the next vendor's space. She said sure, and I walked around to help lift her table.

The complainer, though, said, "You can't leave your table like that," because indeed, my freshly unfolded and still empty table was over the line, into his space.

"Uh, I'm helping these ladies move their table a little, so I can squeeze into my allotted slot." Very zen, I hadn't raised my voice, hadn't said anything rude, though of course I wanted to.

"Yeah, well," he said, "you can't leave your table like it is."

I didn't want to start the day screaming at my vendor-neighbor. If you can help it, you never want to work all day next to someone who hates you. But it was already too sunny and my Mr Nice Guy act was ended.

"If you'd shut the fuck up and quit nagging at me, I'd be out of your space already," I said, and then me and the other vendor lifted her table and put it down a few inches up.

The complainer was still complaining, so I asked him whether the tree up his ass was pine or birch, as I moved my table out of his turf, and started unpacking my merchandise.

"And you're still in my space," said the complainer from the next booth. "Move out of my space!"

I sighed, reminded myself that I'm (usually) a pacifist, and crouched down to look very closely at the faded line on the curb. That's the only indication of where one vending stall ends and the next begins, and it was probably painted before I was born. You can barely see it. It's an inch-wide white line, six inches long, and it's only at the curb; after that it's a guess. Absent a divining rod, everything's a guess, but the very edge of my table might have been on the line.

"My table might be on the line, but it's my line as much as yours. I ain't moving until 5:00, and until then, you can french-kiss my pimpled white ass."

You want petty? I can be petty, and nothing much could be pettier than our argument. All three of us vendors had room to sell our stuff, and after moving the other vendor's table, I had enough room that I could've moved my table another inch away from that man's precious imaginary line. But I didn't, so I worked all day next to someone who hates me.

Today, a tale of vendor politics, land squabbles, cowardice, character, and cops, and it's all so ridiculous it makes Congress seem sane.

As is my routine, I arrived on Telegraph Avenue at about 11:45, by which time most of the other vendors were already open for business. It took a few minutes to find the sign-in sheets, pick an unclaimed spot, and wheel my cart there, but — my spot was occupied.

This has happened before, because some vendors ignore the rules. Usually I'd politely ask the trespasser to vamoose, but today the guy in my space was Yacoob. The space had been empty when he got there, so he'd moved in, but an hour later that's the space I'd claimed, without knowing he was in it.

Yacoob might be the only vendor I actually like. He's always been great to me, even shares his lunch. He gave Sarah-Katherine free earrings. When I couldn't find the vendor with the sign-in sheets, Yacoob has (twice!) told me (from his photographic memory!) which stalls were unclaimed that day. A few weeks back, when he saw me going to my signed-in space, he pointed me toward an empty space in a better location, where, although someone else had signed for it, Yacoob knew the details of some complicated swap between vendors, and knew nobody else was actually going to set up there. My day in that spot, incidentally, was the best-selling day in sacrilegious fish history.

So I wasn't going to even try evicting my pal Yacoob. No sir. I owed him one (or more).

His problem was, he has an 8-foot table, but he'd gotten the last draw in the lottery this morning, and there were no 8-foot stalls remaining. He'd signed up for a 4-foot space next to an unclaimed 4-foot space, and hoped he could get away with it, since this was a low-volume stretch of Telegraph. Of course, each vendor is only allowed to claim one spot, so what Yacoob did was illegal.

And that empty space next to Yacoob, the space he'd expanded into? It turned out to be mine.

What the heck, though. I yielded, and set up the fish stand on Yacoob's other side, in a space that had been signed for by someone else, but was still vacant.

It was a sunny day, though, business was brisk, so I was sure that whoever'd signed for that spot would show up and claim it. Between selling fish, I also prowled the Ave, hoping to find another decent spot.

It was almost 1:00 when I got booted, by the same vendor who'd been such a jerk yesterday, the "You're an Inch into my space" idiot. There was nothing I could do, though. It was his spot, not mine, them's the rules, so I packed my cart sooner than possible, and resettled into a corner spot I'd scouted, a block away.

Corners are usually good for business, but this corner spot was empty for a reason. It was right in front of a building that's being remodeled, with plywood on the windows and hard-hatted men walking in and out and carrying lumber. I expected so-so sales at best, and didn't even notice that my new spot was right beside a police telephone box.

Well, pretty soon a cop on a bicycle rolled up, stopped almost directly in front of my table, unlocked the police box, and started talking to Headquarters. He could've stood to the side, taking up just one man's worth of space, but it was easier for him to sit on his bike and take two men's worth of space. In doing so, he almost completely blocked anyone from getting to, or even seeing, my table full of fish.

Me being patient and cowardly, I waited for him to finish his call, which lasted several minutes and sounded personal (lotsa laughter). Then he hung up the phone, re-locked the box, got back on his bike… and stayed there, now talking on his two-way radio.

He was still sitting on his bike, still blocking my table, and even when he finished the radio call, he remained there, perched on the bike, surveying the crowds on Telegraph. Maybe he was looking for a bad guy, I dunno. Being police, more likely he was waiting to receive his weekly bribe.

I'm never eager to talk to a cop, but finally I had to say, "Excuse me, officer, but could you please step aside? You're blocking my table."

He looked at me like I was made of solid shit, and then he slowly, stupidly looked at the fish on my table, and especially the booklets, What Lesbians Do. He made a face like he was ready to puke, stared at me, and finally said, "I don't know where people like you get off."

Then he ignored me again, but remained on his bicycle in front of my table. I waited a while, probably too long, because of my aforementioned cowardice. He couldn't stay sitting on his bike all afternoon, could he?

Yeah, he sure could, so eventually I asked again, even more meekly. The cop answered, "I'm not moving, not for you."

By then it was fairly late in the day, and a few vendors were closing up for the day, so other spaces were available. That oinker had been sitting on his bike, blocking my table for twenty minutes, and his tires were gonna sprout roots before he moved, so I started schlepping my stuff to a freshly-emptied stall nearby. When I was about half-resettled, the policeman pedaled away.

♦ ♦ ♦

Something my daddy taught me is, after a bad day, take time to reflect, and see if there's anything you could've done different to avoid the problem. So as I walked home sweaty and frustrated, I thought it all over, and… regrets? I've got a few.

I don't regret giving my spot to Yacoob, but I do regret trying to talk to a cop, and I sorta regret typing it up, because it's all so very dull I'm sure you'll regret reading it. Mostly I regret getting out of bed this morning. It would've been a good day to call in sick.

And yet, the worst day selling fish is still twice as nice as the best day working at Macy's.

SATURDAY — When I told Jay that I was getting weary of dealing with sometimes-rude, sometimes-crazed Christians, she gave me a Bible. "Take it with you when you're on Telegraph," she said, "and keep it on the table, in plain sight. It'll really fuck with them."

A brilliant idea, no? And now, for the past week or so, the Holy Bible has been on my table. I've been protected by the word of someone else's lord and savior. And it's working, I think.

I still sometimes see people with that look in their eye, like they want to brain me with a frying pan, but then they see the Bible and frown, and almost visibly become unsure of themselves, like, maybe they've misunderstood everything about the fish and the fish-stand and the fish-man.

♦ ♦ ♦

In a good mood today, I took Jay's plan to the next logical level, singing hymns at the table, but adding a flamboyant fart sound at the end of every line. "How Great Thou Art" was my favorite:

"Oh Lord my God — poot — when I in awesome wonder — poot — consider all — poot — the worlds thy hands have made — poot…"

The vendor next to me was selling all sorts of left and atheist buttons and bumper stickers, and for just a dollar I bought this fabulous pin that sums up my feelings quite well:

He is YOUR God. They are YOUR rules. YOU burn in Hell.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — There are some days so damned boring I don't think there's a word worth writing, but that doesn't stop me.

♦ ♦ ♦

MONDAY — Took the train under the bay and into San Francisco, for my weekly afternoon working at Black Sheets, the sex mag. It's office work, a little data entry, and filling and mailing orders. It's no different from office work at a medical clinic or a car dealership, except that instead of dealing with diagnoses or warranty claims, we deal with porn. It's not unpleasant, and the guys I work with, Bill and Steve, are always mellow.

Today was a typical day at the office: Steve read an awful porn submission out loud, and we laughed at how bad it was; Bill had me sort through the incoming mail, and believe me, a sex mag's incoming mail is more interesting than your mailbox. There were free samples of products probably illegal in Utah, guys and dolls sending unsolicited nudies, invitations to sex parties, and porn industry newsletters.

Like any other mailbox, though, most of it's junk mail, which gets recycled into three piles: plain paper, glossy paper, and the goodies I get to take home.

♦ ♦ ♦

BARTing back to Berkeley at the same time, on the same train as a week ago today, I walked the length of the train, hoping to 'accidentally' bump into Andrea, the woman I met in the train last Monday. We've got to start meeting like this, but we didn't, and chances are, we never will again.

TUESDAY — I have just bested my personal best banana fest: 22 bananas for dinner. Four bunches. They were brown and splotched, so they were extra cheap, but I prefer 'em brown and splotched. And cheap.

With that many bananas, tomorrow's poop is going to be smooth as... well, as eaten bananas.

♦ ♦ ♦

As always on Tuesdays, no work, and somehow I'm not invited to the Rotary Club meetings, so there's nothing to report.

I considered delving deep into some of my insecurities, phobias, and deepest darkest secrets, but — some other time. I'm banana-bloated and just not in the mood.

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — Today was a most peculiar day at the fishing hole.

As happens about half the time, a city schmuck with a clipboard came by to check the business license. It's the same license it always is, but they always want to check it again, just in case it's changed.

Today he also scrutinized the fish display, very, very closely, like a cop checking to see if there was cocaine hidden inside the fish or something. I stared at the schmuck, but couldn't guess what he was doing or why, so that's what I said: "No cocaine in there, I promise."

He didn't laugh or even smile, because he's the city guy with a clipboard, and they never smile. Instead he announced that we'd have to stop selling the Darwin fish. It's not hand-made, and anything that's not made by hand right here in Berkeley is illegal to sell at a sidewalk sales stand.

I replied with something clever like, "Are you serious?" and guess what? He was serious.

Don't tell anyone, but it's true: We don't make the Darwin fish. We buy Darwin fish from a Darwin fish factory, and sell 'em at a marked-up price.

One of the free speech vendors — the sellers who don't have a license, don't have to prove that their merch is handmade, and don't endure daily inspections by the clipboard schmuck — had complained to the clipboard schmuck.

That free speech vendor sells the same manufactured Darwin fish, alongside all his "Smash the state" buttons and "The best government is no government" t-shirts, and says we're cutting into his business. And what wry commentary could I write to top the irony of a "free speech" anarchist using the city's laws to enforce his capitalist monopoly on manufactured Darwin fish?

Gotta say, though, that the free speech vendor who finked us out wasn't Umberto. Umberto has too much class and integrity to do that, and anyway, he doesn't sell the Darwin fish. (He has one, though. He bought it from me.)

Gotta also say, we do make all our other fish, out of flexible mylar that's printed to our specs, right here in Berkeley, and then scissored by me between ringing up customers on Telegraph.

But yeah, the Darwin fish is different. It's hard plastic, three-dimensional, and like I said, very obviously factory-made. Nail me to a cross, we are violating the rules.

In my opinion our hand-made fish are funnier, but Darwin is the most famous fish. People have seen Darwin fish already, wonder where they can buy one, and when they see our fish stand they come over. Sometimes they buy Darwin, but more often they buy the LSD fish or Dali fish or Anti-Christ fish or Prozac fish or Kiss My Ass fish. Darwin isn't in our top five best-selling fish, but it is the fish that brings people to the table.

So banning Darwin is going to hurt the fish stand. Might even put us out of business. The clipboard schmuck was watching me, though, so I put all our manufactured Darwins into my backpack until he'd walked away.

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When the day was done, I called Jay and told her that Darwin's been declared contraband. She's smart, and instantly thought of something I hadn't: We buy the Darwin stickers manufactured, but about half the Darwins we sell are magnets — after we add the magnetic backing ourselves, right here in Berkeley.

Jay said she'd stop by City Hall tomorrow and make that argument, but neither of us think it's likely a winner.

"You know," I said, "we wouldn't have this problem if we didn't have a license — if we were another free speech table on Telegraph."

The reason the free speech vendors can bypass all the rules is that they've declared their merchandise political. The Supreme Court has sorta said that the Constitution sorta says that the government sorta can't regulate political speech.

Well, our fish are sorta political, aren't they?

Jay and I talked it over, and while she's at City Hall tomorrow, explaining how we magnetize Darwin, I'll be talking to Umberto, to find out if there's any downside to being unlicensed.

The only negative I know of is, he can't reserve a space on the Ave. If a licensed vendor claims the spot he's in, Umberto gets booted and has to pack up and find a different space. But hell, that's happened to me, even with a license.

Jay owns the fish stand, so it'll be her decision, but: I would love to rip the city's permit and license to confetti, and proudly sell the Darwin fish again, maybe under a "Banned in Berkeley" banner.

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In other news, as predicted, nothing's smoother than a poop that's mostly yesterday's bananas.

At 9:20 this morning, who comes knock knock knocking at my door? It was Jay. She'd already been to City Hall to fight for Darwin, to argue that me gluing magnets to the back of manufactured Darwin stickers makes the Darwin magnets a locally-created work of art.

But what does the City of Berkeley know of fine art? They didn't buy Jay's argument, and said again that we can't legally sell the Darwin fish.

Wish I'd seen that scene, but I would've lost my temper. The way Jay tells it, she kept calm, even as the city schmuck told her we're not even allowed to stock the Darwin fish, keep it in a bag and sell it to someone who asks for it (like the "essential oils" table where everyone knows you can score hashish if you ask nicely and aren't a cop).

Jay, with her dander up to he ceiling, says she made her declaration of fish independence right then and there.

"Unlicensed vendors clearly have more rights," Jay said she said, "like the free speech vendor who sells Darwin fish — he'll still be selling Darwin fish, and you can't stop him, so effective immediately our booth will be unlicensed, too. And we're selling Darwin fish."

It's a remarkably silly issue to take a stand over, but it's even sillier for the city to say some fish are legal and some fish aren't. I can sorta see how they got to this point — they want Telegraph Ave to have 'artistic' character — but it's taken a long, unbroken chain of stupid decisions to bring us to this morning's events:

Berkeley has decided that street vendors can't sell Darwin fish, so Jay has decided that damn it, we're selling the Darwin fish anyway. It's not quite the riots for People's Park, but anarchy still rules the streets of Berkeley, and it makes me smile.

So this morning I rolled the same old cart to Telegraph Ave, set it up the same way I've been setting it up all summer. No difference, except that today I didn't sign the sign-in sheets, and didn't post any license.

Sold our fish (definitely including Darwin) near Umberto on the Ave. We spent some time talking, which was mostly me listening, getting his perspective on being an outlaw vendor. He likes the idea of us going rogue, even shook my hand and said, "Welcome to freedom of speech, you're gonna love it here."

His only advice was to be radical about it. "The Constitution," he said, "says 'Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech', but that's an obvious lie. The government can and will regulate speech into silence, soon as you give them that right, and the vendor's license gives them that right. It says you're in business, and they can regulate business.

"Your legal protection and mine is that everything we're selling makes a political statement. By their own rules, the bastards aren't allowed to regulate political speech." And he's right. Everything at the fish stand — Darwin, all the other fish, and Jay's book of lesbian poetry — makes a political statement.

"Keep doing that," Umberto said. "Stay way out there, selling things nobody on the City Council would be caught dead with, and they'll figure you're nuts and leave you alone.

"If you ever start selling 'normal' things, though, like t-shirts that say 'I visited Berkeley and all I got was this crummy t-shirt', then they'll decide you're a merchant, and they will regulate you, prosecute you, fine you, and put you in prison if you don't pay the fine."

I spent all day yesterday immersed in your world, and in tribute:
I was waiting for BART, reading your April issue, and this little girl next to me was pirouetting like a little ballerina while staring at me. So I let out a nice juicy fart and instantly she stopped and walked away.

—Kelli Williams (Twenty Bus)

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When I was in high school, the people I used to hang out with (I guess they were friends of mine, who I haven't seen in twenty years, thankfully) used to kid me about being from outer space. I think it was because I seemed to be in my own world.
Of course, because it's normal to see yourself as unique, I probably cultivated this impression. I really had nothing in common with these friends, other than an appreciation of the effects of taking drugs.
I've grown up (?) to become like your roommate you mentioned who wouldn't respond when you spoke to him (6/29). I'm the same way. I'm just amazed when someone notices me. I try to keep my impact on the world to a minimum. Plus I'm empty inside. There's nothing there, not even enough to return a hello. I have nothing to give.
Several months ago, waiting for the bus after buying magazines at a newsstand, I found this booklet [enclosed] in a large box of papers. I set it aside, and finally read it about a month ago. I think it's great. I think this is legit. The box I found it in had papers filled with mathematics and what I think was the original for the booklet. Maybe it contained the demonstration of Universal Scholarship alluded to on [the booklet's] page 47.
I wish I had saved the whole box, but there was 40 or 50 pounds of paper there, and since I was riding the bus I just grabbed this one thing. I've tried to find the author, but have been unsuccessful so far. I'm going to keep trying.
I had a couple of copies made up, and sent one to Factsheet Five. I think they will like it, but they may not review it because it's so old. I was hoping maybe you could review it, too.
—Tim Lauzon

Tim, very few people are empty inside, and you're not one of them. There's something in you.

Anyway, it looks like you found something to give after all. The booklet or zine you sent, Poor Marshall's Manual, is kooky but quite good.

What I'm looking at, folks, is a 51-page handwritten (but very legible) treatise on the simple life, written by somebody who obviously lives or lived it.

A bit of bad news, though — the author says he's 64, and the zine was written in 1979, so if you keep looking like you say, Tim, odds are you're going to find a tombstone.

Much of Poor Marshall's advice is timeless, though, if you're interested in concepts like voluntary poverty, and spending less because you're using less. Or if you're just a tightwad who wants to save money.

It starts a philosophical overview from the author, Marshall Greenwood:

When a crowd gathers, reason retires. When people mass they invite disaster. By sheer force of their number people have, in panic, trampled to death hundreds of their own… Then do I urge solitude? Right. Said Thoreau: "I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude." Like the great philosophers I urge a life of contemplation and reason… and "far from the maddening crowd."

After a few pages of such, Mr Greenwood moves on to the practical advice, with 173 numbered nuggets of light living and good health, most of which made sense to me. #107 is my favorite; it's made me look at my mini-refrigerator as something to perhaps soon be rid of, instead of lugging it with me to New York when I move there:

107. Refrigerator, deemed essential, I don't need. My eggs keep o.k. in north window, none has soiled in six years; I use only non-fat dry milk and mix only what I use right then. I have no leftovers. I use no margarine, only poor safflower oil. I buy no frozen food, no big cans [of] orange juice, don't eat meat, fish, or fowl. So what do I need of a big, heavy, space-hogging white elephant which must be bathed regularly and have costly surgery at times, and can be moved only at great toil and cost to a new home?

True to his principles, Greenwood uses lots of abbreviations to save on paper. You'll also find handwritten typos, and no pretty illustrations or fancy graphics, just plenty of homespun, home-style wisdom.

Yours truly says truly, if the topic of living cheap and small intrigues anyone reading this, send two bucks for a copy to Tim Lauzon, ██████████████████, San Diego CA 92101.

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Hello! I read about your zine in Queer Zine Explosion, and I must have a copy. Trouble is, I'm stuck working here in utterly straight Madrid, and I don't know where I'd get $3-American.
I'm hoping as one queer to another you can help out by sending the first issue free, and then tell me what I can do for you (from Spain, sigh) in exchange.
Yours, I wish!

— Cristobal X

Mr X,

Not everything in Queer Zine Explosion is queer. Me, for example. I'm not gay.

Even if your note got me hard, though, I'd be too hard up to send freebies, especially freebies overseas. Even sending this note is gonna cost me sixty cents, and I am poor.

Might I cordially and kindly suggest that you trot your tight ass into a bank? There you'll be able to obtain $5-American, which is my price for shipping to Europe, but please add another sixty cents to cover the expense of this reply.

If a trip to the bank is too much to ask, I'll cheerfully accept the equivalent in pesatas. Your money is good here, Chris. Send some.

—DH

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I'm the reader who recognized you handing out flyers on Castro (5/27) I only wanted to say hi, but I guess you're as anti-social in person as you are in your zine.
If you don't want to talk that's okay but I didn't like being a joke when the next issue came. You even insulted my clothes, which takes some balls when you were wearing a goddamned fluorescent green cape. Now I want to say fuck you forever. I don't pay real money just to be treated like dirt.

—Unsigned

Interrupt my day unexpectedly and I'll happily treat you like dirt, whether you buy my zine or not.

—DH
Addendum, 2022: Tim Lauzon is presumably long-gone from his 1995 address, but Google tells me Poor Marshall's Manual is still around. Among other places, it's for sale from Christopher Nyerges, for twelve bucks.
And I love that. If I'm piecing the clues together correctly, the author of Poor Marshall's Manual was probably dead already, when Tim found the box of his writings. Living writers rarely leave their material boxed up and lying around.
So Tim grabs the booklet from the box, takes it home and reads it, likes it, and runs off a few copies. And because he did, Poor Marshall's Manual is still available for buying and reading, all these years later.
As another writer almost nobody's heard of, I wonder if my words will fare so well, so many years after I'm dead and a goner.