It rained and rained today, not a gentle mist and not like Seattle, but by mid-day on the Avenue I was drenched. I've been wearing my dead dad's shoes for a year, but it wasn't until today that I noticed my socks are visible through the soles. It rains here so rarely that I don't own a raincoat, so I wore a sweater on top of another sweater, and they might as well have been sponges.

There's no awning or anything, so there aren't many customers at a souvenir stand outdoors when it's raining. I was simply wet and waiting and wondering what flu or pneumonia was soaking into me. I would've closed the stand and come home early, only there was a major development looming in the fish fights.

First, an apology: It's flat-out pathetic that I'm still talking about fish politics, but I've told you everything so far and we're approaching what let's hope is the end of the story, so yawn twice and read along, please:

Jay told me this morning that someone from the city had phoned her, and told her that our "free speech" permission slip would be hand-delivered to the fish-cart at 3:30. So despite nearly no sales, I couldn’t go home early, and sat in the rain waiting for the appointed time.

After three months of monotonous runaround, it wouldn't have surprised me if the delivery had been a no-show, but alert the media: At 3:47 this afternoon, it became legal fer me to display and sell the anti-Christian Darwin fish, mass-produced and purchased at wholesale, alongside Elvis and LSD and all the other sacrilegious fish stickers and magnets we make ourselves.

The city inspector — same schmuck who'd given me trouble before (8/30, 9/6, 9/23, etc) drove up in a snazzy white city car, illegally parked in the left-turn lane, and whistled me over like I'm a cocker spaniel. I approached, and he handed me the piece of paper we'd sought for so long I'd thought it was fictitious — a Permit to Place Object on Sidewalk.

There should've been a bright light shining down from the heavens, with a choir of angels singing hosannas. Praise the Mayor and her many minions.

As I stood in the rain, the schmuck inside explained the complicated rules governing free speech in Berkeley from the warmth and dryness of his official car, as cars honked and swerved past:

• Everything we sell must always and only pertain to freedom of religion (the fish) or gay rights (Jay's chapbook).
• We're not allowed to sell any of the other things Jay wanted to sell — the candles and knickknacks and all (9/2).
• Anything else we might want to sell is subject to the same approval process by the city (meaning, months of dithering).
• The cart can only be set up on one specific corner, the "free speech corner," and the permit is invalid if the cart is anywhere else.

That last restriction, by the way, seems unlikely. The only way I could ensure finding a spot on the corner specified on the permit would be to be there by 7AM, which is hours before I get to the Avenue. So I'll probably ignore that stupid stipulation.

"Wow," I said to the inspector schmuck, "I'm sure glad the First Amendment has kept freedom of speech so sacred." The man is none to clever, though. He made a face at me, but it's the same bored and annoyed face he always makes, and I don't believe he caught my sarcasm.

Jay had wanted to see this grand moment, the culmination of far too much effort she'd put into fighting City Hall, so she joined me on the Avenue at about 2:20. I was glad she was there, to prevent me from strangling the city employee as he recited all the stipulations. His list, I should mention, was about twice as long as what I typed. I left out all the stuff so obvious it didn't need to be said.

When he was done, Jay shook the schmuck's hand, something I certainly wouldn't have done. As he drove away, we closed the stand, because the non-stop drizzle made it stupid to be open for business. Jay gave me a lift home, stopping at her place to drop off the cart, and at a hardware store, where she bought some flower pots and I bought a $2 parka for the next time it rains.

Then Jay took us to dinner, and we talked of fishes and free speech until I was dry, and full. As we ate, Jay described what we both hope will be her last phone call with the city's regulators, when they'd called her this morning.

The official on the phone had told her that while our free speech table had been approved, the permit could be revoked at any time, because, quote, "The city is reconsidering this whole 'free speech' thing. It's such a hassle."

Those were his exact words, Jay said. Ain't that something? Free speech is such a hassle, Berkeley is reconsidering the concept.

It was as cold today as it had been wet yesterday, but at least it was dry, as the fish chronicles opened a new chapter at a new location.

Everyone with the city's permission to practice free speech is required to operate on one specific block of Telegraph Ave. It's the free speech ghetto, and I like it there.

Surrounded by crazies hawking subversive t-shirts and anarchist bumper stickers, one guy screaming that President Clinton should be impeached, another guy saying anyone who doesn't support the President is a fascist, yeah, it's more interesting than selling fish amidst all the just-plain merchants who sell pot pipes and belt buckles, candles and wood carvings, earrings and nose rings and cock rings, porcelain and pottery, silkscreened shirts and jackets, rhinestone-studded belt buckles, etc.

I'll maybe miss working around Hey and Midget and Very-Abdul and a few others, but it's time to make some new friends, and probably some new enemies.

Among the few vendors on this block that I know, one is Jasper, the asswipe so-called anarchist whose complaints to the city got Darwin banned, and started our permit problems. Working near him might be interesting, now that we have the same permission slip for free speech that he has.

Another familiar face is Umberto. He's a prickly guy who sells anarchist stickers and buttons wherever he wants, sometimes on the free speech block, but sometimes not. He has no license, and not even the Permit to Place Object on Sidewalk that Jay worked so hard to get for me. On principle, Umberto refuses to play the city's fill-out-the-form game, and I admire that, envy that. Hey, Umberto, I'm running low, can I borrow your principles some time?

Today I worked between Phil, the nut who told me our fish shouldn’t qualify as a free speech statement, and Gerry. Now, Gerry is a perfectly normal guy, selling perfectly normal pamphlets about how to grow marijuana without grow lamps, but today some schmuck wanted to take his picture. Gerry doesn't like having his picture taking, next to his advocacy pamphlets for illegal activity, so he said no — and the guy clicked his Polaroid anyway.

Gerry jumped out of his chair and charged at the man, and grabbed the snapshot before it had developed — and the camera. So of course, the guy who'd had the camera started yelling, and Gerry yelled at him, and it was very free speech indeed.

Gerry refused to return the camera unless camera guy promised not to take his picture, and camera guy wouldn't make that promise, so Gerry held on to his camera, and got half-heartedly chased around the street. Cue "Yakety-Sax."

Then Phil came over to play peacemaker. He's famous for his volume, and loudly took Gerry's side in the argument, screaming at the camera guy, and challenging him with, "Why don't you call a fuckin' cop?"

Maybe he meant it sarcastically, but after he'd yelled it several times, the camera guy said he would, and stomped off looking for the police. He came back ten minutes later with a cop, who patiently listened to everybody's story.

Actually, much as I hate cops, this one handled the situation pretty much perfectly. It is, you know, legal to take people's pictures if they're in public. Permission is granted, simply by being in public.

The cop explained this politely, and Gerry apologized, and returned the camera, even returned the snapshot, but the guy with the camera stood around and took several more pictures of Gerry, and said he's going to press charges.

For what, I don't know. A few minutes of playing tag on Telegraph? It's hard to fathom that any judge would listen to such a case, but this is America, land of lawyers.

♦ ♦ ♦

And that was my first day in the free speech ghetto. I think I'll like it there.

Sarah-Katherine, who's not my girlfriend but lets me touch her, will be in San Francisco next weekend, and I don't wish to repeat my rather dismal horizontal performance of her visit last July.

I couldn’t get it up, probably because of nervousness, but stroking myself raw for a week before she arrived probably didn't help, either. So now I'm taking 1500% of the daily adult requirements for Vitamin E, and I haven't masturbated since Thursday. This time, I'm saving all my spunk for her.

Or, almost all. This morning I woke up wet, and I hope that's a good omen, not bad news.

♦ ♦ ♦

On Telegraph today, several of the anarchist vendors in the free speech ghetto were shouting about politics all day. It's Berkeley so that's nothing new, and the volume goes up when all of us radicals are confined to one half of one block.

They had a petition they wanted people to sign, to legalize medical marijuana. By California law, if enough registered voters sign a petition demanding it, almost anything can be put on the ballot as an initiative. Initiatives are a good idea, and this one's better than most. If they collect enough signatures to make it onto the ballot, and if the idea wins the election, marijuana as medicine could be legalized in California.

Everyone who knows anything — do the reading, or smoke the herb — knows the medicinal benefits of marijuana. I already wrote that rant and I'm not going to write it again today.

Long term, marijuana will probably be legalized, and not merely as medicine. I don't think it'll be legal any time soon, though. There are too many if's in the way, and too many fools who'll campaign and vote against anything that smacks of freedom.

Even if it makes the ballot and wins, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency outranks anything the state of California can do. President Clinton would lead the opposition, because easing people's pain and misery with a wonder drug that works wonders isn't as politically popular as standing tough in the war on drugs.

The weird part about today's petitioning on Telegraph is that Umberto was one of the anarchists asking for signatures. He's told me in the past that he doesn't vote. He thinks it's unconscionable, an endorsement of government, which being an anarchist, he doesn't believe in.

But he told me today, that while he doesn't vote, he is registered to vote. The law mandates that you can't collect signatures for a ballot initiative unless you yourself are registered to vote.

"It's the law," Umberto said with a sigh. Then he suggested filing an imitative to get that law changed, but he was only kidding. The law, she be crazy, eh?

As a first step toward full-fledged legalization, I'd love to see the medical marijuana initiative make the ballot and win but I couldn’t sign the petition. I'm an anarchist, too, and unlike Umberto, I'm not registered to vote.

For my evening gig, I knocked on the door, and waited long enough to think nobody might answer, before the door opened. Andrea was almost wearing a sleek, red, full-length dress, and she looked good enough to eat. She twirled around and asked me to zip her up, so zip I did, and then she led me into the living room to meet her daughter, Shannon.

The kid is 9 years old, all cornrows and overalls. She paid me little to no attention, just laid on the floor watching some insipid cartoon. Andrea told her to turn it off, and she obeyed instantly (on the second telling), then came over as instructed, and shook my hand. After hello, the kid's next words were, "Mom says if you touch me, I call the cops."

"Great," I replied, only barely annoyed. "You can sit on your butt all night and watch TV, and I'll stay in the kitchen and read."

"Shannon," her mom said, in a tone that said she wasn't supposed to have told me quite so plainly what she'd told me. To me, Andrea said, "Doug, I know that sounded horrible, but she's my baby and we have to be careful."

"Absolutely I understand," I said, and did. Andrea doesn't know me well. Her daughter doesn't know me at all. It was an awkward moment, but Andrea disappeared down a hall to finish with her makeup or whatever, and Shannon looked at me for a moment, then turned the TV on again and flopped onto the floor.

This'll sound nuts, but in that moment, I saw something in the girl's eyes. Sometimes you can see the spawn of Satan in a child's prematurely pinched face, and you get a glimpse at the kind of vile, closed-minded, cruel, unthinking adult that kid will be in twenty years. And once in an even greater while, you might see in a particular kid's eyes or face the chance that he or she might might evolve into a worthwhile human instead.

Or it might have been wishful thinking. What do I know about 'reading' people, let alone half-people? In a flash of eye contact with that kid, though, I saw a smartass, maybe; a troublemaker; a brat — a kid like I was at her age. Maybe she won't drive me to suicide tonight, I thought.

Andrea, meanwhile, floated into and out of the living room, getting herself fully assembled for a night on the town with some lucky bastard, and I paid more attention to her than to her daughter. See, kids mostly just annoy me. It's Andrea that I've had daydreams about. She is a fine-looking woman.

And as I was thinking that thought, a horn honked, and Andres kissed her daughter goodbye and darted out the door. As it latched shut, the kid looked at me, so I said, "You stay way, way, way over there, so I can be safe," and then I comically hid behind a wall where she couldn't see me.

She giggled, and pretty soon I was sprawled across the sofa, reading some zines I'd brought, and occasionally glancing at her to make sure she wasn't playing with explosives or otherwise in need of adult supervision.

During the commercials she talked a little, about the show and about glittery shoes, but she didn't get on my nerves. The TV sure did, though, and as whatever dreck she was watching ended, I said, "Any chance you'd turn that off that damned noise? Wanna play chess or checkers or hangman or something?"

"No swearing," she said, but not snotty. It sounded like a rule she'd heard and memorized, but she didn't much care.

"Did I swear?" Honestly, I wasn't sure, but I said I'd try to watch my language.

She said she wanted to watch the next show, but maybe hangman afterwards. We talked a little more during the commercials, and when it was over, she turned the TV down but not off. She found a tablet to write on, and we played hangman while she watched some other televised idiocy, but I accidentally said damn a second time, and she told me again about the rule.

"I don't want to get either of us in trouble," I explained, "so can you tell me which words I'm not allowed to say while I'm here?"

"No — I'd have to say 'em."

"Well, if you don't tell me which words I can't say, I might say the wrong words, on accident. We don't have a rule about that at my house, and I don't live with my mother, so I'm used to saying whatever I damn well please."

"That's one of the words you can't say," she said, and gave me a long looking-over, deciding whether I was to be trusted. Then she said, "You're not supposed to say damn, fuck, shit, or piss," and giggled.

"Damn, fuck, shit, and piss," I repeated. "Got it. For the rest of the night I'll try really hard not to say damn, fuck, shit, or piss."

"Or asshole," she said.

"Right," I said, kinda scratching my head. "No damn, fuck, shit, piss, or asshole." If you think of any other words we're not allowed to say, be sure to let me know." And I'll be damned if she didn't think of a few others.

She was a little obnoxious, but she's a kid and that's to be expected. I didn't give any orders, so she had nothing to disobey, and we got along fine. When she got tired of hangman, I let her read a couple of my zines, and she particularly liked Thrift Score and Dishwasher. Since I'd already read them, I said they were hers, and left them on the coffee table.

She also talked about some kid at school who's been bothering her. Sounds like he has a crush on her, but doesn't know how to express it, so he keeps slugging her on the arm. Giving her the benefit of my sorta growed-up wisdom, I told her she shouldn’t let any boy or man get away with slugging her. I suggested she should tell the teacher, but she said the teacher's "a dickwad."

I never asked, but as we talked about other things it turned out that Shannon was knowledgeable and talkative about her mother. She sometimes complains, says Shannon, about having no man in her life since the divorce, and tonight was her mother's first date in months. I feigned interest, just to be polite.

For dinner we baked a frozen pizza that wasn't very good, but wherever I am, no leftovers remain. When her bedtime came, 9:00, she said, "Aw," and that was protest enough. I hated bedtime when I was a kid, so I said I sure as shit — oops — wouldn't enforce that rule. Instead we watched Terminator 2 on the VCR, or actually 'we' watched half of the movie, and then I watched the rest of it while Shannon slept on the easy chair.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger had saved the world, I put the cassette away and washed the dishes we'd dirtied. Then I fell asleep on the couch until about half past midnight, when a key turned in the lock, and Andrea was home. We chatted very briefly — her date had included "no sparks," she said (Hooray, I didn't say) — and then she roused Shannon from the chair.

"Hey, honey," she said. "You ought to be in bed."

Shannon came wide awake like toast pops up when it's done, and she said, "Oh, Mom, Doug was the coolest babysitter."

"Why, thank you," I said, surprised to hear it. "And Shannon was perfectly behaved as well."

Mom and daughter talked about what we'd done all evening, and Shannon didn't mention watching T2, so I suspect something R-rated was as forbidden as the cussing.

When Andrea said again, "To bed, kiddo," Shannon sprinted across the room and hugged my big belly, said good night to me, and then she was gone. That hug was, I think, the only time we'd touched since shaking hands hello.

With the kid gone, I grabbed my jacket and backpack to leave, but saw that our hangman sheets were visible under the zines, with S H I T H E A D on top. Hurriedly I picked up the pages while Andrea's back was turned, folded the papers tiny and slipped them into my pocket.

The whole evening was a pleasant surprise, and the biggest and best was that despite having my jacket on and zipped, Andrea was in no hurry to nudge me out the door.

We talked for another ten minutes, mostly about me, damn it, when I'd rather have talked about her. She paid me $30, which is probably more than she pays her regular sitter, and then I had the great personal honor of unzipping her dress, before she thanked me and closed and locked the door.

Today I plowed through a fresh load of mail, opening envelopes, sending zines, reading letters, and — feeling unnaturally chatty — answering a few...

Some of your entries in #15 and now #16 pissed me off. It's no fun to open a zine and be reminded that women are nothing but sex objects to men.
Just four pages after you look up women's skirts you complain about a sexist rap song on the radio, and I mean, what's up with that? You're offended by sexism, but you write sexist stuff yourself?
Seriously, "man", pull your head from your ass and be part of the solution instead of the problem.
—Teresa S, Milwaukee

Sometimes, yeah, it's up my ass, and very rarely it's between a woman's legs, but usually my head is between my shoulders. You want me to apologize for being intrigued by women's bodies, or pretend I'm not, here in my own diary? Can't do that. —DH

Currently I'm being paid to annoy people. The temp agency I'm working for has me ringing the bell for the Salvation Army in front of Albertson's [a grocery store —DH]. So far I've filled over 25 pages with observations. It is hard to smile and wish everyone "Happy holidays" no matter how I'm treated. I hope I don't snap.
—Jeff Zenick, Eugene OR

Good luck with the sanity. Everything about western civilization is working against it.

In school I usually didn't take notes during the teachers' boring lectures, unless some of it seemed worth knowing, but that was rare.

In life, though, I take notes all the time, so great respect for your "over 25 pages of observations." Man, if I didn't have my notes to re-read at the end of the day, tossing most of them but writing some of them into zine entries, I would've snapped too. —DH

Hey Zine Editors!
We thought you might be interested in this feature on Pagan Kennedy by Harvey Blume, coming up in our January issue. Wired 4.01 hits newsstands on December 19. Let us know if you are interested in reprinting the story or contacting Harvey Blume…
—Hayley Nelson, Wired

Thanks for the junk mail, Hayley. You bought my name and address and a few thousand others from Factsheet Five, yes? Ingenuous marketing, but I hate marketing, and especially hate being a victim of marketing, so kiss my ass.

I can't imagine why you're proud of the brief, shallow interview you enclosed, nor why anyone outside of Pagan Kennedy's immediate family would want to read it.

Pagan Kennedy is a professional writer who dabbled at zines between paying gigs, and compiled a book that looks zinelike, but that's not necessarily a compliment. For all I know she's a great writer, but the whole 'slumming it by doing a zine' motif doesn't appeal to me, and anyone who describes reality as "the off-line world" is someone I'd prefer to avoid.

As for your Wired, I've seen it, browsed through it at a newsstand, and it's better than Newsweek, but holy shit. Your writer says, "Zines were like websites — before there were any. A mix of text and graphics, cheap and easy to put together at home, zines were new media." Please do consider zines strictly a past-tense phenomenon, and delete this one from your next wastepaper press release. —DH

Hey, Doug, why is it you want so badly to move to New York City? Have you ever been there? I can understand the wish to move, but why to such an awful place? For someone poor, it's not a good place to live. Have you considered any other places?
—Joey H, East Lansing MI

I don't have any itch to move for moving's sake. San Francisco is perfect for me, and Berkeley, across the water where I live now, is almost as swell.

I'm only moving, or thinking about moving to New York City because Sarah-Katherine wants to, and unlike most humans she's tolerable and I'd love sharing a fridge with her. —DH

I never got that next Hilda [zine] done last summer, but almost. So once the school term is complete I'll get back to it, and it'll be done by the end of the month, I hope.
Please don't ask why a decently intelligent person like me is doing the school thing — I'm embarrassed. I guess I'm still too scared of letting go of its false security. I don't seem to do anything creative while I'm in school. I just read and drink and work. Well, I'm doing it to myself…
—Cia Catherine, Portland

You asked me not to mention what you mentioned, that you're wasting your time going to school, so OK, I won't mention it. I'm wondering why you warned me off, though. I rarely mention in the zine how cynical I am about so-called higher education, so you must be good at reading between my lines.

I used to preach against getting a college education whenever anyone mentioned college, especially when the best reason most students offer is, "It'll get me a better job." Yeah, and marrying a mortician might get you a better burial plot. Only once did I successfully talk a friend into dropping out, so I've mostly stopped blathering about it.

I do think college is a ghastly sort of extended and voluntary prison of the mind for its inmates, but probably that's a prejudice that should embarrass me. I haven't known enough college kids to form a statistically valid observation of the species. From a distance though, I can't describe it any better than you did: "I don't seem to do anything creative while I'm in school."

Still, if you think you're deriving a serious benefit from it, I wouldn't say a word. Are you? —DH

You've got it made, my friend! You live in bee-yoo-ti-ful San Francisco and you vacation in beautiful Seattle, your costs are covered from the sound of things, and your life is full of interesting people.
Just what you need, right? Some bitter Brooklynite drooling over your west coast lifestyle. It's just that I want it to be real, because I want to leave Brooklyn and New York City, and San Francisco has been kind to many friends of mine. I'd move tomorrow if I didn't think they'd spit in my latte and string me up as the New Yorker that broke San Francisco's back.
—Brandon K, Brooklyn

Judith rents rooms here for $450 p/month, though I get a discount for doing housework. Do you have an affordable rent in Brooklyn, and if so, wanna swap places? —DH

Hope your Thanksgiving wasn't as shitty as mine.
—Mark A, Pasadena CA

And I return your warm greetings. —DH

Thanks for the latest Pathetic Life. Your zine did as much for my holiday spirits as would a cup of your best eggnog farts. By the way, you're still sending it to an incorrect address. How tough is it to get an address right? It can't be as tough as farting water, can it? You can fart water, but you can't address an envelope? Is that what you're telling me, Colonel?
And how come I haven't seen a review of my novel Broken Crown in your zine? For crying out loud, that manuscript cost me ten bucks to Xerox plus three bucks for the stamps. Even if you thought the book was crap, you could at least extend me the courtesy of a shitty review in your zine. Good thing for you I'm a Christian and programmed to take abuse. For your sake and the sake of a few others, you'd better get down on your knees and pray that I don't snap.
What's this, from page 37 of Pathetic Life #16? "A few hours later, the question in the back of my mind and the front of my pants is, would I sleep with Andrea if the opportunity arose? It absolutely won't, and even if it did my penis probably wouldn't, but yeah, I'd love to at least try." You lie around naked in bed all day eating chocolate frosting sandwiches and reading Philip K Dick novels, then you fall asleep. Sometimes you describe yourself as a man, but standards must have fallen a bit, eh Colonel?
But seriously, it seems that you're beginning to hold back a little. The last two issues of Pathetic Life (for some reason you didn't send me #14, and I paid for the fucking thing — oh man, you bitch and moan about the evils of the corporate world, you you think nothing of screwing a broke bastard like me out of three bucks — how do you sleep at night?) have been a bit more impersonal. You're not reaching me like you used to. You're giving me a lot of speeches and platforms.
Maybe you're just happy now. Your dreams of Sarah-Katherine have drugged you. You have hope. That's dangerous for your zine. Take my advice: You need to be crushed. Your life doesn't seem nearly so pathetic any more. In fact, it seems better than mine. Wise up, Colonel. My subscription ends with #19.
—The J-Man, Ann Arbor MI

I am not a Colonel, and have never been in the military. If you don't like my zine any more, that's OK; it disappoints me, too. If you didn't receive #14, here's another copy not to like.

As for your novel, I haven't read it yet. Haven't even opened it. I get to the zines quicker than the books, because I generally prefer zines. —DH

In consideration of two recent issues of Pathetic Life, to be paid by the time when Pathetic Doug reasonably gets them out, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged I hereby remise, release, and forever discharge the said Pathetic Doug of and from all debts, demands, actions, cause of action, suits, accounts, covenants, contracts, agreements, damages, and any and all claims, demands and liabilities whatsoever of every name and nature, both in law and in equity, which against the said Pathetic Doug or his heirs and assigns I now have or ever had from the beginning of the world to this date and more especially on account of general patheticosity, mopery, self-abuse and suspicion of the unspeakable crime against nature as well as delays in getting out copies of Pathetic Life, indecision in his life, and eating too much and too many cheese, egg, and peanut butter sandwiches.
I'm releasin' ya now, but this is conditioned on keeping those PL's comin'. Otherwise I'm gonna attach every goddamn thing you own.
—Stephen E, attorney-at-law, Bridgewater MA

This is, I guess, vengeance for a lawyer joke I must've made. Fortunately, you can seize everything I own and you'll still get nada. —DH

When I started selling fish way back in June, the table was a licensed art booth, as are most of the stands on Telegraph Ave. Jay, my boss, had paid the fees and attended the required hearings to prove herself an artist to the City of Berkeley's official satisfaction, so I sold the playful fish stickers and magnets she'd designed.

By popular demand, I also sold the Darwin fish, which is manufactured by some other company. Selling a fish we didn't make was, of course, a violation of the law, but I'm an anarchist and it's a stupid law, and so what?

Well, it got us in some slight trouble, so Jay jumped through a thousand ever-changing hoops, and as of last Friday, instead of being classified as an art table, we're now classified as a rabble-rousing table. With our oxymoronic "free speech" permit, we are now your leading and legal source for sacrilegious fish.

What necessitated the switch, what got us in trouble, was when a certain vendor went to city officials and complained abut me selling Darwin fish. That's an absolutely normal turn of events, something you'd expect from conformist Americans, shocked to discover that a rule, any rule, every rule, isn't being zealously enforced. What makes it laughable is that the person who filed the complaint is Jasper — the Avenue's best-known anarchist.

He's a street vendor who sells bumper stickers and t-shirts with anarchist slogans, and he also sells the same manufactured Darwin fish I sell. He was worried about the competition, so he ratted me out. See, he could sell Darwin fish, because he's a "free speech" vendor, but I couldn't, by law, because my table was licensed.

And now, bearing the same "free speech" permit he has, confined to the same free speech ghetto, Jasper is my neighbor every day.

He isn't particularly loud or rude, and you wouldn't instantly judge him a putz. He maintains a pleasant demeanor on the Ave (with everyone except me), until something sets him off, but something sets him off often enough that most of the regulars know he's irregular.

He argues and shouts with people for five minutes at a time, and then sits down at his table again, all smiles. This afternoon, when the police were arresting some homeless guy for no crime at all, again, Jasper inserted himself loudly, screaming insults at the cops — so he has his good points, too.

But he makes a screaming scene at least once almost every day, and even half a block away his voice is as much a part of the Telegraph soundtrack as anything on Ace Backwards' famous CD.

There was no drama between me and Jasper today, though, so why am I dedicating my daily column to him? Because today, in passing conversation with another vendor, I learned that Jasper hosts a weekly anarchist talk show on Free Radio Berkeley.

And that pisses me off. If you're not an anarchist, picture Ralph Nader making commercials for Chrysler, or me doing public relations for Mensa. Certain people are just plain wrong for certain assignments. Jasper should not be the voice of anarchy on FRB.

A couple of months back, when I told my buddy Josh that an anarchist had ratted me out for illegally selling Darwin fish, I didn't name names. Didn't say it was Jasper. I didn't think Josh and Jasper knew each other, and I am discreet by nature.

So he didn't know it was Jasper we were talking about, when Josh said there's a term for someone who professes anarchy but reports petty violations of the rules. "That term," he said, "is 'police informant'."

It mostly made me laugh, because Jasper's harassment of our fish-stand was small-scale, and really, who cares? I'm more concerned, though, knowing now that an informant works at the pirate radio station.

Josh works there, too. Everyone at Free Radio Berkeley is breaking the law 24/7, and the 'anarchist' who fingered me for a fish violation works there?

After a maybe ten-second ethical debate between my ears, I called Josh to let him know that there's an informant working at the pirate radio station — that the host of Anarchy on the Air had sold his principles for a Darwin fish. I don't know what Josh might do with that knowledge, but I thought he ought to know.

Woke up wet again, after another dream of Sarah-Katherine. Damn my doublecrossing dick! I am not 17 any more, and I don't have buckets of spunk to spare. Quantities are limited, and she'll be here tomorrow!

♦ ♦ ♦

On the Avenue, I'm starting to not hate Trevor. He's a street preacher and wacko vendor, and I don't believe I've mentioned him before. He preaches about Jesus sometimes, and he's in favor of the guy. He's also one of the anarchist vendors, selling "Smash the state" bumper stickers and t-shirts. And he talks politics a lot, but like his religion, his politics makes no sense to me — he thinks Clinton is America's finest President.

And yet, Trevor makes me smile. Give me time, I might actually like him. When he's not talking religion or politics, he's a decent dude, which is better than anyone says about me. When he's talking religion I tune him out, but when he's talking politics he'll let you make a point, politely pretend to listen, and then change the subject.

Today he worked next to me, and we talked about the Gulf War, which he supported and I didn't. I 'splained the obvious reasons why it was dumb and cruel to drop bombs and kill people. It usually is.

Trevor heard me out, and then explained that while the Gulf War may have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, lax standards for playground equipment at public parks and schools cause thousands upon thousands of deaths every year. "And other than Bill Clinton," he said, "who's making a stink about that?"

Well, you've got me there, Trevor.

♦ ♦ ♦

Berkeley is chock full o' nuts, and Trevor is nowhere near the nuttiest. I don't know who takes the fruitcake, but there are plenty of candidates, and most of them are in the free speech ghetto.

Consider the Hate Man, or Mr Testosterone.

Here's the Hissy Fit, a black man who walks up and down Telegraph, never saying anything, only hissing and sputtering.

Or Pink Man, who wears a bring pink spandex full bodysuit and pedals the Ave on his unicycle.

And of course, there are a hundred street kids, some who've been on the street for so long they're not kids any more. America's oft-promised safety net is usually an illusion, and the kids don't qualify for it.

♦ ♦ ♦

Among those of us who try to pass for normal, Gerry had to shut down his stand in the middle of the afternoon to go to court today. He was ticketed several weeks ago, for vending without a license. That's a cost of doing business, if you refuse to play by either of the city's two sets of asinine rules for street vendors.

So he packed up his table, leaned all his stuff against a tree poking through the sidewalk, and asked me to keep an eye on it while he was gone. I sat there and sold fish, and wondered what I'd do with Gerry's stuff if the judge ordered him jailed and he didn't come back.

He came back, though. Setting up his table again, he told me he'd lost his case "in about twenty seconds flat." He explained to the judge that he has a table full of political petitions and pro-pot literature, and he talks to people about it, and that's the First Amendment because obviously it is.

And yes, in answer to the judge's question, Gerry said he also has some pro-pot bumper stickers and iron-on patches, which he sells.

"Sells?" said the judge, and slammed his hammer down. "You need a license to sell, and you got no license." He has thirty days to pay a big fine, several hundred dollars, or it'll be thirty days in jail.

Another unlicensed vendor, listening to Gerry's story with me, smacked him gently in the head, and said, "Donations, dummy! We don't sell anything, we take donations!"

"Yeah, right," Gerry said. "We take 'donations', just like Sears."

Republicans reading this will say that Gerry should be fined and/or imprisoned. He's vending without a license, and the law is the law. If that's your reaction, you're an ass dripping diarrhea. And also, Republicans shouldn't be reading this.

Gerry talks to people all day, the very definition of free speech. He's also homeless, like several other free speech vendors. Selling his iron-on patches is how he eats, and he'll never be able to pay the fine, so in thirty days he's going to jail.

Laws and judges conspire to make it impossible, illegal, for a poor man like Gerry to eke out an honest living without permits, licenses, and registration fees that he cannot possibly afford. And what do you suppose poor people do, when it's illegal to be self-supporting like Gerry is? Go on the dole, or become beggars, or mug somebody. Every other choice is illegal.

Yesterday's talk of "donations" vs "selling" on Telegraph made me curious, unsure what our "Permit to Place Object on Sidewalk" calls it when someone hands me cash and I give them a fish sticker. Is that a sale? Or a donation?

I wanted to see what the small print says, but after the city schmuck handed me the permit last Friday, I gave it to Jay. She looked it over during our dinner that night, and I think she told me she'd slipped the paperwork into one of the pockets in the big green ledger that's always with the cart. The Big Book of Fish, I call it, but on the Ave I went through all its pockets and found nothing but stale Wrigley's Spearmint I'd stashed there some months back.

This could be an uh-oh. Maybe it means I've been street vending without a license, just like Gerry.

♦ ♦ ♦

Checked my voice messages, and there's a call from the lovely and talented Sarah-Katherine. She's in San Francisco, staying at a Marina hotel with her kid brother. I called back, left a message with the hotel switchboard, and with luck we'll connect tomorrow.

To clarify: It's Sarah-Katherine I want to connect with. Sorry if this sounds rude, but I don't have much interest in connecting with her brother.

♦ ♦ ♦

While I was at the phone booth, I also called Jay to ask about the permit, and she told me which pocket of the notebook she'd put it in. Back at the table, I found it, in a hidden pocket I didn't even know was there.

So between customers I read the small print on our coveted permit, to see if we're 'selling' fish or taking donations. All I could find was this sub-section that says,

"I have received from the City Manager's Office a copy of these sections of Ordinance #3262-NS as amended by Ordinance #4594-NS, relative to the use of objects on sidewalk, am familiar with its contents, and agree to comply with ordinance requirements."

Jay signed that, but what does it mean? I think it's referring to those doublespeak-laden city documents that Jay brought back from her first frustrating visit to a city office, as she began chasing this elusive permit way back in September.

To my knowledge, though, we no longer have a copy of the ordinances in question. Certainly, absolutely, if I was the last person who had it, I trashed it. Nobody said we should keep it, and I hate paperwork, and it made little sense anyway.

We're "familiar with its contents"? Hell, no.

So I still have no idea whether we 'sell' fish or accept donations. Not that it would make a damned bit of difference in how I run the stand, but on principle, I sure hope I'm doing something illegal.

♦ ♦ ♦

Judith says she spotted a roach in the kitchen, and it was really big.

♦ ♦ ♦

I called Sarah-Katherine's hotel again, and this time spoke with her. That's never happened before. I hate phones, and when she's not in town she's long distance, and that's expensive, so we'd only conversed in letters and in person.

Without her very nice eyes to distract me, I can report that she has a soft, kinda sexy voice, and what a great laugh!

She's chaperoning her brother on this trip. He's in San Francisco to take a test, for college admission, I think, so while he's scratching his head and filling out ovals all day tomorrow, Sarah-Katherine and I will have the city all to ourselves.

Several hours with a good friend yesterday, ending with a vague promise to get together again in the spring, has made this morning more obviously what it is — another day alone.

That's depressing. I'm midway through a life alone, or more than midway, if my health doesn't hold out. I'll never be blue enough to take the bus back to the bridge, but I ain't chipper this morning.

If we move to New York City together, as Sarah-Katherine has proposed, we'll probably find a place and find jobs and fall into a comfortable groove. We'll say good morning a few times a week when we bump into each other in the kitchen. We'll go to a movie now and then, or to the library. Maybe we'll shop together via the subway, and we'll yell at each other over whose turn it is to mop the bathroom floor. It'll be utterly domestic, until of course we go to our separate beds in separate rooms.

And I'll be as lonely there as I've been everywhere else, or maybe more so, since I'll have left behind the few people who know me here in the bay area. And you know what else? My expectations for our life together in New York might be too optimistic.

Several readers of the zine have asked why I'd even consider moving to New York, and the answer, the hope, is that when we're done arguing about mopping duties, there might occasionally be a touch.

And what's 'occasionally'? It might be twice a week, twice a month, twice a year, or it might be never. There's no promise, and by far it's the best offer I've ever had.

♦ ♦ ♦

The balls of my feet were flattened from miles of walking yesterday. I'm a fool. I knew we'd be walking a lot, but I'd forgotten that I plucked the rotten rubber padding out of my right Reebok a few weeks ago, so there wasn't much between my foot and all those footsteps. The view and the company overpowered everything else, though, so there was no pain to speak of until this morning… and now I have to walk a mile to work. Ouch.

♦ ♦ ♦

"Blasphemy makes the perfect Christmas present!" was my ongoing sales pitch today, selling fish on the Ave, and shouting my clever line as passers-by. Some of them didn't like it, but they kept walking. Others, the line got their attention, and a lot of fish were sold.

This is my fist job where saying "Bah humbug" seems to be good for business. Selling anti-religious stickers and magnets, being grumpy adds to the appeal (I've decided), so I'm trying to sour the season's spirit for everyone.

♦ ♦ ♦

I shared my lunch with Danny, one of the many homeless people I'm getting to know, working on the streets where they live. He's not getting to know me, though. Every time we run into each other he's surprised when some stranger — me — calls him by name.

It might be too many drugs over the years, but he doesn't have the druggie vibe. I think it's a medical issue. Is amnesia a real thing?

He's skinny and I'm fat, so I gave him one of my peanut butter sandwiches. As I ate the other two, we talked about life and love and sacrilegious fish, and his grand economic scheme. Then, showing more manners than most people, he thanked me and walked away instead of sticking around and becoming a pest.

The last thing I said as he left was, "Don't you forget about me," but he will.

♦ ♦ ♦

Terrific winds started kicking up in the mid-afternoon, and I watched in delight as a twenty-foot umbrella, covering four tables at the Cafe Mediterranean, was lifted into the air and slammed into the back of a particularly annoying street kid. It knocked him on his ass, and I loved it.

Then came the rains, so I closed the stand an hour early and hurried away. Instead of a long walk on my weary legs through the wetness in holy shoes, Josh chanced by, and after a few minutes of conversation in the precip, he invited me to dinner.

We hefted the fish cart into the back of his van, and went to the Emerald Garden for an excellent Chinese dinner. I had veggies and rice — delicious and affordable, since Josh was buying. If I was a good reporter or writing an honest review, I'd tell you what Josh had too, but I didn't notice. They served some of the finest tea I've ever tasted, just what I needed to warm my innards after the chill of the storm.

Then we went to the Grand Lake, a beautiful old movie palace. Sadly, it's been plexed, but the main auditorium is mostly intact, and quite impressive, until your eyes follow the arching ceiling to what was once the balcony but now is screen two. What's left of the original architecture is stunning, and at least in the main auditorium, it sure beats seeing a flick at the mall, or on your VCR.

The movie, Casino, is an iffy bet. Martin Scorsese's latest gangster epic, it's set in Las Vegas, home of big criminals with big money and big tempers, and it's a big movie. It works as spectacle, and as comedy, with some surprisingly funny dialogue and violence. Great supporting cast, from Dick Smothers to Joe Bob Briggs, who's a hoot as a brainless redneck.

But it's mostly a drama, and I didn't care much about the main characters — Robert De Niro , Joe Pesci, James Woods, Sharon Stone. They're all larger than life but dumber than autumn leaves. The film is as big as the theater, three hours long, with a twist at the end that makes everything that came before feel false.

There's next to no musical score; instead it's wall-to-wall pop tunes as the backdrop for every scene, which is a distraction. You're thinking more about memories brought back by the songs, than about the story. Lots of directorial showmanship too, cute camera tricks to constantly remind you that you're watching the work of A Major MovieMaker.

Had fun hanging with Josh, though, and the rain never let up, so I sure appreciated the dry ride home by way of dinner and a show and Jay's house to lock up the fish cart. Josh liked the movie more than I did, and at my place, we sat in the van and Siskel and Eberted for a long time.

On my way to meet Sarah-Katherine, I walked by the new Barnes & Noble bookstore at the Marina. It's a mammoth structure, an entire city block, housing thousands upon thousands of books spanning the spectrum from G to R — meaning, mainstream only. Emma Goldman? Emma who? Maybe we can special-order it…

Looking in the windows, you don't see books; you see people drinking coffee, sitting in chairs and staring out at you. See, it's not just a giant bookstore that treats books as a commodity no different than Target treats lawn mowers, it's also the Barnes & Noble Cafe!

Gag me with an espresso, please. You'll find me at City Lights.

♦ ♦ ♦

Walking on, came the hotel where I'd been told to meet Sarah-Katherine, and from the crowd on the sidewalk she emerged like a mist, smiling, walking toward me.

Both of us with open arms, I thought we'd kiss, but she turned sideways and made it into a hug. I'd never say no to a nice hug, but it was also a reminder that she's a friend, not anything more. So noted. I've written some sappy things about her, but I do know what's what and what's not.

♦ ♦ ♦

We spent the afternoon together, and I hope she had as nice a time as I did. We walked through the Mission, because she wanted to see the slums again. We talked, laughed, held hands, had lunch at a burrito bar, and then we walked around the Embarcadero. Occasionally we kissed, and that's the meaning of life, you know — an occasional kiss.

There've been other women, and there will be other women, but she's the first who's shared my cynicism, anarchism, atheism, and a few other assorted isms. She's easy to talk to and worth listening to, and we've reached the point where we're telling each other stories we've already told each other. Is that a good thing? There's nobody else's reruns I'd rather hear.

♦ ♦ ♦

When the afternoon was over, we met up with her brother, and the three of us spent the evening together. He's light on conversation, but so am I. It didn't seem like an intrusion having him around, and I hope it didn't seem like an intrusion having me around.

Together the three of us took a #28 to the Golden Gate, and crossed that bridge when we came to it. It's two miles each way, a long walk. Crossing a bridge so far and looking down at the water, the conversation of course turned to suicide.

You're keenly aware that you're stepping where thousands have taken their lasts steps, and you feel the fatal chill on your skin. If it's not on your mind when you get to the bridge, it's on your mind when you hear the eerie sound of foghorns in the distance, and enormous freighters the size of bathtub toys float under your feet.

It was an intellectual conversation, though, not existential. By the time we'd reached the other shore and turned around, we'd become accustomed to the grandeur, and spoke of baseball and flannel underwear, the Civil War, and other things.

♦ ♦ ♦

Sarah-Katherine didn't come home with me. She's staying at the hotel with her brother, and they're flying home early tomorrow, so we kissed goodbye at the elevator.

With the pills I've been taking, my blood must be about 10% Vitamin E, but without hoodwinking myself, doing without anything more was a relief as much as a disappointment.

Even behind a layer of latex, I am not a casual sex guy. Maybe that's part of the reason I went limp when we were together in July. If it's sex I want, I could buy it for $40 on Geary Avenue. What I want is something more, something personal, something Sarah-Katherine isn't giving to me or anyone.

♦ ♦ ♦

Busing and BARTing my way back to Berkeley, feeling a mix of warm satisfaction, odd sadness, and the ever-present loneliness, I fell asleep and slept past my stop. It was the last train of the night, so I had to walk another couple of miles to get home.

Never walked so much in any day of my life, as I walked today and tonight. Maybe eight miles? Maybe more? That's OK, though. It wasn't raining, and it gave me time and room to think.

If Sarah-Katherine gave me the go-ahead, I'd drop my pretense and self-defense and admit that I like her, a lot. For now, though — and c'mon, for forever — she's not looking for that. Certainly not from me.

If she wants me as a friend, I'm a lucky guy. If she wants me as a friend who gets naked with her sometimes, I'm even luckier. If that's all she wants, well, what the lady wants, the lady gets.

A day with Sarah-Katherine was, as always, a really nice day. What else could it be?

It was kinda like seeing an ex who's still a friend, someone I've had the hots for and still do, someone I've been there, done that, and would happily do again, but not yet, maybe not ever.

Yeah, it was like that.

This is the fourth place I've lived in the bay area, and my second time living on the top floor of a building with a flat roof. Who's the college numskull who invented flat roofs anyway? What a dumb idea.

When it rains, the water has nowhere to go, and just puddles over your head, and after some years and a strong rainstorm — like yesterday — it's not going to simply stay there for the weeks it would take to evaporate.

It drips through the ceiling, of course. Jake pounded on my door at 3:30 this morning to tell me to check for leaks in my room, but my drips didn't begin until sunrise. There are buckets in the hallway, and now two buckets catching slow leaks in my room.

It's been raining inside all morning. Outside, too.

I've wrapped a few layers of duct tape around the holes in my soles, and there are plastic bags between my shoes and socks. Now I'm wrapping my bulky body in this new but cheap parka, hoping it's sufficiently water-resistant, and I'm off to San Francisco to spend a few hours at Black Sheets.

♦ ♦ ♦

On the ride home, the rain briefly turned to hail, thrown against my parka like fistfuls of rice. And I wonder where the homeless are huddled tonight? Danny, and a few other homeless people I sorta know, and the thousands I don't know at all. This is a wild storm, just walking a few blocks in it. Having no home to walk to, nowhere to be warm and dry, is something I can only imagine.

My new parka is water-resistant, but not waterproof, so I'm a little moist. The duct tape on my shoes unpeeled itself, but the plastic bags worked well enough that my feet feel mostly dry.

That's why, when the cashier says "Paper or plastic?" the answer is always plastic. Just try wrapping your feet in a brown paper bag when it rains, bub.

♦ ♦ ♦

Home again in this drippy room, I'm filling this week's zine orders, listening to the rain, looking out the window, and wondering if everyone feels as alone as me.

Tuesdays are usually spent alone in my room, but Judith asked me to clean up around here, which means she has a houseguest coming.

As a rule, we never clean this house unless Judith is expecting company. That's when we frantically sweep away the hair the dog leaves everywhere, wipe spilled jelly off the kitchen table, mop up the urine splatters around the toilet bowl, etc.

Today I gave six hours to the cause, and Jake says the place now looks like humans live here. If you ask me, it looked more human before we cleaned up, but at five bucks an hour this human is happy.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tonight the guests arrived: Judith's sister-in-law by a previous marriage, and her infant child.

Aw, little babies are so delightful, everyone says. Their tiny scrunched-up faces, their strange noises and smells, their incessant cuteness. What could be more adorable?

Bums.

Diarrhea.

Athlete's foot.

Stained t-shirts.

A cat's litter box.

The list goes on and on. Almost anything is more adorable than the spitting, squealing, screaming, googling, whimpering, and drooling of a newborn. It's so repulsive I can't push the earplugs far enough into my ears.

The only thing more annoying than a baby's babbling is the adults babbling back. "Oooh, it's an iddy biddy baby!"

Mother and child are only staying for a few days, though, and then the quiet of Lugosi's ferocious barking will again be the dominant sound around the house.

Nothing against little barely-humans, but they become more tolerable a few years later, when they can feed themselves and wipe their own asses. Of course, a few years after that, they become intolerable again. Why anyone would voluntarily raise children is a mystery to me.

Give me love, give me love
Give me peace on Earth
Give me light, give me life
Keep me free from birth
—George Harrison

My goal in life is to be the father of none. I am completely free of paternal instinct, which guarantees that I'll live my life alone. In the highly unlikely event that I find some woman who can stand me, she'll want children. Most women do. They're hard-wired for it, by genetics.

My wires are crossed, and if I had the money I'd have my wires snipped.

Addendum, 2022: How odd to see that I used the word 'googling' in 1995, referring to baby noises. It's a word that's been lost in the decades since.

It rained again, or actually I think it was the same rain, rain that never stops. So I stayed home, doors and windows shut tight, buckets catching the drips.

Hadn't planned on listening, but I was in bed eating the last of my five vanilla frosting sandwiches, wondering what to have for dessert, when I remembered — on the pirate station, it was time for Jasper's weekly radio show, Anarchy on the Air.

I'd never listened to Jasper on the radio, but I've sure heard him on the Avenue, so I clicked it on, hoping only that his show wouldn't be too big an embarrassment to the philosophy of freedom.

What I heard was spellbinding — a long work of excellent political poetry, deep and strong, softly stating a case for people over profits, against a backdrop of quiet but poignant music. But this couldn't be Jasper — the voice was too calm, the words too intelligent and thoughtful, too wisely considered.

When it finished, Jasper came on, and I'd know that annoying voice anywhere. He told listeners it had been a pre-recorded piece of poetry by someone else whose name I couldn't catch. Then Jasper said, "Welcome to Anarchy on the Air," and I listened to his incoherent drivel, which had nothing to do with freedom. "We need to try to make the police more a part of our community," he said, and that's when I turned it off. I'd rather hear the baby crying, or whatever's on KGO.

It's possible, I suppose, that he had an intelligent point behind that weird remark. Maybe it made sense in some context I was too impatient to allow. Seems doubtful, though, very doubtful.

It's still raining. It'll be raining until we're all swept away in the floods, but I'm not going to worry any more about an informant running the anarchy show on Free Radio Berkeley. No, man, when someone goes on the air and says, "We need to try to make the police more a part of our community," anyone who's not a fool has to know they're listening to an informant, not an anarchist.

Since Sunday, the downpour has never let up for more than a few minutes. Yesterday it sounded like a typhoon, as gallons splashed against and through the skylight over my head. Today, though, everything looks like spring training in Arizona, with nothing but birds chirping in the sunshine, so I rolled the cart to Telegraph.

And regretted it.

I set up the table and sold a few fish, talked to some homeless guy, got screamed at by a Christian, and screamed back. I tried talking to the vendor next to me, but he's a really boring person so I gave up.

Then it started raining again, and then harder, and after an hour of cursing at the heavens I put everything away, stowed the cart for a dryer day, came home, toweled myself off, and turned the space heater on.

And that's about all that happened on Thursday, December 14.

♦ ♦ ♦

For reasons unknown and unfathomable, my soggy head is bubbling with memories from the mid-1970s tonight, so here they are:

The closest I came to being a normal kid was in my church youth group. Mr and Mrs Cheeks ran the meetings and parties, plays and picnics, and we had a wide span of years among the youth, with junior high and high school kids together, grades 6-12. The middle-school kids generally sat and talked in one half of the room, and the high school kids had their own tables, but we all got along, knew each other and liked each other.

There were about twenty kids total, with a solid core of a dozen or so who were always there. I was in the dozen, one of the "always there," along with Bruno and Leon and Stu, and the twins Stella and Priscilla, and Ray Ann.

We were all good kids. A few of us might've inhaled the forbidden plant, but never at a youth group function, and there were lots of youth group functions, enough to keep all of us out of trouble.

Every second Saturday almost year round, we filled Mr Cheeks' station wagon with kids and trash bags, and all of us picked up trash from the side of the highways. Other times we picked up trash in city and county parks. There was no proselytizing on trash days, nor at the car wash and dog wash events. The girls did not wear bikini tips, or if they did they were covered by t-shirts.

You were in the group if you or your parents went to the church, but the church was dying. It was physically a big building on the south side of Seattle, and my parents said it had once been a busy place, but that part of town had become miles of blackness and Asian immigrants and refugees. Our church was white like lilies, so attendance dwindled as the neighborhood changed.

We did door-to-door outreach in the blocks surrounding the church, so there was always a black kid or two and some Asians in the youth group, with the idea that they'd bring their families to church and then our church wouldn't be quite so white. It usually didn't work. The black and Asian kids were OK with the youth group, but with only rare exceptions, their parents didn't want to be dragged to lily-white worship.

I didn't care about church at all, and already knew I wasn't a Christian, but my parents required my participation in the youth group, and I never tried weaseling out. The boys in the group were OK, even friends, and virtually all of the girls were hot, and they treated me kindly, not at all like the kids at school.

Ray Ann and I tended to sit together in the back seat of the Cheeks' station wagon. She was some kind of Asian — Eskimo, I think. We laughed and kidded around, but she was too pretty for me, so I never asked her out. Didn't have the courage, and besides, I was just as interested in Stella and even Priscilla. Asking one of them for a date would rule me out from the others, so it never happened.

These were high school girls, just not from my high school, so they didn't know that I was a loser, and supposed to be stigmatized. Or maybe they did know, and didn't care. My dweebhood must've been obvious — I talked about Star Trek and comic books and science fiction, so they had to know I was nobody, but they didn't treat me like nobody.

Every Christmas, the group staged a play in the church on two consecutive Sunday nights, and then took the play "on tour" to several local nursing homes, where the old people were happy to see wholesome kids, or kids pretending to be wholesome.

There were also parties and skit nights and roller-skating nights, and the latter was my fave. I couldn't skate well, and hid what micro-ability I had, so the twins, Stella and Priscilla, would take me by the hand, one pretty girl at each side of me, and pull me around the rink. I was maybe 14, and that's all it was — a boy being skated by two pretty girls. Twenty years later it's still a memory that makes me smile, and more wholesome than most of my smile-worthy memories.

Guess it's even Christlike — Stella told me that Mary Magdalene and her twin sister, Sherry Magdalene, used to drag Jesus around old-time roller rinks the same way. Pretty sure Stella was kidding, though.

A week later I gathered all my tiny courage and asked her out. They were identical twins but I could tell the difference and I liked Stella best. She said no, because she was already dating another boy from the youth group. They were keeping it quiet, so I hadn't known.

Stella suggested I should ask her twin, Priscilla, and promised Priscilla would "say yes to anything," in exactly those words. But damn it, no. I didn't want to go out with Priscilla. Stella or nothing, for me, and nothing is what I got.

Mr and Mrs Cheeks tended the youth flock, hoping we'd be the backbone of the church's future. And we were. Bruno and Leon and Stu and me have been friends for life, and they're all still in the church. I'm a thousand miles away, but I think they're still my friends.

Remarkably, the twins, Stella and Priscilla, each married a man who'd been a boy in the youth group, and both their families are still in that church. Another couple of kids from the group, Mickey and Barbara, got married too. And another girl didn't marry a boy from the youth group, but she married the older brother of a boy from the youth group. And they're all still in the church, except me.

"_Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." —_Proverbs 22:6

That's the strategy of any successful church. Pump kids' full of Jesus before they've developed sense enough to reject it, and chances are they'll be church people forever.

Now I'm long gone from the church, and never coming back. I don't believe any of it, but I do believe the church isn't all bad, and that some believers really believe. They're not all hypocrites full of hate, like more and more of the so-called Evangelical Christians.

It's my generally happy memories of growing up in a decent Christian church that makes me furious when I see the fakers on TV 24/7, telling the gullible to "support the ministry," or telling them who to hate, and how to vote. I don't believe of word of that rubbish.

Right up to and including the Pope, I don't think there's any famous Christian who's not a charlatan, using the Lord's name in vain to make money, and make the world a crueler, angrier place. But I do like some of the Christians.

Woke up in the dark hours of early morning, a little blue and a lot lonely.

In other words, I woke up, with all the usual hell of waking up, remembering again that I'm alone and alienated, always will be, hating it but unwilling to do anything about it. Plus, it was still raining.

So I turned on Free Radio Berkeley's Black Hat Show, and my man Josh was playing music that perfectly complimented but also exacerbated my feeling of endless, empty overnight. To the technojazzy soundtrack of Blade Runner and some sad songs by Neil Young, I was mainlining self-pity with everyone else's syringe.

Usually I fight these feelings off. You live, you die, you're born alone, die alone, and spend most of the time in between alone. That's how life feels for me. I try not to wallow in it too often, but lying here at 4 in the morning, luxuriating in my lousy life, listening to the rain, thinking of a woman who touches me but only physically, and a few others who've never liked me even enough to touch... Damn, I really am pathetic, and I was really feeling it.

Turned the music louder, but couldn't shake the depression, so I ate peanut butter sandwiches and looked out the window.

♦ ♦ ♦

Six hours later, the specific bout of the blues that woke me had passed, and the melancholy had evolved into something more generic. I was just hoping the rain would keep falling, so I'd have an excuse to take a day off I can't afford.

Ain't it the shits, though? At 11:00, which is when I usually start getting ready for work, the rain suddenly stopped, the clouds floated away, and the sun burst through. Psychologically, I still felt like something you'd dribble into an ash tray, but it was a beautiful day in Berkeley, so God damn it all, I had to go to work.

I could hear the baby down the hall, crying, but what the hell do you have to bawl about, kid? Your momma loves you, and your life is all yours to screw up any way you wish. Mine's already screwed.

♦ ♦ ♦

For selling sacrilegious fish on the Avenue, Christians still give me shit quite often, but it's so repetitive I don't even take notes and write about it any more. Today's encounter was out of the ordinary, though — Jesus barely even entered the conversation.

Four clean-cut young men stood at the stand, distress on their faces, looking at the fish, so I knew it was going to be something sneering or snarky or save my soul. The youngest, cleanest-cut of them asked, "Why are you making fun of Christianity?"

"Because Christianity is funny," I answered, honestly.

"Funny?" he asked, with a question mark that hung in the air almost visibly. "I thought you people were supposed to be liberal. What's liberal about making fun of God?"

That line took me about a block aback. Liberals are more likely to laugh, I reckon, but — You people? And Liberal?

Selling fish that poke fun at their religion, I've argued with hundreds of Christians, been called some vile names and done some name-calling myself, but nobody's called me a liberal until today. I was momentarily speechless, but eventually I said, "Liberal?"

"Yeah, you liberals are supposed to be—"

"Am I wearing a sign that says 'liberal'? We've never met, why would you accuse me of that?"

He looked at me dumbly for a bit and then asked, "You're not a liberal?"

"I'm complicated," I said, and got a very simple-minded stare back. "This in Berkeley," I explained, "but that doesn't mean everyone here is a liberal."

"Then you're a conservative?" he asked.

"Those are the only choices?" My question was greeted with more silence, so I started babbling to keep control of the conversation. "Not a conservative. Not a liberal. There are other choices, you know. If you want to talk politics, it's gotta be 3D because, you know, there's a lot more on the spectrum than 'liberal' and 'conservative'."

In the echoing silence after that, I frowned and added, "Do you want to buy a fish?"

None of them wanted to buy a fish. His friends gently tugged at the guy's sleeve, and then they were gone.

I gave that exchange several mental playbacks, and still can't make sense of it. The fish are kind of liberal, sure, but nobody's ever gone after the fish as "too liberal" before. The line of attack is always Jesus and God and all.

What can I say except people are idiots? Sorry I didn't match your preconceptions.

I have some post-conceptions about those well-dressed young men — they're hicks, is my guess. They're from some shitty part of the country, almost definitely south of the Mason-Dixon line, where nobody questions anything, or else you must be a "Berkeley liberal."

I do live in Berkeley and like it here, but my political label would have to be anarchist with civil rights tendencies, atheist with a soft spot for things Jesus actually said, pacifist with mace in my pocket, capitalist until someone has ten times what anyone else has, and c_ommie-sympathizer_ but without the gulags, please.

Liberal? No, the liberals are miles to my right.

Jesus H, is it ever Christmas. Business today was five times the total of our busiest day ever, ten times as many sales as a typical Saturday. Before I could even get the stand unpacked and the table unfolded, there was an almost constant line of people waiting to buy fish.

Not much past noon, it was clear we'd be running out of all our best-selling fish, so I made several customers wait while I jogged over to a phone booth and called Jay for emergency replenishment. "Jay! I'm almost out of Darwin, Gefilte, Bob, Beer, Jerry Garcia, Gay Pride, and Anti-Christ fish, and quarters for change!" She said she'd be there as soon as she could.

This is the meaning of Xmas, for real. Cheap presents at a cheap price. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but mostly gold. Ring 'em up and praise the Lord.

Jay was beside me at the table pretty damned soon — barely more than half an hour after I'd called — and she brought plenty of merch and a spare chair. We worked side-by-side for the rest of the afternoon, with about five minutes without a customer.

For an hour or so, Wavy Gravy walked through the very crowded sidewalks and street, asking for contributions to buy toys for homeless kids. I of course had nothing to give, but Jay gave me ten bucks and covered the table alone while I blitzed across the street and gave him the money and a long hug.

I am a cynical bastard and try real hard not to admire anyone, but Mr Gravy is someone I admire.

Then, when business finally began slowing, Jay bought me a pair of warm, wooly socks from a vendor a block away, as a bonus for our record-setting day. Thanks, boss!

♦ ♦ ♦

As we were folding up the table, day done at last, Josh came by and said "Merry Christmas," just as Judith waved at me from across Telegraph, where she was doing her Christmas shopping. Introductions all around: Judith, this is Josh. Josh, this is Jay. Jay, this is Judith. And vice versa.

Then it got weird, because someone suggested dinner, and quicker than diarrhea we were at Norikonoko, a family-run Japanese restaurant a few blocks down Telegraph, where Judith paid my way, thanks.

I had some sort of noodle and vegetable soup, and nibbled off everyone else's plates. It was a very good meal, but holy crap — nothing on the menu was less than $7.50, and I could feed myself for a week on that.

It was as nice a time as realistically possible, but I am not a social animal. With one other person, on a good day I can carry half a conversation, but with three other people, even three friends, I was in the silent era.

Introvert here. I need advance warning before hanging out with people, and also I was exhausted from interacting with a thousand customers all day. Everyone else handled the talking though, and I handled the eating, and laughed at everyone else's jokes, and said next to nothing after ordering.

When I got home I barfed up dinner. There was nothing wrong with it, really, and I do sincerely recommend Norikonoko if you can afford it. It was just nerves and exhaustion screwing with my digestion. I washed the taste of puke out of my mouth with a few peanut butter sandwiches and a glass of milk, and then, what a day, glad it's over, and good night.

I only worked a couple of hours on Telegraph, then packed up the stand and met Josh and Jay. They'd sort of hit it off at dinner yesterday, and he'd volunteered to give us a lift to the convention center in Oakland, for Klezmer Mania.

That's an annual Jewish folk art, music, and culture festival, and Josh was there to soak it up, but Jay and I were there to sell fish. The Gefilte fish was of course a big hit, and we broke yesterday's record for the biggest single-day sales volume in the history of fish.

Christmas, man. This is when people buy. The American economy would crater without December.

I'd thought Josh would taxi us and our stuff to the con, maybe enjoy the festival for a few hours, and then he'd go home. Nope. He was having a great time, and never got around to leaving.

After a few hours at the fair, he sat with Jay and me and helped scissor fish from mylar, answered customers' questions, and basically did my job without earning my pay. Thanks, Josh. What a great guy, and also, I think he has a crush on Jay.

When we first got there, though, running late, the crowds started pressing in before we had the table set up. I don't do well in crowds. People make me nervous, and a few thousand people make me a few thousand nervous.

And I sorta snapped at Jay when she complained that I'd left the Book of Fish (the ledger) on a chair where someone could snatch it. Nobody snatched it, but I said, "If you start giving me crap before we're even open for business, it's gonna be a long, long day."

Despite all the confrontations with strangers on the Avenue, if anything I'm usually too patient and slow to anger. I bottle it up inside, and then when things get volatile I might go nitroglycerin.

What I said to Jay was way out of line. She's someone I like, someone who's given me a great job, forgiven some of my workplace stupidity (11/26 comes to mind), takes me to breakfast once in a while, even bought the socks I'm wearing. Why would I snap at her?

Being stubborn and stupid, though, I didn't have any inclination to apologize until later, and by then we had customers lined up half a dozen deep, so I never did say I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Jay. That was just me, being an ass, and you didn't deserve it at all.

Other than that, my only regret about Klezmer Mania was that there was never a chance to get out of my chair and go exploring. The music from down the hall sounded swell, and the food (delivered by Josh) was superb, but all I did was tend fish all day, quoting prices over and over again even though the prices are posted in big writing. I put so many fish stickers and magnets into so many plastic bags, I would've lost track if we didn't have the Book of Fish.

And ya know what's the best thing about selling blasphemous fish at a Jewish folk festival, versus selling the same fish on Telegraph? We didn't see a single angry Christian all day.

The rains have begun again, the water's soaking through my shoes and socks, and even when it stops raining for a while it starts up again, and every footstep sounds like someone squeezing a sponge.

♦ ♦ ♦

On Mondays I work at Black Sheets, the sex magazine, but have I told you about the titillating, kinky, sexually stimulating' stuff we do there? It's a rush, I tell ya. Today, for example, I swept and mopped the kitchen, both bathrooms, and vacuumed the hall. Then I shredded the week's recycling, expertly separating the plain paper from the glossy. I took out the trash, which means dragging five barrels one-at-a-time through the basement, where the house has big parties almost nightly.

And by parties, I mean orgies — stockades, cages, chains, the rack, etc. Lots of spunky rubbers, because it's a safe dungeon, of course, but it's a classy joint so most of them are in trash cans, not on the floor. I wouldn't have the balls (nor the erection, probably) to attend such events, but as an introvert, it warms my cockles to see the sign that says, "Please do not engage in idle chatter in the play space."

And this week, when I arrived, editor-in-chief Bill told me, "We have a *special project for you." I was hoping it would be reading through the submissions, like one Monday a couple of months ago, but today's assignment wasn't quite that special. My skills were needed to scrub a year's worth of accumulated birdshit off the front and side sidewalks, and the part of the patio that's beyond the patio.

Not that I'm complaining. I very much like my Monday gig. Bill and his sidekick Steve are easy to talk to, and they don't expect me to talk on days I don't feel like talking. They're always enjoyably bickering with each other, and sometimes I'm included, and they keep me informed of zine and porn scuttlebutt I'd never know otherwise. And at the end of they day, there's usually a pile of porn for me to take home. There's a fringe benefit you don't get at most jobs.

♦ ♦ ♦

The rain had at least temporarily let up by the time I left, and I took the F into my old neighborhood downtown, to do my Christmas shopping. Now, that definitely does not mean buying presents or spending money, as I have no money, and I resigned from Christmas about ten years ago.

I abhor the holiday, with all its forced affection and obligation and all the gift-wrapped pressure and disappointment. When I lived downtown, near the premium retail blocks of Macy's and Nordstrom, Emporium and FAO Schwarz and all the rest of the glittering monuments to cash, it became an Xmas tradition for me to wander the throngs and sneer at the capitalism in overdose, so I had to be there today.

And it was grand. I walked through Woolworth's, and turned off six VCRs scattered throughout the store that were bellowing infomercials demanding that shoppers — already there to spend money — spend more and more.

Mostly, though, I just walked wide — that is, I walked like a normal human would walk the aisles on a normal non-Christmas day, refusing to turn sideways to squeeze past all the extra merchandise stacked in the way.

Is it even legal for stores to block the aisles like that? If it is it oughta not be, so I walked into everything that was in my way, except people. Toppled a towering pyramid of Planter's nuts, a big stack of wind-up toys, and a box of faux crystal that made a delightful shattering sound as it hit the floor. Then, wanting to exit the premises before being escorted out, I took the connecting escalator down to the subway station.

All the other stores — I'll catch ya next year.

♦ ♦ ♦

Waiting for the homeward BART, a gaggle of yuppies came onto the platform in fluffy red and white Santa caps, and I quietly took the Lord's name in vain.

If there's one thing I hate about Christmas (there's many more than one) it's big-money people feigning the so-called spirit. From their very nice three-piece suits and long jackets, there's was no reasonable doubt that those fluffy-hatters were the enemy. For all their ho-ho-hoing, they're people who'd never reach into their pockets to give a bum a nickel. They're the same jerks who are three months behind on child-support payments despite thousands in the bank.

If I could've imagined a way to fuck over their afternoons I sure would've, and it would've made my Christmas merry. But my train came and I got aboard, sneering at them through the window. They didn't even look my way, or I would've at the very least flipped them a holiday bird.

TUESDAY — Usually I take Tuesdays off, but this being Xmas and me selling sacrilegious stocking stuffers, I rolled the cart to Telegraph Ave instead, where many fish were sold. Insert amusing fish anecdote #352.

♦ ♦ ♦

Since leaving Mom and Dad's house, I've usually slept on futons, but here at Judith's house I sleep on a mattress. It's the difference between the Eastern and Western philosophies. The futon is very Eastern — simple and efficient, something to lay down and sleep on. The Western approach is that everything must be as complicated as possible.

A futon is full of cotton, while a mattress is full of springs. Give it some years, and the cotton might go flat, but it's still sleepable, and you can flip it over and it's fresh again. The springs, though, get misaligned after a while, and start poking through the soft spots.

That's what I'm sleeping on now — a mattress with loose springs that have become sharp, skin-piercing weapons that stab at me and draw blood.

Every time a new spring pokes through and pokes me, I take off the sheets, peel back the mattress cover, and duct tape the lid of a tin can over the point of the spring. Then I then put it all together again until the next time my bed stabs me. Four tin can lids so far.

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — Gerry is one of the vendors on the Ave, and he's Mr Marijuana, so he doesn't like it when you take his picture. There's nothing he can do about it, though. The law says, if you're in public you're fair game for photos. I understand Gerry's objection, though.

This afternoon, I noticed a man holding a camera and looking at me. We never spoke, he didn't say a word, but he stepped back across the sidewalk, focused, and snapped me sitting at my fish table.

Law or no law, that's fucking rude. I don't think he noticed, but there'll be a finger from me waiting for him when he develops that roll.

♦ ♦ ♦

When I came home from selling fish, my flatmate Cy introduced me to his husband, Peter, who's visiting for the next two weeks.

Usually Cy is kinda glum and quiet, and doesn't come out of his room much, but tonight he was in very good spirits, and I can see why. Peter is a cutie, with sparkling eyes and a British accent. He gets the accent by being British, which is why he and Cy can't be together.

This is the madness of the law. If I fell in love with a British woman, there'd be no problem. We could get married in either country and live happily ever after, because marriage trumps all the rules of immigration.

Peter and Cy, being gay, are not allowed that. Cy can't move to England and live with Peter. Peter can't move to America and live with Cy. They can't marry, and are not allowed to immigrate.

They're each other's husbands to each other, but to the law they're nothing, so they visit each other every few months on tourist visas, but other than that they live their lives alone.

How fucking stupid and mean is that?

How would you feel if you fell in love, and your nation said it was illegal? Your government, breaking your heart. If that's not enough to make you furious, make you a radical or an anarchist, your heart is harder than mine.

This is the first Christmas season I've worked retail, and I've already decided it'll be my last. At least it's something cynical and subversive I'm selling, which has to be better than selling records or neckties, but I am not made for this much smiling and small talk and "Happy holidays" and all that rot.

As the dreaded 25th approaches, Telegraph gets more crowded every day. Today's Thursday. On a weekday, the stand is usually lucky to break even, but today was fish fish fish and more fish, and a never-ending line of customers waiting to buy and asking stupid questions and wearing stupid red fuzzy caps.

♦ ♦ ♦

Of course, with so much money to be made, there are more street vendors than usual, so many more that I'm sure some are illegal. Unlike some people, I don't give a damn about that, though.

All week there've been more vendors than available sidewalk space, which may be a problem for the idiots who are supposed to enforce the rules. Not for the vendors, though. We simply squeeze a little tighter together, move into a parking space, whatever — rules be damned, because we gotta do what it takes to make a living.

Yesterday and today, despite showing up on the Avenue an hour earlier than I usually would, there were no legal spots left. "First available space" south of a specific corner is where I'm supposed to work, says the permit, but every space was already occupied by other vendors with the same stipulations on their permits. So yesterday and today, I've set up the stand in "yellow zones" where the sign says "for loading and unloading only."

Today, the city schmuck came by to inform me that I was in violation, and I didn't waste any breath arguing or explaining or calling him accurate-but-nasty names. What's the point? A nearby vendor, also illegally stationed, had tried such tactics to no avail, so I politely apologized instead, and started disassembling the fish stand.

I packed things quite slowly, though, and as soon as the inspector walked around the corner, everything got re-unpacked and the stand was open for business. My neighbor vendor did the same thing, and the inspector schmuck never came back, and we vended against the law for the rest of the day, because we're such outlaws.

It's all a dance. Ladies in, men sashay, dosey doe and sell today.

We pay taxes to fund bureaucracies like the street vending inspectors, and they come by with clipboards and rules, and berate us for victimless violations of nonsensical laws, and that's simply life in Berkeley. Or in America. The only certainty is that there will always be laws and inspectors, and people of good character must ignore them as we see fit.

♦ ♦ ♦

Christmas comes but once a year — thank Christ! Despite my disdain for the holiday, I am experiencing some of the traditional Xmas angst and depression.

My mom and I aren't close. Everything she says and does drives me nuts, and drives me away, on purpose I believe. And it's worked. I'm away, way way away. Moved to California, not specifically to get away from my mother, but it was one of the pluses in my calculations, not a minus.

Haven't seen her much since then, and we've had no contact since May. Nobody in the family has my phone number or address.

The holiday means nothing to me, but I know what it means to my mom. Calling home would be a minor hassle for me, but a major joy for her. I ought to call. Maybe I will. More likely I won't. I'm undecided.

See, in addition to everything else, we've been out of touch for so long that I'm sure someone's dead, and I really don't want to deal with the grief. My only Christmas tradition is going to a first-run movie with all the trimmings, and how am I supposed to enjoy James Woods as H R Haldeman if I'm all sad over the dear departed?

So maybe I will call Mom for Christmas, but if I do, it won't be until the 25th, after I get home from Monday's matinee.

Or better still, maybe I'll send a post card. Yeah, with no return address. "Thinking of you, Mom," or more specifically, thinking of how you drive me nuts.

FRIDAY — It drizzled all morning, and clouds were thick and threatening when it came time to leave for Telegraph Avenue. The fish don't sell well in the rain, and I don't like getting wet, so I decided not to sell fish today.

It's great to have a job where I can say screw it, not show up, make a call to the boss, and know it's OK. I'll still have a job tomorrow. Thanks for that, Jay.

So I stayed in my room warm and dry, and read and wrote for most of the day. Ate too much, and daydreamed of living in New York, which I'll probably hate.

Out the window, the clouds never cleared, but it only rained lightly, off and on, and not a drop after about 1:30. Which means, it was probably a mistake to stay home, but it was a happy mistake.

♦ ♦ ♦

Lately I've been subsisting on grilled cheese sandwiches, except that grilling them takes too much trouble, so they're really just toasted cheese sandwiches. Bread, buttered, with mustard and a slice of cheese, then microwaved to melt the cheese a little.

Yesterday, though, I ate the last of my plastic-wrapped faux cheese, and today I didn't want to brave the drizzle to buy more at the convenience store. And you know what? The same sandwiches are just about as good without the yellow synthetic almost-cheese. You don't even have to microwave it, so it's 30 seconds quicker. Cheaper too.

This feels like a major breakthrough, like I should write a paper, and submit it to a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Academy of Fat Slobs.

Try a toasted mustard sandwich, and let me know what you think.

♦ ♦ ♦

SATURDAY — Even though it didn't rain much yesterday, word on the street was that business was lousy. "You didn't miss much," Gerry told me. "It's supposed to be Christmas shopping season, but I actually lost money." I guess the clouds kept the customers away, so maybe 'calling in dry' was the right thing to do.

But that was yesterday. Today the sun was out, and we all made millions and retired to the Bahamas, after selling enough Xmas crap to stuff every stocking on this planet and the planets next door.

♦ ♦ ♦

It was not a pleasant day, though. The cops were hassling some homeless man a block up the street, and I of course paid no attention. It's not unusual, not at all. The cops come after the homeless every day, for being homeless.

Me, I had fish to sell, and the fish were jumping. And besides, I'm nearsighted. My view from that distance was too blurry to see who it was, until Umberto hurried to my table and said, "Isn't that your friend they're arresting at the corner?"

"My friend?" I asked, a little bewildered because I don't have many.

"The guy you had lunch with a couple of weeks ago."

"Danny!" I said, and "Watch my table please" to the vendor next to me.

Umberto and I jogged to the corner — jogged, because we're both fat and running is a distant memory. We got there in time to see a lady cop (as if) gently force Danny's head down, pushing him into the squad car's back seat, his hands cuffed behind him. They were across the street and we were still 'running', so we both shouted, "Officer! Wait! What did he do!"

To no avail, of course. Maybe the cops didn't hear us, more likely they didn't care, they were doing what they were doing and didn't want to discuss it. The doors slammed and they drove away as we jaywalked after them, too late.

"Why'd they arrest him?" I asked the vendors who were in front of where it happened. From three witnesses, we assembled the facts: The cops had demanded to search Danny's backpack, and found a couple of joints in it.

Oh fucking Christ, sometimes I hate this country.

I don't know whether Danny is really a friend of mine, as Umberto had assumed, but he's soft-spoken, smart, gentle, and mellow as the day is long. He wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone, but cops rarely arrest people for that.

Heck, someone who's hurt somebody could be dangerous. It's much easier for cops to forget the Fourth Amendment, search someone's backpack for no reason, and arrest a guy for pot possession.

I was furious, probably close to tears, watching someone I like roll away in the back of a police car, but Umberto and I walked to our tables. Customers were waiting, and the vendor I'd asked to watch my table was busy with customers of her own. Back to work I went, a little low on breath from jogging, and lower on patience.

You know, there's a law in Berkeley that directs the police to consider marijuana arrests their absolute lowest priority. The cops were opposed to such a law, but the locals pushed for it and got it passed and we're proud of it. Many people smoke the demon weed out in the open, while strolling the Avenue. Unless you blow smoke in a cop's face, by law they're supposed to ignore it.

If you're homeless or scraggly or begging, though, the only laws that apply are the laws against you.

What I saw today simply isn't right, and I do wish there was something I could do. Now I've written about it, for what little that's worth. I could write more — a letter to the editor or the Mayor — and I will, but that won't accomplish anything either.

What the hell can one person do, besides saying that somebody ought to do something?

Things like this keep piling up, and it hurts more when it's someone I know, and doing nothing starts to feel like I'm the Nazis' nice neighbor, pretending to be oblivious.

Well, I'm not oblivious. I'm well aware, and sick of this shit.

Probably my pissed-off feeling will pass. It's passed before. Right now, though, I'm really feeling the "I'm Not Gonna Take It" vibe.

Relax — I'm not someone who'd rent a Ryder truck and fill it with fertilizer. I'd be an ass if I did nothing, though, so I believe I'll call CopWatch, the local group that keeps an eye on the growing police state. I've only heard good things about them, and don't even know what they do, but — they don't do nothing, and that's what I'm feeling today. I don't want to be another man who does nothing.

In the early morning, almost as soon as I'd opened the fish stand, a dopey dullard came along, who seemed to think Telegraph is a flea market.

He looked at all the fish and asked for a Darwin, and when I said "Five bucks," he offered three, like the price is negotiable.

It was early, so I was still in a fairly patient frame of mind, and said, "If you buy half a dozen I might give you a deal, but five bucks for a Darwin isn't a bad price."

And it isn't a bad price at all. I've seen the same Darwins advertised for $9, plus shipping.

"I'll give you three dollars, he said again, with a stockbroker's look in his eye. Then he peeled three one-dollar bills out of his wallet and tried to hand them to me, as if I'd be impressed by such a wad of cold hard cash.

"The price is $5," I said, the patience fading.

"Four," he offered, slipping another impressive George into his hand, so I ignored him and helped the customer behind him, who bought three fish for the posted price.

When that transaction was completed, the bargain-hunter pushed his four dollars toward my face, and said, "C'mon, I want to know I've gotten a good deal."

"Pull the potato out of your ear, bub. The price is five bucks, and it's a good deal. Best deal you're gonna get. If you don't like it, get the fuck outtahere." And then I sold three more fish to two more customers, while he watched.

"Christ, man," he said, "reluctantly putting another dollar into his hand, making five. "You're a cold bastard."

"You have no idea," I said with Jeremy Irony, as I carefully picked out the most scuffed-up Darwin to give him. He looked at it and frowned, but didn't complain any more. I added a completely artificial "Merry Christmas!" as he walked away, thinking that was the end of the story, but that wasn't the end of the story.

♦ ♦ ♦

Gerry, who sells marijuana cookies, came by to give me a baggie with two in it. And that is a very appreciated Christmas present. "You know I don't do Christmas, man, so I have nothing for you, but you're welcome to a fish if you'd like."

He said thanks and ho ho ho took a marijuana fish — of course. Then he gave me a big hug, and I felt a most unfamiliar sensation. No, it wasn't a boner, ya bastard. I think it might have been — dare I even think it — Christmas spirit.

"Thanks," I said to Gerry, and then he was off down the street, with his plastic sack of goodies for all the vendors he was gifting, which was not all the vendors.

Immediately I devoured one of the cookies, and the other I saved for after work.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then the cheapskate was back, Mr $3-for-a-$5-Darwin. He was holding the Darwin I'd sold him, and I thought he'd complain because I did sell him one that was beaten up from the bottom of the bin. And I would've exchanged it.

That wasn't his complaint, though. Instead he told me he'd struck a better deal with Jasper, another vendor, who sold him a Darwin for $4 — so he wanted his money back for the $5 Darwin he'd bought from me.

I laughed, and it was a genuine belly laugh. Your money back? What a concept!

There are sometimes ads on the radio from companies promising to match prices with the competition, but I don't run ads on the radio, and he wasn't even asking me to match the price. He seriously wanted his money back, and unless you have a gun the odds are against that.

Instead of answering, I tore a sheet from my note-taking notebook, and wrote on it, ALL SALES FINAL. Before he could see what I'd written, I peeled off some tape, and taped the note to the table, then pointed at it.

"Can't you read?" I said. "All sales final."

"I want my god damned money back!" he screamed, and I mean literally, he screamed. This was not 'loud talking', it was a road to the gods.

"Is there a problem?" came a deep-voiced interruption from behind us. It couldn't be a policeman; they're never visible except to ruin the day, never to save it. I was about to turn around to see who it was, but I knew before turning, because I plotted the trajectory of where my idiot customer was looking — he was looking behind me, and up.

Up means Midget, I was pretty sure, and when I turned around, yup, it was Midget. He's a very large man who sells on the Ave, and we've spoken several times. Picture Andre the Giant.

Midget isn't one of the free speech vendors, but it's Christmas so the Avenue is packed with vendors, including many illegally, and today the city blocked ordinary traffic, so there were vendors right in the middle of the Avenue. Nobody's paying attention to the ordinary distinction between licensed and free-speech, so Midget was nearby enough to come to my rescue.

And of course, I'd seen Midget earlier and said good morning to him, else I wouldn't have had the courage to be quite so talkbackative with my cheapskate customer.

So Midget and the asshole had a quick conversation, which ended when Midget pounded his fist into his other hand, palm open. At that, the penny-pinching pissant wisely walked away — another satisfied customer!

For his help, I offered Midget the fish of his choice, and he took a Telegraph Avenue magnet, which seemed appropriate. I didn't ask, but I hope he'll stick it to his table as a subconscious ad for my table.

Of course, I took down the ALL SALES FINAL sign, because as a general rule — unless you're a general asshole — I'm happy to dicker and trade. With Jay's OK, I've sometimes sold fish at reduced prices, traded fish for movie passes, traded one fish for another, and if that guy hadn't been so obnoxious about it, sure, I would've matched Jasper's $4 price for a Darwin. Butt-heads always pay full price, though.

♦ ♦ ♦

I'd planned on keeping the stand open late tonight, Christmas Eve, to soak up the last of the seasonal profits. 7:00 PM at least, maybe later if business held up. And sales were hectic during the morning and early afternoon, but the wind began gusting powerfully at about 3:00, and the weather always has the last word.

For a while I had to hold the fish display with both hands against the gusts, and it is a challenge to hand customers change when both your hands are occupied.

But then the unbearably big blasts came, and fish started blowing away. I folded everything flat across the table, and still the winds came, not in gusts but non-stop. Dorothy and Toto flew past, above the telephone poles.

Near me was a table vending pottery, and that lady had it far worse than me. Every gust was accompanied by the shattering of her work and profits, left in shards on the pavement.

After that blast of wind came many almost as fierce, and every vendor on the Ave was trying to weigh down and pack away their merchandise before more could be blown away. Then came another, stronger gust, carrying more merchandise, and there was no arguing — the Christmas shopping season was over at 3:15 on Xmas Eve.

After I'd hurriedly packed away whatever hadn't blown away, I bungeed and padlocked all my stuff to a tree cage, then walked through the storm salvaging fish from the sidewalk and street.

One of the tarot card readers had her entire table blown away, scattering the cards of fate, and when her table touched down again it pulverized more of that lady's pottery. But she was the same witch who'd tried to ban my boss's poetry, so the sight and sound didn't bother me at all.

Everywhere up and down the Ave, tie-dye shirts were flying, pop art and pot pipes, anklets and ash trays... Everything light enough to fly was flying, and everything else was rolling or ruined or rushed into boxes.

Beside me today had been Bo, who sells iron-on patches. Perhaps a hundred broke free of the stacks on his table, and galloped along the asphalt and around the corner like a stampede of tiny animals.

On my other side had been Darrin, a painter who sells his original works — very political, very beautiful. As he described it later, someone must've been eating a slice of pizza while walking down the Ave, because when the first big gust came, pepperoni from splashed onto his unflattering portrait of Ronald Reagan. Before he could even scream about that, that painting and another went instantly airborne and flew into the intersection, where, as we watched, one smashed into a truck and was crumpled, and the other was scrunched under the wheels of a passing station wagon.

I spent hours in the hurricane, looking for fish that got away, and picking up and trying to return my neighbors' wayward t-shirts, chess sets, hats, coat hangers, earrings, patches, stickers, and whatever else was in the ruins.

To the locals' credit, nobody seemed to be openly looting, and several homeless people and passers-by were picking stuff up, but then trying to return it. "I've got some patches here!" a bum shouted, and Bo said, "Mine!" and got them back with a smile.

There were lots of little moments like that. Not everyone's evil, you know. Most people have a heart.

I kept an eye on my stuff bungeed to the tree, but everyone was being so neighborly I don't think anyone would've stolen it even without the padlock.

I helped some merchants I'd never met, even a few I hate, and I brought some bumper stickers back to Jasper. It wasn't a bonding moment or anything. He just nodded at me, didn't say thanks.

The wind was still blowing ferociously, and whirlpools of trash and tie-dye circulated up and down the streets, but eventually most of us vendors had secured and loaded everything that wasn't destroyed or blown across the bay.

At 5:00 when I left, the Avenue was mostly deserted. The pottery lady was crying, waiting for her husband to show up and drive her home with about half her merchandise in a pile of rubble at her feet. Yeah, she'd tried to have poetry banned on the Avenue, but in all the wind today, it was hard to remember that I hated her. I even said "Sorry" as I walked past, and mostly meant it.

Since Christmas is only and entirely about making money, let's tally the monetary damages. The lost sales from closing the table early probably cost us $300, maybe more — it's amazing how fast the fish have been selling as Xmas has approached. The wind stole another $200 or so in fish, at retail, but I picked up about half the escapees out of the mud. And yet, the table had raked in more than $800 before the winds wiped us out, so we still came out ahead.

♦ ♦ ♦

I stopped by Jay's house on my way home, to leave the table and tell her today's fish stories, and she was lighting the menorah. I of course have no idea what the candles signify, so she briefed me. I won't brief you, as I'd probably get it all wrong, but all the flames looked very pretty, next to her Christmas tree she's painted black.

We played a couple of quick spins of battery-operated Dreidel. It's like spinning a top, with an inedible fortune cookie engraved on the top's four sides. As explained by Jay, and I think she was telling the truth, the Dreidel's position when it stops tells your luck, with the parameters of possibility being "You get everything you want," "You get half, " You get some," or "You get none of what you want."

Jay gets half. I get nothing.

When I came home, though, I ate Gerry's second marijuana cookie from this morning, with three toasted mustard sandwiches, and that's really all I wanted for Christmas.

Homey don't "Ho ho ho" no more. Instead I go to a movie every Xmas, alone.

Today's movie was going to be Nixon, because I've been delighted by all the news reports and editorials bemoaning that Oliver Stone's movie is "unfair to Nixon." Someone tell me please, how anyone can be "unfair" to Nixon. He was a complete bastard and asshole, liar, narcissistic, kept an idiot war going and actually made it worse, etc. Treating him with respect would be "unfair" to Nixon.

Something changed my plans, though. When the winds were just starting yesterday, someone's San Francisco Examiner blew by my table, and I shoved it into my backpack for later reading, When I read it, there was an article complaining about Stone's political bias.

This is required for all coverage of anything Oliver Stone does, of course, but there's never any corresponding caterwauling about right-wing bullshit when there's a new Charlton Heston or Rambo flick.

After its annoying beginning, the article went on to list several simple historical lies in the movie. There were several. The paper's been burned, but the two lies I remember were that John F Kennedy and Archibald Cox went to law school together (they didn't), and that after engineering Kennedy's assassination, Nixon chartered a flight out of Dallas (the records prove that Nixon made his getaway on a took a commercial flight out of town).

I don't mind artistic license, but the point of the movie, based on what I've read, is to claim that Nixon was responsible for JFK's assassination. Most people think that's a shocking assertion, but to me it seems plausible, based on what little I know — that Nixon was in Dallas that day, and never explained why.

If you're going to make a charge like that, that one President killed another, you damned well better get everything right. The details have to be immaculate.

If not, all the factual flubs, like those listed in yesterday's paper, only make it easier for petrified pundits like Chris Matthews to brush all of it away. Fucking up the little details obscures the big picture, which makes Oliver Stone's Nixon the work of a fuck-up, and I'm not interested in that.

It's not hard to not screw things up. Maybe next time Stone will send a fact-checker to visit a library. This time, though, it's Christmas, and I want to enjoy my Christmas movie. There must be something better playing, so let's see…

♦ ♦ ♦

To my surprise, there was actually heat at the run-down UA sevenplex in Berkeley, so my toes weren't too cold, sitting in what used to be half the balcony of one enormous theater. Now it's "auditorium #3," where I was for the first of today's Christmas double feature.

But before we begin, US Cinemas proudly presents an innovative new insult to the audience: There's now pre-programmed music, with a pre-recorded DJ reading voiceover commercials between the songs. It's bad music, of course, and the DJ sounds like he severely needs a punch in the head.

And of course, there's the now-standard slide-show of ads for McDonald's and Chrysler and United Airlines, and a movie trivia quiz written by someone who doesn't know movies, and the 80-decibel Coke commercial, and all that's before the nauseating self-promotional video for United Artists, before the previews, before the feature, which as always was presented just slightly out of focus.

In addition, my Milk Duds and popcorn were both stale, and one of the Duds unfilled an old filling as I chewed.

Other than that, though, I had a great time at the movies alone on Christmas.

Sudden Death is an action movie set against the backdrop of the NHL's Stanley Cup championships, and the National Hockey League must be on flimsy financial footing to have allowed such abuse its trademarks.

Terrorists have seized the arena, and they're holding the Vice President and 20,000 far less important spectators hostage while the game goes on, but there's just one thing the baddies didn't take into account: Jean Claude Van Damme is in the building.

You know the rest. It's Die Hard with hockey pucks, but it's still fun when done with panache. The terrorists are sufficiently despicable, the hero aloof like he's supposed to be, and as the situation gets more and more unlikely and then impossible, it's always overblown and entertaining.

Peter Hyams, doing his usual double-duty as director and cinematographer, creates at least two wild action sequences unlike anything I've seen before. The movie loses points, though, for what's supposed to be the showstopping set piece at the end, a slow-motion helicopter crash that's sadly kinda hokey.

When it was over, I had my pick of which auditorium to sneak into for my second movie, and decided on Goldeneye downstairs, in a tiny room that was perhaps a broom and mop closet when this once-grand but now seedy palace was built.

Of course, they ran the same music, same annoying DJ, and the same movie quiz with the same two out of seven answers wrong, but the movie unspoooled in surprisingly sharp focus from beginning to end. Infinite monkey projectionists, I guess.

Bond movies usually disappoint me, and Goldeneye is a Bond movie. It makes more sense than recent episodes, which is not to say that it makes sense, but it's OK.

As with Sudden Death, what you expect is what you get: The bad guys are bad, the babes are babes, the gadgetry is funny, and Desmond Llewelyn as Q keeps getting better with age. He's been handing wacky weaponry to every Bond since Sean Connery in Thunderball.

Pierce Brosnan isn't as bad a Bond as I'd expected, but there's still only one Bond, James Bond, and that's Timothy Dalton. He's the only Bond who seemed to not like what he does for a living, and if we must have a spy as a movie hero, please give me one who's at least queasy about what he does.

♦ ♦ ♦

At home after the movies, there were Christmas presents. From Judith, a new wool cap. From Cy & Peter, a flannel shirt that'll keen me warmer than my ordinary t-shirt on t-shirt.

And from me for them, nothing. I don't do Christmas, which I've said many times. In 20th century America, though, you're simply not allowed to opt out of Christmas.

When I told Cy I thought I'd made it clear that I don't do Christmas, he said, "Fuck you, too bad," which made me chuckle. Thanks and thanks, and it's nice to have a few friends.

I'll keep trying, though. If I'm alive next year, I'll start announcing "No Christmas for me" in August. Nothing's wrong with a little gift now and then for people you care about, but if it's me, please, not in or around December.

♦ ♦ ♦

The best part of my Christmas was a phone call from Andrea, a red hot mamacita of my acquaintance. "Please call me," was all she said, and usually I put off callbacks as long as possible, but not for her.

I rang her number right away, and after "Merry Christmas" what she wanted was a babysitter for Saturday night. She also said, "I hope your prices are negotiable," and they are. My asking price of $5 an hour is more than anyone pays a babysitter, and Andrea is a school teacher — garbage collectors make more — so I offered myself at half-price, and she agreed.

It was only after hanging up that I thought of other possibilities I could've offered. Cripes! Why didn't I suggest trading a night of babysitting for dinner with Andrea some other night?

Well, because I'm fat and ugly, that's why. If I'm a fat guy asking her out to dinner, she'll find a different babysitter.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maybe it was too many Milk Duds at the theater, or maybe I'm sick, but I just came back from barfing mostly in the toilet. I'm warmer than my room is. My throat's all itchy and scratchy. So I took twenty Vitamin C pills, and now I'm going to bed.

But please, when I say "No presents and no Christmas," it means no presents and no Christmas, please.

Getting dressed for work, I buttoned up this nice new flannel shirt that Cy & Peter gave me, and it fits perfectly.

I'm a Goodwill guy, so I never buy new clothes, and the label surprised me. A shirt's brand name used to be on the inside of the collar, and it's still there on this shirt, but someone's decided that isn't enough. Nobody could see what company made your clothes when the brand name was inside the back collar, so now the logo is also on the front of the shirt, on the outside.

And it's not discreet. The shirt is dark, subdued, kinda classy actually — or it would be, if the brand name wasn't stitched onto the front pocket in fluorescent blue on a white background. It's about one inch tall, two inches wide.

I hate advertising, and of course, I know that I'm more sensitive to it than most people are, but jeez, the manufacturer's name stands out like the 'S' on Superman's chest.

So of course, I'm removing that label, which is written in a script so ugly that I'm not even sure what company I'm cursing — is it 'Bessell'? 'Bogseu'? I don't give a rip, I just want it gone, but it's sewn right into the seam. It took ten minutes of careful snipping to get it gone, then another few minutes of sewing to repair the damages.

And I can barely sew, so it looks like it's been sewn by someone who can barely sew. It sure looks better than the logo it came with, though.

I wonder if the company knows or cares that people are annoyed by all this. Ah, but that's a stupid question. Most people aren't annoyed, I think.

When I complain about advertising that hits me like hailstones everywhere, nobody ever says "me too." Maybe I'm the only person who's ever removed the logo from a shirt, and people are proud to wear the 'Bessell' or 'Bogseu' brand. Chances are, it's a status symbol.

♦ ♦ ♦

Riding the F bus to work at Black Sheets, I noticed a new attraction on the huge marquee of a porn palace on Market Street. In addition to the "Girls girls girls" that the sign's always bragged about, there's now the promise that one of the strippers will be "doing the Zen butt thing."

Can't imagine what that might be, but I won't be paying to find out. Any Buddhists out there, please explain "the Zen butt thing" to me.

♦ ♦ ♦

Whoops, I forgot to send my mother a Christmas card, and didn't call her on the 25th. And what's worse, I forgot to feel guilty about forgetting. I might forget again tomorrow.

♦ ♦ ♦

I do feel lousy, but it's physical, not meta.

My sore throat has gotten worse, and that tooth that crumbled under yesterday's Milk Duds doesn't particularly hurt, but it sure does stink of rot. It's dead, and sooner or later it'll have to go. Probably sooner would be smart, but where am I gonna get the money for a dentist?

As I was setting up shop on Telegraph Ave, I said good morning to the vendor on my left. When the vendor to my right arrived half an hour later and started setting up her table, I said good morning to her, too.

After months working on the Ave, I slightly know these ladies, and got both of their names right. I was proud of myself for that, and that should've been enough.

They're best buddies, so of course they talked all day, which was annoying, but ordinary. What made it worse was that they tried to be nice, and make sure I was part of their conversation.

So they talked about whatever they talked about, and then one or the other said, "What do you think, Doug?" Or variations on that, several times, all through the morning.

What do I think? Uh, I think your parka looks lovely.

I think a particular other vendor that these ladies talked about shouldn't have said what the lady on my left said he said last weekend.

I think the lady on my right should let her daughter date whoever the hell she wants to date.

I think it looks like rain again, yes, now that you mention it.

Shut up already, is what I really thought. It's bad enough working retail and having to talk to customers all day. It's worse not better, when co-workers try to include me in their hours-long conversation.

Finally I said, "Excuse me, but what you're talking about doesn't involve or interest me, so you ladies should please just talk to each other and leave me out of it."

My word and good heavens, apparently that was the rudest thing anyone anywhere on earth has ever said.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's exasperating. I am a quiet man, and that's not a disease to be cured. When I have something to say I'll say it, but usually I have nothing to say. Saying nothing is not an insult, not a weakness, and not a plea for help.

Everywhere I go, though, being quiet makes me sorta suspect. Something must be wrong with that guy — he never says much of anything. Everyone everywhere thinks it's weird that I'm so quiet, and sometimes, like today, people try to be 'nice' and 'rescue' me, by talking to me.

It'll never work. I don't want to be rescued. I want to be left alone, please.

♦ ♦ ♦

The rains came by mid-afternoon, as the ladies on either side of me had predicted. The fish were drenched, but they're waterproof. I was drenched, and since I'd forgotten to wear plastic bags over my socks inside my shoes, my feet were instantly wet, and every footstep all the way home gurgled.

Soon as I walked in the door, I suddenly had to vomit. I might just possibly be coming down with something.

♦ ♦ ♦

Judith was in the kitchen when I finished puking, so we said hello, and I started making some toasted mustard sandwiches. Judith was watching, aghast, and she asked a very polite version of what the hell, so I explained that a grilled cheese sandwich is almost as good without the cheese.

At that, she insisted on giving me some chunks of her cheese. I tried to say no, but not very hard. It was real cheese, complete with flavor and odor and texture and all the cheesy goodness, not at all like the pre-sliced plastic-wrapped generic cheese-ish stuff I usually eat. "Thank you very kindly," I said, and made it into four sandwiches.

Soon as I'd swallowed the last bite, I fell asleep, but woke up a few hours later to puke again.

Lugosi was making the most horrendous whining sound at about 7:00 this morning. "Bark, bark," as usual at the front door, any time anyone walks by, but then, "Nnnnrrrrryyyyyy, nnnnnrrrrooooooo."

That's a dog that really needs to take a dump, was my only guess, so without even putting pants on, just wearing shorts, socks, and a t-shirt (my writing uniform) I leashed and muzzled the big moose, and outside we went.

He didn't even want to pee. All he did was moan a little more, and he looked up and down the street as if something was horridly wrong in the world. But what?

By the time we'd come back to the door, I understood, so I must be smarter than a dog — Jake's car was gone. Usually he leaves for work at about 11:00, but this morning he must've gone in early, so instead of being sound asleep at his master's feet, Lugosi was crying at the front door — the canine equivalent of "Why hast thou forsaken me?"

I like that enormous slobbery dog, but saying he's "a bit much" is a lie. He's a lot much. He's all the much. There's no much anywhere else except Lugosi. If he's not in the hall, tail a tornado, with a wet tennis ball in his mouth, he's throwing his huge body against the front door because he's heard footsteps.

We played toss 'n fetch, and then I scratched his pancake-size ears, and then I washed my hands, because Lugosi doesn't do baths, so petting him causes sticky fingers.

♦ ♦ ♦

And then I wondered if a dog can catch people-diseases, because I'm as sick as a dog.

Today was a day off, arranged in advance, for a long errand with Josh, but when he called and cancelled those plans, I knew I should've cancelled first.

It feels like my testes are radioactive, my brain's made of greasy fried onions, my throat of steel wool, and my stomach lined with worms tunneling through jello.

Bundled up nice and warm, I stayed home, coughing, moaning, sleeping, writing. Lugosi didn't approve of the strange sounds coming from my room, so he spent the day outside my door, and very time I headed for the head to vomit, I had to step over him. He's so big it's like jumping a hurdle.

Between barfings, I wrote this, and worked on editing some recent entries. And most worrisome, especially for me, I didn't eat anything but a couple of bananas, and that was only so I wouldn't have the dry heaves.

The rain and a recurring urge to vomit kept me home today. I'd hoped to delve deep into sleep, but instead — there's company coming.

I'm the unofficial maid here. Everyone who lives here is a slob, except maybe Cy, so the filth and rot tends to accumulate until someone's invited over. When that happens, I must emerge from my own filthy room to become Mr Clean-Up.

I get paid $5 an hour for being the housekeeper, but being sort of out of sorts, maybe I was only worth $4.50 today.

Cleaning this house is a frustration, because it's a huge flat, with eight or nine bedrooms, but there's noplace to put anything. Most of the rooms are occupied, and the 'empty' rooms are all stuffed with stuff and junk and whatnot. Mostly whatnot. So "cleaning up" mostly means moving piles of assorted but mostly unsorted stuff from one place to another.

From the kitchen table, for example, into a box I dropped coupons, pens, old mail, unpaid bills, gadgets and geegaws, scarves and socks, books and magazines and catalogs, clothespins and hairpins and stickpins and a bowling pin, scissors, chalk, ribbons, Batman memorabilia, a 1991 calendar, three baseball caps, a canned ham, chattering teeth, Christmas lights, a comb and two brushes, Scotch & masking & wrapping & duct tapes, a full-size sledgehammer, two calculators, some empty tin cans, doggie toys and kitty toys and kiddie toys and toys from cereal boxes, newspaper clippings and scribbled notes that might be important to someone, and a whole lot of et cetera.

Actually, I needed two cardboard boxes. On each I wrote, "From the kitchen table, 12/29," and on the fridge I left a note: "Everything from the kitchen table is in the room with the red door."

That's how I blitzed through the kitchen, living room, hallways, and the thousand steps up from the street.

And as I washed the dishes, they assaulted me with a tremendous stench. The sink was piled a foot and a half high with plates and pots and silverware et al, but much of the al wasn't et, so unclassified life forms and interesting odors were waiting to be washed away. Sponging and scraping and scrubbing, I kept thinking that the next bowl, the next pan must be the source of the stink, but no, and deeper I delved under the suds.

I'd been nauseous all morning, fighting whatever vicious virus was having its way with me. Yesterday I could put off the retching long enough to leisurely walk down the hall to the toilet, but today, washing the dishes and inhaling that smell, twice I rushed down the hall, and the third time I didn't make it. The barf wouldn't wait, and I puked right into the sink. Most of the dishes were clean by then, and out of the line of fire, but wiping away my vomit finally solved the mystery of the stink:

It came from under the rubber mat that covers the bottom of the sink. Untold eons of accumulated griz was there, green and slippery and undoubtedly toxic. Twice more I threw up as I hacked at the growth, and even the scent of my own pink and white regurgitation was like sweet perfume to the odor of whatever I'd discovered under the mat.

When that sickening stuff had been washed down the sink, and the mat had been scoured, the sponge trashed, my hands washed, and the drain Lysoled, the kitchen smelled like… a kitchen.

And maybe whatever'd been living under the mat was what had made me sick, because after that there was no puking, and I started to feel rather like myself.

Got the rest of the kitchen nominally clean, then swept and mopped, cleaned the cats' litter boxes, and removed some free-range cat turd from the couch and under the phone stand.

When the dishes had dried I tried putting them away, but with all the plates clean at the same time, no shelf space remained, so several plates got stashed in another cabinet, with the rice and cleaning stuff.

♦ ♦ ♦

Josh phoned while I was vacuuming the hairy hallway and stairs. We'd planned to see a newly-restored 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at a Castro matinee tomorrow night, but since it was raining all day he knew I wouldn't be selling fish, and he thought tonight might be better.

"It'll cost two dollars more tonight than at a matinee," I complained, but I talked myself into it. I wanted to celebrate not feeling barfy any more.

Josh asked me to invite Jay along, subtly confirming my suspicion that he has a boner for her. So I called her, and she said yes, and yes, I did warn both of them that I might still be contagious, but they didn't care.

In an hour, we met at the BART station, and the three of us rode together into San Francisco.

Jay said she'd never seen the movie before, but she knew it was science fiction so she'd worn an all-plastic get-up that she said she'd worn to a costume party at Halloween. It looked vaguely Rocky Horror — a white plastic or vinyl blouse with big protruding collar, and black but sparkly pants, and ruby high heels borrowed from Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. It was cute and crazy and certainly got Josh's attention, as if he needed his attention further gotten.

In Frisco we took a K L or M to the Castro, paid our way into the theater, and Jay excused herself to the ladies' room.

♦ ♦ ♦

Here comes a moment that meant little to me at the time: Josh and I stood at the auditorium door and asked each other where we'd like to sit. We were among the earliest arrivals, and had our pick of seats, anywhere in the very large theater.

Almost always I go to the movies alone, and by habit I'll take a seat very close to the screen, and off to one side. It lets the movie flood over my eyeballs, and also gives me some space away from everyone else.

Josh said he prefers a seat about halfway back and in the center of the row, and I didn't think twice about acquiescing on such a trivial thing. Who cares, right?

Well, it turns out that I care. I'd forgotten why I prefer the seats I prefer.

See, most people want to sit in the same seats Josh likes, so as the theater filled for the Friday night 7:00 show, the three of us were more and more surrounded. By the time the chubby dorky organist made "Thus Spake Zarathustra" into a tune you could roller-skate to, every seat in our row was taken, and every seat in every row all around us.

I don't mind crowds, from a distance. I never want to be part of a crowd, though. Crowds are full of people, and people annoy me. They talk, when I'm trying to watch a movie. Maybe they simply breathe too loud.

Plus I'm fat and have arms, and without even trying I tend to squish anyone who sits next to me.

♦ ♦ ♦

The lights dimmed, the show started, and all through the ape sequence, I was uncomfortable. Too tightly jammed in between everyone else. I thought about whispering to Josh and Jay that we should move to some empty seats in the front and to the side, but screw it. What's that line from Casablanca? "Play it, Sam. If they can stand it, so can I."

So I sat there and standed it, but the movie was in outer space before I'd grown accustomed to all the nearby whisperers, wheezers, sneezers, gigglers, talkers, and overly-loud popcorn chewers. At least there were no crying babies, nobody was making out, nobody was bumping the back of my seat, and there was nobody nearby who reeked of tobacco or perspiration or perfume.

During the movie's meeting before the mission, I noticed a lot of crinkling, and it was coming from Jay, right beside me. Her crazy outfit had looked cool on the subway, and she'd thoughtfully removed the enormous collar so that it didn't poke me, and so people behind us could see the movie, but her costume was all plastic. It crinkled every time she moved in her seat. Loudly.

After a while I got used to the crinkling like I'd gotten used to the crowd, but as the HAL 9000 watched us watching it, one of the heads blocking a corner of the screen turned around to scold Jay for taking too long to rip the cellophane wrap from a box of Dots or whatever.

It wasn't cellophane, of course; it was Jay herself wrapped in plastic, scratching her arm or reaching for her soda. She could breathe without making noise, but any movement more than that was audible.

The head in front of me tilted to the head beside him to whisper something, and I'm sure it was about Jay's crinkles. I had a withering remark ready if either of them had complained again, or it would've been easy to clunk their heads together, but HAL refused to open the pod bay doors, and nobody said anything more about the crinkling.

The people in front of us were maybe right to be annoyed at the noise, though. Jay's outfit wasn't theater-appropriate, but it was an accident and she's my friend. And anyway, their heads were in my way, and that was a more constant annoyance than Jay's occasional crinkles.

As HAL sang "Daisy," I was thinking, Jeez, if we were where I usually sit, closer to the front and off to the side, there'd be nobody within half a dozen seats in any direction. No heads in front of me. Ample elbow room. Far enough from the crowd that we wouldn't hear people whispering and sneezing, and they wouldn't hear Jay's outfit.

Having been sick but never napped, I was tired, and being in such close proximity to hundreds of humans it was very warm just from body heat. I came close to nodding off during the dance of colors past Jupiter.

That's where the movie drags, and if Kubrick would've chopped about five minutes out of the light show he'd have had an even better film.

When we reached the interstellar retirement home, though, I was wide awake for the movie's big payoff, which never disappoints me.

The usual knock on Space Odyssey is that the humans aren't very human. All the people in the movie are detached and dull, and the computer is the film's only memorable character.

But I disagree with that critical assessment. The humans in the movie are very human, absolutely human. Like almost all people, they're uninteresting and artificial, but unlike almost all movies, the people in 2001 are not souped up with drama and issues and conflict and character quirks to make them more interesting than ordinary humans.

♦ ♦ ♦

It was only 9:30 when we left the theater, but Muni is run by idiots, so the metro was locked. "STATION CLOSED. BOARD BUSES ON MARKET STREET." Ah, ya sons of—

So we came back up the stairs, and waited for a bus on the surface, in a light but constant drizzle. After a few minutes in the wet, Josh said, "Enough of this," and flagged a passing cab. I wished he hadn't and I complained about it, but, OK.

The three of us got in, me in the front and Josh and Jay in the back, and the cigarette never fell from the driver's lips as he told us taxi tales I didn't want to hear, all the way toward Civic Center.

Between the two boxes of black Red Vines I'd eaten at the movie and the tobacco stink in the cab, a surge of vomit welled up inside me. I wanted to lean over and pour some puke on the driver's lap, but I didn't, and began feeling better again once we'd stepped out and into some genuine air.

BARTing home, Josh and Jay sat opposite a drunk hooker, and Jay being Jay she's always sociable, so the three of them became embroiled in conversation. I said a few things too, but mostly I looked out the window at concrete whizzing past.

Josh got off at 12th Street to take a different train, and I got off at Ashby for the short walk home. Jay stayed aboard for Berkeley, but her new friend wasn't headed there or beyond. She was just so plastered she didn't know where she was.

I was half asleep and two-thirds grumpy by the time I got home. It was a great movie, and always is, every time I've seen it, but I'm anti-social, so an evening with two people is draining. Add in the crowd, and then the taxi, and then a conversation with a strange stranger on the train, after one quick puke in the bathroom at home, I didn't have anything left in me.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now the day's all typed up, but let me add this: What an ass that Doug Holland is.

I've lived alone for twenty years, doing what I want when I want with who I want, which is usually alone. Having few friends means making few compromises, and I'm so frickin' not-just stuck but cemented in my ways that I get a bit bent about not having my usual seat at the movies, or someone else spending ten bucks on a taxi when I'd rather wait for a bus, or having to talk to a perfectly pleasant drunk prostitute on the train.

If I hate compromising on such tiny things, how am I ever going to be somebody's friend when there's a disagreement over something that matters? How am I supposed to live with Sarah-Katherine, or with any woman who'd be willing to have me around, if I don't want to yield on even the tiniest things?

Sure, I could tell myself it's the flu or whatever I've been fighting. Barfed about eleven times today, and I can smell that some of it's drying in my beard.

I know myself well enough, though, to know that I'd be a selfish ass even if I was healthy. Maybe even more of an ass.

Walking to work this morning, I stopped, bent over, and doused a fire hydrant with remnants of breakfast. "Food for the homeless?" asked a voice following me, followed by a laugh, and it was Danny.

"Hey, man," I said. "It's good to see you — glad you're out! You OK? What did they nab you for, anyway?"

"Huh?" he said, with a confused look to match. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Doug," I said. "I sell fish. We've talked sometimes."

"Oh," he said and looked at me, trying to place me.

"Sometimes I'm forgetful."

"So what did they arrest you for?"

"I was arrested?" he asked. "What for?"

♦ ♦ ♦

That was the last vomit, I hope. Other than that, no symptoms. No fever, no rumbly belly. And no thought of canceling the evening, so after selling fish all day, I bused over to Andrea's house for another night of babysitting.

When I got there, Andrea said, "Shannon's been a little sick, but nothing to worry about." I told her I must be immune, cuz I never catch anything.

On the Avenue when I see Andrea, she's in jeans and she's a pretty 30-something woman. When I babysit, twice now, she's been in a dress, leaving on a big date. Last time it was red. This time it was beige. That night and this night, she's looked fantastic, and it would've been easy to say so, but I didn't. Seems wise under the circumstances to say less.

Shannon was happy to see me, and didn't seem sick. We played Scrabble and watched mind-dumbing television most of the evening. She told me she'd been yelled at by her mom for staying up too late with me last time, so when her bedtime came she said good night and faded down the hall. Who knew anyone's kids could be so well-behaved?

I'm not a big fan of kids, you know. I don't hate 'em like W C Fields, but they're way too much trouble, too loud, too short and stupid. Shannon's not, though. When she talks about school I hear a healthy skepticism that'll serve her well if she keeps it for real life. And she very intelligent, since she laughs at my corny jokes.

The mom had said she'd be back at midnight or shortly after, but I didn't wait up. Their couch is comfortable so I slept, and it was nearly 2:30 when she got home. I almost made a little joke as she was closing the door — Do we need a curfew around here, young lady?" — but it's a line that would've fallen flat so I stayed quiet. Usually I stay quiet.

From the slight disarray of her dress, I'd guess that Andrea's date went quite well, damn it. She'd gone out with the same man she'd called a lout last time she'd seen him, so double damn.

Why do so many women go for men who don't deserve them, while nice guys who just happen to be a hundred pounds overweight and funny-looking with bad teeth and shitty clothes end up alone?

Andrea and I didn't talk much, but the buses stop running at around 1AM, so she paid my cab fare home. She seems more comfortable with me than last time. I'm just the sitter, though. We both know that.

I'll never work up the nerve to ask her out, and if I did, she'd say no and we'd both be embarrassed and then she'd find a different babysitter, so I'm saying nothing, not ever.

My very best chance with Andrea is that if I'm a nice guy who never asks her out, maybe I'll be invited to the wedding when she marries the lout. I'd have to buy a damned gift, and I don't even like going to weddings.

In the six months I've been working on Telegraph Avenue, Jasper has never said hello to me, nor goodbye, nor see ya later. I've said "Good morning, Jasper" several times, and come to enjoy saying it, because I know he'll never reply. I've even started stretching out the "ass" part, saying, "Good morning, Jasssper." Nothing's too childish for me.

We have spoken, certainly, but he's never said anything to me that wasn't a threat or a promise to turn me in to the authorities for violating the rules of vending on Telegraph.

And I've cheerfully been guilty of those violations, and still enjoy any violations I can commit, but now that Jasper and I are equally allowed to sell Darwin fish, he hasn't said word-one to me all month.

Which is, of course, delightful. I am not yearning to hoist a few brews with him. The title of "Vendor I Most Despise" varies from day to day, but Jasper is often the champ and always in the running.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today, for the very first time, he spoke a civil sentence to me. He said this, so easy-going that I was taken aback: "That's a great fish. Where did you get it?"

He was pointing at a new variety of manufactured plastic Darwin fish that we're buying from a different funny-fish wholesaler. It has fish-scales, which reflect the light and give the fish an illusion of movement. It's very eye-catching, and twice the price.

While pretending to be an anarchist, Jasper has always acted like nothing but a shopkeeper, never like an anarchist or even a decent human. When we were finally allowed to sell the same Darwin fish Jasper sells, his response was to lower his price on Darwin fish, thinking he'd start a price war or drive us out of business. Now he thinks I'll blurt out our new supplier's name, so he can order and sell the same fish and undercut us again?

I looked at him and smiled, didn't answer. I can be as petty as Jasper, or anyone else.

I don't know the name of the company that's making our scaly Darwin fish, and their name isn't molded into the back of the fish. I promise, though, that I'll make it my mission not to find out and get back to Jasssper.

♦ ♦ ♦

As usual for my boring self, I was asleep by 8:00 tonight. The gunshots woke me as midnight approached, though. Soon there were hundreds of shots, hopefully into the air, though even that seems unreasonably dangerous. Gravity exists, people.

Many of the weapons were automatics, with six quick explosions in about one second. It sounded like a war movie, worse even than a bad night back at my old neighborhood in San Francisco's Mission.

America is a suicidal society, ain't it? We're doing so many dumb things to kill ourselves — drug prohibition but guns everywhere, money for prisons but never enough for education, loving every war and arming every country, nuclear stockpiles but ignoring global warming, on and on — so of course gunshots at midnight on New Year's is how Americans celebrate a new calendar.

♦ ♦ ♦

What bug's been dragging me down since Xmas is apparently letting me go. All that's left is a craggy throat, but otherwise I'm feeling dang fine.

It's 12:30 AM, with no gunshots in the past few minutes, so I'm going back to sleep now. See you next year, if you send me three dollars.