Yesterday I was barely able to stand or walk, so weak I had to steel myself and push myself and force myself even to scratch my balls.

The dizziness worried me until I remembered I hadn't eaten since some crackers on Tuesday. No appetite, then or still, but I shoved a cheese sandwich and a cup of ramen into me.

Planning ahead, I called Andrea and backed out of a babysitting gig for Friday night, but I didn't wimp out on Saul, the wheelchair Republican.

He'd already moved the boxes and light stuff, but he needed me for the furniture and heavy stuff, and he needed to be out by the end of the month. So I sighed and puked and BARTed across the bay to his address, told him to keep his distance, and me and some friend of his dragged everything out and into a truck and then into his new place.

Then I came home and collapsed.

♦ ♦ ♦

That was Thursday, but I didn't write about it until much later. I've been feeling a tad under the weather, low on the strength it takes to type, so 'yesterday' and 'today' and the next several entries are based on messy notes and hallucinatory recollection, but weren't actually written until Wednesday and Thursday the 6th and 7th of March.

♦ ♦ ♦

On Friday I slept. That's all I did. A gag reflex woke me in the afternoon, in the middle of a coughing jag, as I pulled a muscle I didn't know was there, at the base of my tongue, stretching up the walls at the back of my mouth. It hurt lots more than it sounds like it possibly could.

Never have I ever been so sick. What else, sweet Jesus? Plague of locusts, perhaps? I was ready for a goopy metallic space alien to burst out of my chest.

Then I fell asleep again, and woke up on Saturday.

I've written about nothing but being sick for a week now. It must be boring to read about, but the zine is my diary so it's boring, by definition. What d'ya want for three bucks anyway?

♦ ♦ ♦

Saturday morning came, and the thick white coating on my tongue had faded to a polka dot pattern, so I was less miserable than the day before. Most of the bacteria or virus had been peed away, or blown out of my nose or coughed up and out my mouth — I'd been a veritable mucous machine. Feeling better, I wheeled the cart to Telegraph.

It took lots longer than usual, because at every intersection all along the way, I had to find a bench or lean against a telephone pole, to rest before continuing. Would've preferred to stay home and sleep, but I can't afford any more days without pay.

By the time I got to my assigned block and set up the table, my skin, hair, and clothes were drenched in sweat, and as quick as I'd wipe it away, fresh sticky soup poured out of my pores.

♦ ♦ ♦

Brenda worked beside me today, though I left an empty space between us and told her not to come too close. When I shared a montage of the delirium and fevers I've barely lived through, she said it sounded like walking pneumonia. That's an expression I've heard, but didn't know it was really a thing. It sounds more impressive than "just another flu" so I'm going with it.

We chatted about other stuff, too, not just my miseries. I like Brenda, and when that happens, me liking someone, I like to take the conversation into uncharted territory. Thinking is better than boring chit-chat about the weather, so I asked, "Do you do anything political?"

"No, don't insult me," she said. Good answer. Anyone who finds political participation distasteful goes up a notch in my estimation.

Then I felt sick and didn't say much for a while, but when my wits semi-returned and neither of us had any customers, I said: "Tell me something you believe in wholeheartedly, that most people don't."

"Hmm," she said. "I'm not sure I have an answer to that." She was quiet for a moment, then said, "When I had cancer, they asked us all to tell why we wanted to recover and live. A stupid question, right? Who doesn't want to live? Everyone else said. Oh, to see my children grow up, to see more sunrises, and so on. Whatever. What crap. I said I wanted to live long enough to see the aliens land on this planet."

Clearly, Brenda rocks, but I should probably add this brief aside for you, dear reader: She's substantially older than me, and living with some man, so my liking her, and I do, is 100% platonic.

♦ ♦ ♦

After parking the fish-cart and coming home, I went straight to bed and straight to sleep. Dreamed the aliens had landed, and they wanted Brenda and I to "Take us to your leader," but all of Earth's leaders are stupid so we took the aliens to meet Hate Man instead.

SUNDAY — This morning I felt alive enough to roll out of bed and waddle over to the typewriter to pound out these shitty sentences, instead of scribbling a few words in my notebook. And it rained all day, so I didn't have to go to work. Instead I stayed home and worked, sitting at the kitchen table, cutting sacrilegious fish from pre-printed blasphemous mylar sheets — paid work, but without having to trudge to Telegraph Ave.

Listened to exhibition baseball on the radio, while working. My sense of humor was starting to return, so as the A's lost I silently told myself jokes but laughed out loud. Jokes nobody but me would find funny. Jokes even I won't find funny tomorrow.

Heard a noise behind me once, and it was my flatmate Cy sorta snickering at me. I waved and meant to laugh, but instead gave him a coughing fit.

♦ ♦ ♦

Checked my messages for the first time in days, only to hear Diana, my not-a-doctor from the free clinic, tell me three days ago that my test results were negative, so I don't/didn't have strep throat. That's no surprise — my tongue was white and even now it's still gray, but my throat never had the intense hurt of strep.

"Gosh," she said in her message, "I don't know what you have. Call and let me know how you're doing, OK?"

I called the clinic's machine and reported that I'm feeling better., which is true, so whatever I had or have, it doesn't matter much now.

♦ ♦ ♦

MONDAY — Not quite feeling up to it, I worked anyway. BARTed in to San Francisco and spent the afternoon at Black Sheets, but I wished I wasn't there, and I was weary and fevered and grumpy.

Making my way home, I saw a scuzzy-looking homeless guy begging for change at the entrance to the BART station.

He's usually there. I've seen him a hundred times, always at the same corner of the concrete, always saying the same line, "Spayer chienje?" with an exaggerated Southern accent.

He's as much a part of the station as the big blue and white BART sign. He's been there always and forever, since I first came to the city in 1991, and probably for years before that. Maybe he inherited the job from his father.

"Spayer chienje?" he said to me as I approached.

"Not today," I muttered, and kept muttering as I walked by, "not yesterday, not the day before yesterday, not last week—"

"You don't have to be mean about it!" he yelled as I started down the subway stairs.

It wasn't my best moment, but fuck it, I was in a rancid mood, so I stopped, turned and looked at him, and he stared at me. The man he saw wasn't much and never will be, and in him I saw a young, skinny and probably malnourished loser, barefoot and probably cold, sitting next to a trash can. He's a sad schmuck, do doubt, but I had no mercy for that fucker this afternoon, so "Fuck off," I said, and again turned toward the stairs down to the trains.

On the ride back to Berkeley I replayed that scene, and I'd enjoyed it but wasn't proud of it. I've lived in the slums, worked on the street, and every day I see homeless people ignored or treated like they're less than people. Sometimes, by me. Most days, though, I make an attempt to treat the down and out with the ordinary respect everyone deserves.

Not today, though, and since the goal here is honestly let me say, honestly, whatever remorse I felt about telling him to fuck off, I shook it off easily. That beggar seems able-bodied and able-brained, but he's been sitting at that same spot for years, playing pity for quarters and dimes. You want respect from me? How about showing some self-respect first.

Addendum, 2023: Part of me wants to defend myself, and insist that I'm a better man now, that these days I wouldn't tell a homeless man to fuck off.
It's probably not true, though. I still have plenaty of asshole in me.

Quimby's is a famous zine store in Chicago. Never been to Chicago, but Quimby's was the first store to carry Pathetic Life, so I love 'em, or at least I want to.

They reached out to me last summer, and explained their invoice system and forms, used by all the zinesters whose work Quimby's sells, so I play by their invoicing rules.

They only sent two of their invoice blanks, though, and my zine comes out monthly, so with the second shipment I enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope and asked for more of their invoices. There was no reply, so my third mailing to Quimby's included my own half-assed invoice form, another SASE, and another note asking nicely for more invoices. Also I asked real friendly like whether anyone was buying the zine off the shelves. Still, no reply.

It's a big store (I've seen pictures) and dealing with a thousand of do-it-yourself publishers must be a lot of work. Balls get dropped through cracks thin and wide, and things get forgotten, and I try not to get too impatient but… they owe me $165, money which I'll love to spend on cat food though I don't have a cat. That's how poor I am.

Almost a year, and I haven't been paid, and my questions haven't been answered.

Today, Quimby's Spring catalog came in the mail, and Pathetic Life is listed — so whatdoyaknow, it is for sale at Quimby's. Early issues are sold out, so that answers my question on whether anyone's buying it. But I was slowly simmered by this blurb toward the back of the book:

"Communication — Because we deal with so many small publishers individually, we ask that you keep in touch. Haven't heard from us in a while? Our phone number is (312) 342-0910."

Wait a minute. I understand forms and letters, and postal problems, and a busy office, lousy cash flow, or lost paperwork. I've worked in offices, and understand all the things that can go wrong. If they're too busy to bother with me, I won't lie awake nights, and if they never pay me I'll chalk it up to my own stupidity for trusting people I've never met at a store I've never seen. I don't think they're ignoring me on purpose, but yeah, "Haven't heard from you in a while."

So I'm supposed to call? Long distance? During business hours? That's expensive. I still have wet dreams about Sarah-Katherine, but I've never called her long distance, even on the weekends when rates go down — that's how cheap I am. And I'll be damned if I'll make a long distance call to a zine shop that's ignored me for almost a year.

So if you live in Chicago, please subscribe. The zine no longer has a sales outlet there.

Addendum, 2023: Reading this entry surprised me. I'd forgotten all about being stiffed by Quimby's, but I am a world-class grudge-holder — if they'd never paid me I'd never forget, so they must've paid me eventually.
The store is still there, and to this day I often buy zines from Quimby's.

I'm still feeling lousy, but I'm always up for film noir, and the movies I want to see are playing tonight only at the UC, so I met Josh for dinner and a double feature. The food was good ay Hong Kong Villa, but I didn't have enough appetite to finish it. Been a long time since that's happened.

The first feature was _5 Against the House (_1955), based on a novel by Jack Finney. I love Finney — he's maybe my favorite author — but I haven't read the book.

The movie is half a wise-ass college comedy, half a bloated melodrama about a casino caper the frat boys are planning to pull during spring break. None of it's very believable or interesting, the elaborate can't-miss plan for the heist is more quaint than clever, and the whole story screeches to a halt while Kim Novak sings a few nightclub numbers. The finale, set in a hydraulic-lift parking garage, is overwrought enough to be fun, and the garage is cool.

The second feature, Murder by Contract (1958), is a minor masterpiece, following a hit man through his career, starting the day he applies for the job. Vince Edwards (later Dr Kildare) is outstanding as the ice cold but earnest young man whose calling is to kill, and his internal tension makes the audience an accomplice to the crimes. A simple but snappy six-string guitar is the soundtrack, and the cinematography is shady and angular. The script is deliciously viscous, and your mind won't wander.

After the movies, Josh drove us home, and he mentioned something about the January issue. "All those people who've read your zine and come up to you on Telegraph Avenue when you'd rather be left alone — for what it's worth, I say, why not just say hello and give 'em a chance?"

"Nah," said I. "I hate meeting people, hate being sociable, making small talk, and it's worst when it's unexpected."

"Yeah," he said, "but the people who come up to you on Telegraph aren't ordinary people. They've read your zine, and liked it. Maybe that makes 'em worth talking to."

"Maybe," I said after twenty seconds or so, and thinking it over the next day, I still think… maybe.

Some people have wandered into my life only because of the zine — Josh, for example, and Jay, and Judith, and Sarah-Katherine. Josh's point is that when someone's read the zine, and liked it, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to reject them. And… well, maybe.

So as an experiment, as a maybe, maybe the next time someone approaches me on the Ave and says "Are you Pathetic Doug?" maybe I won't deny it. We'll see.

That said, if someone's read the zine and liked it and wants to meet me, I'd still much, much, much rather that they contact me by mail or voice mail.

If I'm finally all better from whatever disease hit me last month, when does my strength come back? Any time now, please.

Today I'm very low on energy, so instead of me doing any real writing, you get more letters to Pathetic Life:

♦ ♦ ♦

Addendum, 2023: It's something i haven't re-typed as I've put Pathetic Life on-line, but at the back of every on-paper issue, mostly as filler, there was a small list of people I said thanks to, usually for things unmentioned, and always under the kindhearted headline, "People Who Shouldn't Be Shot."
In the November 1995 list, I wrote,

I'd like to start with sincere thanks to Diane & Jeffrey, who send three bucks each month for the next issue, and though they live only a few miles away haven't once hinted at inviting me to dinner or anything. They're ideal subscribers — content to laugh at my life from a distance, with no desire to meet the anti-social author.

While I have generally enjoyed meeting most (not all) of the readers I've met, it's always a moment I'd rather avoid. For sparing me that misery, I thank you, Jeffrey & Diane — let's not get together some time!

A few months later, this letter came:
I don't know if words can express how nice it was of you to thank us for our non-intrusions, in PL#18's "People Who Shouldn't Be Shot." Your interpretation was correct — we respect your privacy way too much to ever put you on the spot with a request for a face-to-face meeting, and you're the one and only person who's ever noticed or acknowledged that.
There's a confession behind our non-intrusion which might shed enlightenment. We are somewhat in the same position you are in — having people know more about us than we know about them.
We are the owners of a used book store (West Portal Books). It's just the two of us,l no employees, and we are open every day. As a result, over the years a fairly large number of people have come to recognize us. They know who we are, that we're married and own the store, and various other facts about us gathered in conversation.
We are not famous enough to be celebrities, but we are a little bit of famous, sort of the same way you are. I'm finding it to be a very weird experience. My husband Jeff seems to be handling it fairly well, but I'm not doing so good with it, because I am kind of shy. Privacy means a lot to me (didn't realize how much until I started to lose some!).
For example, sometimes strangers (they must be former customers we don't remember) will just walk up to our table in a restaurant and start asking questions about what kind of books we buy from people, how much we pay and stuff. It startles me, and I feel they've butted in rudely on our private conversation. They don't even say "excuse me" or anything.
Another bad personal experience is when I'm just walking down the streets of San Francisco, minding my own bee's wax, when suddenly a stranger races up to me and shouts, "Aren't you the lady from the book store?"
Somehow I'm never prepared for it, and it always scares the hell out of me. I'm stunned, standing there sweating and blinking like a toad that's just been uncovered from a rock or something. Then the person thinks I'm being the rude one, because I'm too shocked to speak. Sometimes they'll start badgering me, "Well, you ARE the lady from the book store, AREN'T YOU? Huh? Huh? ANSWER ME, GOD DAMN IT!"
I guess they want me to stand and deliver a warm-hearted monologue on Haiku or some kind of bullshit like that, but there's way too much pressure, so I can't.
Maybe we should consider ourselves to be "mini-celebrities," and these people are our "mini-stalkers." So we understand how it goes, sometimes, on the other side of 'fame' with a small 'f'. That's why we've never tried to get up close and personal with you."
—Diane Goodman, San Francisco

Diane, you've said it brilliantly and I'm so glad it's not "just me being me." When you're away from the bookstore, you're not the bookstore, you're a person eating in a restaurant or walking along the sidewalk, and you deserve the freedom to be that non-bookstore person.

You're not a walking billboard for the bookstore everywhere you go, and like you, when I'm not typing I am just an anonymous fat guy, not eager to talk about my life with strangers. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

Haven't been working on the new Attagirl zine lately 'cause I suck. Meanwhile, you rock. Here's some dough. See ya, and have a nice day. I'm pre-menstrual.

—Sandra Stringer, Attagirl, Columbia SC

♦ ♦ ♦

Anonymity is one of the great blessings of urban life. I know most people get some kind of gratification if the grocery clerk recognizes them and says hi, but it just makes me want to go buy my bread somewhere else.
I can imagine that strangers coming up to you with "You must be Doug!" would get on your nerves, preemptively taking away your choice of whether to introduce yourself or not.
—Jeff Carlock, Well Read Fox, Berkeley CA

♦ ♦ ♦

Sir: This is to advise you that Norman Edwards died in Akron on December 15, 1995, and I have been appointed executor of his estate.
Your publications 19 and 20 were forwarded to me. Please remove his name from your mailing list and cancel his account. Thank you.
—David E Culbertson, attorney-at-law

When I read "executor of his estate" I briefly daydreamed of an inheritance, but instead it's a fatal cancellation — a letter from a dead man's lawyer.

Many readers of the zine send notes, which I read, but according to my half-assed bookkeeping and memory, Norman only sent a couple of fivespots with his name and address, never anything else. And now, never anything ever again.

Adios, Norman. Hope you enjoyed the reading as much as I enjoyed your ten dollars. Go in peace. —DH

Addendum, 2023: West Portal Books, like most of the best bits if San Francisco, is long gone.

Set up the fish-cart next to Bo today, and he was talkative all day, pissed off and blue. He likes to take a day off once in a while, so for the second time in as many months, he'd hired someone to run his table for a few days each week. And for the second time in as many months, he'd had the fire the person he'd hired, for selling pot from the table.

Marijuana should be legal, but I can understand Bo's perspective. He runs one of several marijuana tables on the Ave, selling how-to-grow books and pot patches and t-shirts and stickers, all without either a business permit or "free speech approval" from the city. Being pro-pot and unlicensed is asking for enough trouble, you know? If his table became known as a place to purchase pot, the cops could lock him up and seize everything, including Bo.

Some of the other marijuana tables actually sell brownies or cookies or weed, but it's a risk Bo doesn't take and doesn't want his staffers to take.

His big downer, he says, is that both the people he's fired were friends, and all day he was grousing that he has no friends he can trust.

I didn't say much to that. What I wanted to say was, "Maybe don't hire your friends, since your friends all seem kinda shitty." Probably he would've laughed at that, but it's not a joke. I've seen some of his friends.

"If I have just one friend on the Avenue," he said as he was re-complaining later, "it's probably Jasper," and hello? Jasper is the biggest jerk in Berkeley.

♦ ♦ ♦

When the day was done and I was walking home, again I was feeling poorly. Better than yesterday, but still not good. I've been hoping that my weeks of walking pneumonia were over or almost over, but was I sick again? Or maybe it was just a really humid day and I'm a hundred pounds overweight pushing a cart.

When I got home I decided to shower away the stickiness and stinkiness, and stripping I noticed that my t-shirt was dripping wet, completely drenched. I am ordinarily not a drenched with sweat guy.

The antibiotics from the Free Clinic ran out a few nights ago, and this morning I called them for more. But I was feeling better and stupidly told them so, so they told me to wait, and call again in a few days. Which would be Sunday or Monday.

The white stuff that had encrusted my tongue faded a lot while I was taking the pills, but it never went 100% away, and now it's starting to come back.

Lucky me, though -- today an illegal source on the Avenue helpfully provided more antibiotics. She didn't say where she got the pills, and I didn't ask, and her name shall remain nameless, but she also didn't say what the pills were, how strong they are, or how many I should take, how often.

My guess is four times daily, same as the erythromycin, so bottoms up and cheers.

Slept eleven hours, which is too much and means I'm still sick, and still I woke up weak, feeling like a few more hours of shut-eye would help. Instead, of course, I went to work, but not before upping the dose on my self-medication with these under-the-counter antibiotics. Took two instead of one this morning, and brought two more to have with lunch.

Figure I can judge whether it's too much or not enough, by the size of the white splotches on my tongue, which are a little smaller this morning than last night.

♦ ♦ ♦

Sold fish on Telegraph, and the walk to and from Telegraph wasn't as arduous as I'd feared, which I'm taking as a sign of recovery. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, haw haw.

I worked between Brenda and a guy I call Jacques the Green.

Brenda is great. She's a little wacko in the best sense, easy to talk with, and she's lived a life, but I don't feel authorized to tell you the tales she tells me.

She's usually in a good mood and when she's not she just clams up, doesn't get all volatile like some people, like me.

As promised, I gave her a copy of my zine today, something I wouldn't ordinarily do and ain't comfortable with, but she lassoed me into it (2/18). She was considerate enough, of my feelings and my privacy, to stash the zine in her purse instead of reading it at her table. She said she'll read it when she gets home.

Jacques the Green sells left-wing politics. Like a salesman, he always wants to talk to people passing by, about his petitions, his opinions, and what a wonderful President Ralph Nader would be.

One of Jacques's pitches and clipboards is about registering people for the Green Party, and while they're perhaps closest to my own persuasion, hearing the political patter all day when he's three feet away, it loses some of its appeal.

♦ ♦ ♦

Actually, most of the vendors on the Avenue have lost their appeal to me. Almost every one of them annoys me one way or another, like most people do, only more so, because most people aren't' sitting on the sidewalk selling stuff and always talking about what they're selling.

Most of Telegraph's vendors, especially the licensed ones, are petty chiselers who don't believe in anything but money. I don't complain about them often in the zine, because usually I shut them out of my head. When you work with butt-heads every day, you learn to tune most of it out — a skill I learned working at Macy's.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today, though, I was feeling shitty — same as for the past two weeks, though it's maybe getting better — and a vendor named Bradly was the worst part of my bad day. When I was a licensed vendor, I worked around Bradley a few times. He's all about the potholders he makes and sells, leaving zero potential for friendship between us, but we used to be cordial — "Good morning," and occasional potholder jokes.

Now that I'm a free-speech vendor, we rarely work on the same block, and he's forgotten that we ever existed on the same sidewalk.

I usually set up my cart half an hour before Bradley sets up his, and this morning, as has happened several times in recent weeks, he pushed his cart past me on the sidewalk without saying squat, without the tiniest nod of his head to acknowledge my existence, without eye contact as he passed six inches from my table, and without hearing my "Howdy, Bradley," which he never hears, so it gets more fakely enthusiastic every time I shout it.

Maybe he hates me for something I said. That's usually what happens when someone freezes me out, because I do say a lot of stupid shit.

Oh, well. Some day I'll have a chance to disavow his existence like he's disavowed mine. Maybe I'll spot a shopfitter at Bradley's table but not see it, or maybe he'll be in a shouting square-off with a customer or a cop or another vendor and I won't hear it, or he'll need to break a fifty to make a sale and I won't have the money despite having the money. I'll know Bradley, like he doesn't know me.

♦ ♦ ♦

For all my occasional but recurring complaints about zine-readers approaching me on Telegraph, a zine-reader approached me on Telegraph toward the end of my day, and it went OK. It doubtless helps that she was a redhead, beautiful in an un-ordinary way, smiling a smile that occupied about half her head, when she said, "Hi, you must be Doug. I'm Barbara Cooper."

Well, I'd have nothing but kind words for Ms Cooper even if my buddy Josh hadn't tried to convince me to be kinder to strangers. She's the artist who painted the cover for Pathetic Life #15 — "Jesus makes one Prozac feed the multitudes," and we've written each other a few harmless letters, so I almost know her. Didn't know she was an attractive redhead, but it's irrelevant for a man of my mountainous size, minimal self-confidence, and toxic breath.

The upshot is, Barbara and I and her roommate — sorry, I've forgotten her name — went for burritos and a couple of beers, and by the time I'd eaten half my dinner she'd gone from being a name on my mailing list to being someone I was glad had said hello.

Point, Josh.

Anyway, it was great meeting her, nice meeting her roomie and all, but I'm feeling sick again so I'm taking two more of these illegal antibiotics and then I've just gotta get some sleep.

Addendum, 2023: Mentioning Barbara Cooper's cover art reminds me: Midway through its run, Pathetic Life began to have cover illustrations, and sometimes illustrations inside. It's frustrating that I haven't been able to publish those pictures along with all the re-typed text, but my scanner didn't survive the move from Wisconsin.
One of these weekends I'll bring my master copies of Pathetic Life to the library, and use their scanner to bring back the pictures.

It looked like rain, and then it rained and splashed and flooded. Being dry seemed a good idea, so instead of a day on Telegraph selling fish, I stayed home.

Still made some money, though, for three hours of washing Judith's accumulated dirty dishes, and five hours of snipping fish out of pre-printed mylar sheets.

Then I napped, something I can never get enough of these days.

♦ ♦ ♦

Here's the strangest response yet to my "I'll do anything legal for five dollars an hour" flyers. A guy called my voice mail, and read my entire ad into the machine, noticeably lingering at the part where I say I'll do "yucky stuff."

When I wrote the ad, I imagined "yucky stuff" might be emptying bedpans or picking up a hundred dried dog turds from someone's yard, but nobody's asked me to do anything truly yucky… until now.

When I returned his call, the man hesitated, seemed embarrassed. I thought he was going to back out and hang up, but when he screwed up his nerve he said, "I'm a really hairy guy, and I've got a really hairy butt."

There was a brief pause, him not sure how to say something, and me wondering what the heck he was about to say., "It's very difficult…," he said, "to wipe myself cleanly, because stuff gets stuck in the hair…"

"You need someone to shave your ass?"

"Well, yeah," relieved that I'd said it.

I thought it over for a few dozen heartbeats. "Well, I'll tell you what," I said. "I've been kinda sick, and this sounds like it might make me sicker, but — if you can wait a week or so until I get my strength back, I'll shave your ass. OK?"

"Great!" he said, and gave me his address. Maybe next weekend, we agreed. I ain't looking forward to it, but I need the money. Philosophically, it's only work like any work, only most work is only figuratively shitty.

Judith and Jake, Cy and Joe, three cats and a dog the size of a man live in this house, along with me. We're all slobs, except Cy. The bathroom gets cleaned only when company is coming, and everyone knows which cat pees on the furniture but nobody does anything about it, and nobody cleans it up.

All this is mentioned not as a complaint — hey, I'm comfortable in the squalor — but for comparison purposes, because after working at the magazine today, I took a #38 Geary past Japantown, and worked in a house messier than mine.

♦ ♦ ♦

Mabel opened the door almost instantly after I knocked. She must've been waiting for me, maybe watching me approach.

She's an attractive middle-aged white woman, and she was wearing a stained sweatshirt and sweatpants, clothes which hinted that she might be pitching in on the work, but she didn't.

Since she's a woman, she was the first thing I noticed, but behind her was a sea of beer cans and old magazines, fast food wrappers and dirty clothes everywhere. Judge not, lest ye be judged, flashed across my mind. You rarely see a house so messy, but it wasn't that much worse than my own room.

"Follow me," was the first thing Mabel said, not even hello. She led the way toward the kitchen, stepping over laundry, auto parts, and huge trash drifts, and I followed, as we made our way down a wide hallway narrowed by junk.

A cacophony of kid noises was coming from up down all around, and I counted five filthy youngins (though there may have been more). By the way she yelled at them, I'm judging they were all Mabel's, or else she runs the world's worst daycare.

In the kitchen, the mess was spectacular, but I've seen worse. Mabel told me to ignore everything else — the clutter, the clothes piled in the corner, the stained and rusting appliances, the yellowing beauty and style magazines haphazardly tossed everywhere. I was mostly there to wash the dishes, she said.

That's the most popular chore I'm hired for, and indeed, dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, and everywhere else. Plates and bowls were stacked along the length of the counter, many with leftovers never scraped off, and dried for so long it no longer stank. More dishes were stacked on the floor, in an arching oval around the sink, with a gateway between the dirty dishes that thoughtfully allowed access to the sink.

A dishwasher was in the corner, but it not only didn't work, it didn't have a door, and the machine was filled with kids' toys, with larger toys on the bottom and smaller toys on the cup rack above. And roaches.

I've seen a few houses as messy as Mabel's, but never have I seen so many dirty dishes. Never seen so many dishes, period. Her family apparently just buys more dishes, to avoid washing the dishes they already have. There's no other way to explain it.

Across and under many of the dishes were more roaches and spiders, pests which seemed to co-exist peacefully at Mabel's place. While I washed dishes, kids often walked or ran through the kitchen, and once, one of them was carrying a live cockroach and trying to throw it at another kid.

♦ ♦ ♦

The night wasn't entirely washing dishes. I also plastic-bagged up a great deal of trash, piling the bags at the back door. The kitchen floor was exposed as I gathers dishes off it, so I took a few breaks from the dishes to scrape and scrub the tile, then swept and mopped.

But mostly I washed dishes, until my fingers were so soggy and soft I could've chopped off a fingernail or fingertip with a butter knife. I had to stop, not because all the dishes had been washed, but because I needed to be downtown by 11:15 to catch my last train home.

About 90% of the dishes had been washed, but there was nowhere to put them — not enough cupboard space, and what shelves there were had bugs and cobwebs. Since they couldn't be put away, I stacked most of the clean dishes on the counter, taller than they'd been stacked while dirty. At least all the dishes were off the floor.

♦ ♦ ♦

A pee stop was required before my bus ride to the train station, so I asked, "Where's the john?" and knew I'd regret it. You can't keep your bladder waiting for too long, but if I had it all to do over again I'd have peed in the bushes beside the sidewalk.

"It's this way," said the sweatshirt lady, who, incidentally had helped in no way with any of the work. "Watch out for the stereo," she added, stepping over an unplugged turntable, leading me toward what I figured would be Dante's bathroom, but it was worse than that.

"After you've finished with the kitchen some other night, the bathroom will be next to be cleaned," she said, as she nudged open a door and clicked a light on. The bathroom was a mess like the rest of the house; only the flavor of flotsam and jetsam was different, with more magazines and hair care products, less food wrappers.

I grunted — there was puke in my mouth — and walked in, closed the door and peed into the toilet, and then puked onto the pee. It was partly sick-puke, but mostly puke brought on by the mess, and my pee and puke were atop someone else's un-flushed shit. There was enough shit that flushing seemed like a gamble — the toilet might overflow, and looking around the messy room, I saw no plunger.

To flush, or not to flush? If the toilet flooded the room, Mabel would probably expect me to clean it up, but if I didn't want to be stranded in San Francisco overnight, I needed to be on my way quickly.

Not to flush, I decided.

Mabel was in the front room, and asked when I could come back to finish the dishes, and start on the bathroom. "Never," I wanted to say, but I'm broke so "Wednesday?" is what came out of my puke-flavored mouth.

She said OK, wanted me to start early, and we agreed on 10AM Wednesday. Then she handed me my pay for the night — $30 for six hours, with no tip you fucker, and not even a "thank you."

TUESDAY — Beginning at noon, I sorted fish. Usually I sit on Telegraph and sell the fish, and sometimes I sit in my kitchen and make the fish, scissoring them out of fish-pre-printed mylar sheets. Today I sorted through many thousands of fish, counting them and sorting them into bins of fish, because Jay wanted an inventory.

After about six hours of counting and sorting there were 31 piles of fish, including a few that had been discontinued months ago. Then I phoned Jay with the tallies, and at her instruction, began scissoring and re-stocking the fishies we were low on.

Sorting, counting, bagging, binning, and then a few hours of scissoring left the fish in tidy, well-organized piles, but my brain was fished out.

♦ ♦ ♦

Had a cup of ramen for dinner, and a few slices of bread and butter, a meal so mild it couldn't possible disagree with me. Everything has for weeks, so I wanted to take no chances.

For dessert, two vitamin C's, two multi-vits, and two illegal antibiotics, and then I puked everything up. I'm hoping it was just the pills fighting each other, because other than the barfing I felt not bad all day.

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — "Fuck off," was the first thing Mabel said when she swung open the door. "You're not working for me today, or ever. You son of a bitch. You're worse than my own kids. You could at least flush the toilet. When I flushed your huge shit the whole bathroom was floating in it, and I don't pay people to shit all over my house…"

And on and on, and then she started coughing, with a hacking wheeze she hadn't had a few days ago. Whatever she's got I hope she caught it from me.

Her hollering trailed away as I walked down the street. I'm out the price of a BART round trip, $4 or so, but it was worth at least $3.50 to see the funny fury on her face, and to never have to set foot in her messy house again.

The toilet overflowing wasn't worth arguing about, so I didn't even tell her it wasn't my shit she'd waded through. My piss, yes, and my vomit too, but the toilet had been full of shit and piss before I got there on Monday night. I hadn't flushed because anyone could see it was going to overflow.

♦ ♦ ♦

Per Mabel's instructions, I'd arrived early, so there was time to catch a discount matinee. I'd been wanting to see Dead Man Walking, so I BARTed to 12th Street, then walked to Jack London Square.

It's a weepy prison melodrama that humanizes the issues of capital punishment. It's not against the death penalty and it's not for it, doesn't seem to have an opinion one way or the other, but it's fairly fair, and simply addressing a controversial issue makes Dead Man Walking a towering achievement in American cinema, so I'll recommend it, with reservations. Lots of reservations.

The killer on death row only develops a conscience and almost a man's worth of humility when he knows he's going to die, so maybe the movie's point is that fear of execution leads to redemption? If so, that's putrid.

And Bruce Springsteen's dull, not quite musical theme song, with lyrics that rhyme "dead man walkin'" with "dead man talkin'" — brilliant, Bruce — was nominated for an Oscar? Springsteen is overrated, but usually he's better that that. The song sounds like a dead man singin'.

Tim Robbins wrote and directed, and he's lucky to have his leading lady, Susan Sarandon, starring, but another Robbins wrote the (weak) score, and another Robbins directed the (annoying and unnecessary) choir, and more people named Robbins than I could count scrolled by in the closing credits. Everyone in the family gets an AFTRA card and maybe residuals.

♦ ♦ ♦

After the movie, I stopped for a fish sammich at Burger King, because I have an appetite for the first time since February, and because a nice reader sent a coupon for a free meal (thanks, Sandy — the next zine's my treat).

After ordering, I did the thing where you stand waiting for your number to be called. It was a great wait, though.

A cashier said, "28," and a young black woman stepped up to the counter. Without a word, the cashier put a sack of food on the counter in front of her, and the woman asked somewhat brusquely, "Are my fries in here?"

The worker stopped but didn't answer. Instead she pushed the bag a little closer to the customer, then turned away and walked back to her register.

The customer screamed, "Don't you throw my food at me!" Actually, she said, "Doan you chrow mah food ah me," and I was briefly perplexed at the verh 'chrow', but the scene devolved quickly into something so ugly there were not further thoughts of linguistics.

"I didn't throw your food," the cashier yelled just as loudly, twice, and that's true. She'd nudged the sack toward the customer, but certainly hadn't chrown it.

Then came the customer's barrage of "You chrew my food, bitch!" and "Give me a refund!" and "I'll be waiting when you're off work!" It was highly entertaining, and when someone called my number, "31," I got my food and took a seat close enough to enjoy the floor show.

The woman kept screaming, and soon the cashier, in tears, fled to the back room. The manager came up front to quiet or placate the customer, but this was a woman who wouldn't be calmed.

"I want my food replaced," she demanded, "and my money back, and I want you to fire that bitch right now, and then when she leaves I'm gonna kick her ass!" Kicking ass was a recurring theme in all of the woman's ranting.

The entire lunch crowd was mesmerized — fifty blank faces watching, but none of us intervening. What, am I gonna do something? No, I am not.

The woman kept screaming threats and demands and obscenities at the manager, while I finished my fine fishwich, and as I nibbled the last few fries he finally gave up and walked away, asking another employee to call 9-1-1.

As he manager walked toward the back room, the customer followed him, lifting the gateway through the counter, walking back behind the cash registers. There's no sign that says "Employees only," but it's universally understood, except by that furious customer.

The manager stopped and looked at her and sorta cringed, his body bending a little, like he was actually afraid. His face was flushed, and he seemed unsure what to do. Maybe no customer had ever lifted and walked through the gateway before.

A big male employee — also black (in fact, everyone's black in this story, except me and the manager) — came out from the kitchen, put his arms up passively, and softly nudged the furious woman back toward the lobby.

The manager, in fine management mode, only stood and watched, slightly shaking. By the time the big guy had cajoled the woman, still belligerent, back to the customer area, this farce had been going on for ten minutes, maybe longer, but burgers were still being ordered and fried and fed to the audience.

The cashier from the top of the story came back. She'd obviously been crying, but the manager told her to go back to her station, so she stepped to her register and said, "Can I help you?" to the next hungry loser in line.

The angry woman was still in the lobby, though, still ranting, and she came toward the cashier, leaned across the counter, and popped her in the face. She wasn't hurt — it was a weenie punch — but the cashier started bawling again, and ran away.

The manager came up, finally out of his funk, I thought — OK, he's going to throw her out. It's about time, and this ought to be fun. I sipped on my Diet Coke, chewing the ice.

But he didn't throw her out, didn't even ask her to leave. He gave her back her money, as she'd been screaming-demanding, and handed her a fresh sack of replacement food, which she'd also demanded.

What a frickin' putz. What a fine manager. And of course, the woman continued hollering, demanding again that "You gotta fire that bitch!" and promising she'd be waiting to kick the cashier's ass when she left.

Then the police showed up, and the woman was suddenly quiet for the first time since the cashier had nudged her sack of food toward her.

The manager and the woman both talked to the two policemen, but the cashier said, "I don't talk to cops," and disappeared into the back room to cry some more.

Nobody was arrested, and the crazed customer went home with her sack of replacement food plus her refunded money. Heck, she might've still had her original sack of food, too — I'm not sure what happened to it.

Here's my review: The fishwich was lukewarm, the lettuce was wilted, and the fries were hot but too salty. The customer was out of her mind. Someone who takes surly service at a fast-food dive so personally, is someone who's looking for an excuse to be furious.

The cashier shouldn't have chrown the food. It was rude, but also it was nothing by the standards of American rudeness. And the cashier won me over when she refused to talk to the police.

The manager was awful. At no time did he offer any support, encouragement, or defense for his employee. He ordered her to return to a physically dangerous situation, leading directly to her assault. That bossman has a fine career ahead of him in Corporate America.

And the police? They were mellow peacemakers, exactly what wasn't called for. Witnesses told them about the woman's behavior, that she'd punched the cashier, and about her ten minutes of repeated threats. That woman must've promised fifty times to kick the cashier's ass, including twice as the policemen watched, before she saw them. But they let a violent, threatening, and inarguably crazy woman walk away without so much as scolding her.

Now, I suppose some support-your-local-police ninny will write to tell me that I'd condemn the cops no matter what they did, but that's bull. Usually I criticize cops for their usual crimes — rousting the homeless, routine brutality and racism, enforcing stupid laws against victimless crimes, and their general attitude of omnipotence, etc — but this was a situation where you could argue that society needs police. That woman should've been arrested, but the "protect and serve" cops didn't even give her a talking-to.

"Have a nice day," one of them said to her, as she walked out the door.

♦ ♦ ♦

Well, gosh, I enjoyed the afternoon's double feature — Dead Man Walking and Incident at Burger King — so much that I decided to catch another double feature back in Berkeley. Wednesdays are noir nights at the UC, so I stopped at home to pack snacks in my backpack, and walked to the 7:00 show.

Touch of Evil (1958) is a sweaty film directed by Orson Welles, who plays a sweaty, pompous, pushy, and prejudiced police chief investigating a murder at the US/Mexican border. Welles is great. Welles is always great.

Charlton Heston wears a pasted-on mustache and presto, he's supposed to be Mexican. It was a different time, yeah, but it's always clumsy when old movies try to address racial issues, with white actors playing the oppressed minorities. Ah, well. If you can get past that, Heston is actually pretty good in the role.

Marlene Dietrich runs the local whorehouse, Zsa Zsa Gabor plays a floozy, Dennis Weaver has a kooky bit as the hotel manager, and it adds up to a movie well worth seeing. It's a drama with a point, reflected in one of its better lines: "A policeman's job is only easy in a police state." Remember that, next time you're counting the cops at Dunkin' Donuts.

The Crimson Kimono (1959) also addresses racial issues, not as successfully, but at least it has James Shigeta as a Japanese-American. Charlton Heston must've been unavailable.

Shigeta and his partner and friend, a white cop, investigate a murder where the clues lead to LA's Little Tokyo. Screwball characters say things like, "Love does much, but bourbon does everything," and it's watchable, but the mystery is obvious, almost silly, and the romantic angle is shot through the heart by cardboard acting from everyone who isn't Shigeta.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then I came home feeling pretty good, not sick at all. Am I all better? It's about frickin' time.

"Can I borrow 50¢, please?"

There's one Berkeley bum who uses that line a lot. Always he says please, and puts the tiniest extra emphasis on 'borrow', as if anyone believes it's a loan.

Usually I'm stingy and cheap, but a few times I've said yeah and handed him a few quarters.

And there he was again, standing at the corner in front of Walgreens. Across the parking lot I could hear him saying his familiar line to an old couple, and they ignored him of course, and walked into the store.

I wasn't in a good mood, and had already decided I wasn't giving that bum the 50¢ I knew he'd be asking for. Why I'd ever given him anything is a mystery, but he wears a fraction of a smile and a hopeful look and sometimes it's cracked my uncaring urban armor.

Not today, though. I steeled my defenses. He wasn't getting a dime out of me. I only had four dollars in my wallet, barely enough for the groceries I needed, and anyway, I am poor, damn it.

As I approached the store's door, the bum pulled his hand out of his pocket, the literal enactment of hoping for a handout. I looked the other way and waited for the words, but they were what I'd expected.

"This is for you, mister," he said, and I noticed there were two dollar bills in his hand.

"For me?" I asked, trying to figure out what scam he was pulling.

"Yeah, for helping me out when I needed it, man. Four times you've given me 50¢."

Wordless, I gradually grokked that he was repaying the 'loans'. Does this guy keep a ledger?

It's probably a calculated part of his routine, and I'm supposed to refuse the two dollars. Like I said, though, I'm poor. And not proud. I needed the money almost as much as he did, so I took the cash, stuffed it into my pocket and added, "Thanks."

He'd probably complain, I thought. His whole ploy was supposed to get money out of me, right?

But instead he said, "Don't be thanking me," either sincerely or as a well-delivered part of the pitch. "I be thanking you, for helping when I was broke."

Past tense? Like, you aren't broke now?

But I didn't say anything, only nodded, and walked into the store. With the extra two bucks, I treated myself to a can of Nine Lives and a small jar of mayonnaise, in addition to the ramen and cheap bread I'd come for. Yeah, I'd be eating good tonight.

The bum was still there when I came out, so I handed him two quarters. Call it a karma investment. And I smiled at him, and it felt like a genuine smile.

It was sunny and summerry, so lots of girls on Telegraph Ave were wearing lots of skin and not much else, which makes for a nice day indeed.

There were no other vendors on the block, though, so when it came time to pee there was no-one to watch my table. A problem I've never had before.

To pee, I had to disassemble the entire fish table, bungee it all to the cart, and roll it with me into the john at People's Park. Then, bladder empty, I rolled back to the Ave and set everything up again. It took about fifteen minutes.

♦ ♦ ♦

Thought I was getting sick again by the end of the day, and came home feeling fevered. Even after a cold shower, I'm still really hot.

Caught a glimpse of me in the mirror, though, and I'm not sick, only sunburned. I'm bright pink, with tender, baked, flaky skin under my fresh cut quarter-inch beard.

Two cans of beans for dinner led to four trips to the toilet during the night, but that's to be expected.

So I'm delighted to say that I think I'm done being sick. I don't even mind being sunburned. It's simply wonderful to be almost healthy again.

♦ ♦ ♦

PS. A story I almost forgot to tell:

On Telegraph today, as sometimes happens when I'm in a good mood, me and some strangers on the sidewalk engaged in silly banter, and in a conversation with a middle-aged man, the topic turned to sex.

He asked a philosophical question, "Would you rather have no chance for sex in the future but great memories of sex in the past, or would you rather have great sex in your future but give up your memories of all the women?"

"All the women" isn't many for me, but that's a very odd question, I thought, especially since it neatly approximates my own past and prospects.

"I'd rather have the memories," I said. "The memories get better and better with time, but the real thing gets worse and worse."

"Fish!" is my cry whenever I'm on the Ave. I sit at my table and say, "Fish!" When I'm feeling extra talkative, I'll say, "Fish! Get your fish! I've got fish, right here!"

"Gee," Umberto said, after hearing me shout "Fish!" maybe 10,000 times since last summer. "It's a good thing you don't sell crabs."

So for a while I shouted, "Crabs! Get your crabs! I've got crabs, right here!"

♦ ♦ ♦

Brenda worked next to me today, and she handed me a long, funny, handwritten letter filled with her reactions and comments about my zine, which I'd given her. You'll find about half of her letter in this month's letter section, but I always edit out people's compliments. I'm more comfortable being insulted.

Then we talked for most of the day. We've known each other for two months and we haven't pissed each other off in the slightest. If she was single and 25 years younger I'd ask her out.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's amazing that we could communicate, as Christians sang god-awful songs at the corner most of the day, with preaching between the hymns. They did it all through microphones and amplifiers, making normal conversation and rational thought almost impossible anywhere on the block.

Of course, what use would Christians have for rational thought?

After a while, the preaching set me off. What brainless rot. What a collection of nonsense for halfwits.

"In heaven," the idiot Reverend explained, "there will be rivers of living water." He said it slowly, dramatically, and then repeated it slowly and dramatically, as if the phrase meant something.

But does it? "Rivers of living water"? It's another Christian crock, a line I heard thousands of times at church as a kid, but never thought about until today. There's an entire hymn built around it, which the Christians sang twice:

Drinking at the springs of living water
Happy now am I, my soul is satisfied
Drinking at the springs of living water
Oh, wonderful and bountiful supply

What does that even mean? The water is alive? That's just sickening, isn't it? Maybe you eat meat, but you wouldn't eat meat while it's still living and breathing. Would you drink water that's alive?

"Rivers of living water" was the theme of the preacher's sermon, so when he said that line a third time, I started heckling him. Using a loud and obnoxious mock moron voice, I shouted "Rivers of living water? What does that mean?"

And every time he mentioned the rivers of living water, I shouted it again: "Rivers of living water? Tell us more please about the rivers of living water!"

But he never did, and after half an hour or so, Umberto asked me to shut the hell up. He said I was bugging him more than the Christians were.

♦ ♦ ♦

A pretty blonde smiled at me, which in itself could be the high point of any day, but there's more to tell.

"Don't be mad at me," she said, and I wondered what's the catch? A pretty woman smiles at me, and she thinks I might be mad at her for smiling?

"I'm Corina," she said, "from Sacramento," but she also said her last name, which is uncommon enough that it clicked in my head. The zine has a subscriber in Sacramento with that last name.

Well, hell, I'd promised Josh that I'd try to be nice when readers approach me on the Avenue, so Corina and I talked for 20 minutes or so. She told me about herself — she's 30, divorced — but I didn't tell her much about me, because she's read the zine so she knows all about me.

Had a nice time talking with her, and she said I'm not as obnoxious as I make myself seem in the zine. Fooled her!

Then she had to go — the friends from Sacto she'd come with we're waiting for her, so we hugged goodbye. The hug hurt my sunburn, but she left me in a good mood that lasted all afternoon — my longest extended non-grumpiness in at least a month.

♦ ♦ ♦

Working on the Ave, I'm often annoyed by the other vendors, and the customers, and the street preachers — everyone, basically, but especially by the constant presence of cops.

Telegraph Avenue always has police patrolling, on bikes, on foot, and in squad cars, looking for a chance to hassle the homeless, or search someone who seems suspicious (meaning young and black, or young and poor).

With all these cops patrolling a few blocks, the effect — especially for a cop-hater like me — is that you always see police, police, and more police. It's like there are 500 cops on the beat, but they're really the same five or so cops, over and over and over.

Well, today, bizarrely, there wasn't a single cop. No coppers on bicycles, no coppers on foot, no coppers in cars cruising by. Saw a couple of meter maids, but that's it.

Lawmen don't decide for themselves where they're going to patrol. A police department is a military organization, so they're given marching orders.

When the police suddenly disappear, it's because they've been ordered away, which means something's going down — a sting, an undercover operation, a set-up of some kind. The department's higher-ups have ordered the heat off the street, so as not to give the prey the jitters.

I mentioned the absence of police to Umberto, and to the guys who sell marijuana brownies, and they'd already noticed.

Probably it sounds like paranoia and maybe it is, but I prefer the term 'awareness'. It is not possible to expect the worst from cops, because whatever you're expecting, cops can make it worse.

Today I worked between Umberto and Hilda, a vendor I'd never met before. She's young, pretty, and she was wearing a low-cut blouse a little too big, and no brassiere. She sells art, and did a booming business.

Whenever she bent over, a view of her cleavage was provided, and she bent over a lot. A few times she leaned way over to pick something up, and her breasts were visible all the way to the nipples and below.

When she was facing to the side, suddenly my fish display needed adjusting as I angled for another unobstructed view. When she was facing away and bent over just right, her untucked shirt was so loose I could sometimes see the bottom of her boobs from underneath.

I've had sex with women without seeing so much tit.

All day long, I saw as much as could be seen, which was plenty, while also trying to be nonchalant, so she wouldn't feel self-conscious. We even talked a little, but I can't remember about what.

♦ ♦ ♦

On the other side of Umberto's table was Jacque the Green, and the three of us discussed our assorted wacko politics for a while. We're all happy to talk politics but none of us are much interested in listening, so that conversation didn't last long.

After a few laughs, Jacque invited me to his house sometime, for pizza and videos — so friendship rears its ugly head. Why anyone, especially someone who knows me, would invite me over for anything, I'll never know. It ought to be obvious that I'm not the outgoing and sociable sort.

We'd talked about noir a while back, though, and Jacque said he had a collection of old and noir movies on Betamax, which got my attention.

I asked if there'd be any talk of Amway, Shaklee, or Jesus, and he said no, so I said yes. I'm too poor to pass up a pizza and a movie if it's free. He gave me an address, and told me to show up Thursday night at 5-ish.

♦ ♦ ♦

Again, we didn't see a single officer of the law today, and the effect is probably the opposite of what the cops expected. The drug dealers have temporarily relocated to different neighborhoods, and most of the vendors who aren't American citizens have taken the weekend off.

You can still buy marijuana brownies at the pot table, though, because those guys are willing to go to jail for what they smoke and believe.

♦ ♦ ♦

When my day selling fish was over, I came home and called the guy with the hairy ass — let's call him Harry — to clarify a few things.

"First off," I said, "my rate is $5 an hour, but this sounds like it won't take 10 minutes. There's a 4-hour minimum, so my fee is 20 bucks, OK?"

"That's reasonable," he said.

"I'll be in the city tomorrow night. Is that good for you?"

He said it was, gave his address and some brief bus instructions, and we agreed that I'd be there at 6:00.

"Now, either you provide the shaving necessities and rubber gloves, or I'll buy them and bill you."

"I've got shaving stuff," he said, "but I don't have any rubber gloves."

"I'll bring the gloves, then," I said. "Four bucks extra."

He agreed, which is four bucks more profit, because there are rubber gloves everywhere at Black Sheets, where I work on Mondays. They host orgies, once monthly, so there's a closet stuffed with rubber gloves. I'll just ask Bill and take a pair.

"I'd also appreciate it if you'd shower just before I get there."

"I'm planning to," he said.

"All righty then," I said. "See you tomorrow."

Yeah, I'll see more of you tomorrow then I really want to.

After my shift at Black Sheets, where I swiped a pair of gloves, I arrived at Harry's house right on time. We shook hands, he invited me in, and I was discretely looking the situation over, but everything appeared on the level.

He seemed uncomfortable, and I told him not to be.

On the living room carpet, he had already spread out some newspapers. "I figured I'd be on the floor, on all fours," he said, "and you can sit on this chair."

I nodded, and put on the gloves while he went into the bathroom. He came back with a Bic disposable razor, a can of shaving cream, and a towel.

"Ready when you are," I said.

He took off his shoes and socks, then his pants and underwear, and assumed the position, naked from the waist down.

His ass gaped open at me, but what really startled me was the hair — man, that man's butt was almost as hairy as my face, and I have a short beard. It was hairy like Esau. Hairy like an Angora sweater. Hairy everywhere. With a comb, I could've parted it.

As promised, he'd obviously showered; everything was clean. So I sat behind his behind, lathered him up, and gently sheared him.

This being San Francisco, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd gotten off on it, but apparently it wasn't a turn-on. And wow, he needed the service I was providing. It isn't often you know you're truly making someone's life better. Harry probably wakes up every day with yesterday's shit stuck to the hair in his crack, but tomorrow he won't.

At one point, everything I was looking at sorta tightened up for a few seconds, contracted just a bit. I didn't ask, but I think the guy was holding back a fart, and I appreciated the effort.

Didn't want to shave all of both cheeks, because I figured that would leave his entire bottom itchy and scratchy for a few weeks whenever he sat down. Instead I left a bald circle extending several inches around his sphincter; beyond this, the almost ape-like hairiness remained untrimmed.

I gently toweled him dry, and said, "I'll let you tell me whether it's a close enough shave."

Still on his hands and knees, he tentatively fingered the inches around his anus, shook his head yes, and quietly stood up and got dressed. "Smooth as a baby's butt" is the cliché I was waiting to hear.

Thought of asking if he had some aftershave to slap on, but he still seemed ill at ease, so I didn't make any jokes, only discarded the gloves and washed my hands in the bathroom.

At the front door, Harry thanked me, gave me three tens and said to keep the change. Thirty bucks for about 15 minutes work made me a happy man, so I decided to make him a happy customer. "I hope you're not embarrassed," I said. "I've done this before, you know."

"You have?" His face brightened.

Of course I haven't. "Of course I have," I said. "It's not that unusual." That's what every weirdo wants to hear, I suppose — that he's not so weird after all.

"I just," he stammered. "I really appreciate this."

"Happy to be a help," I said. "Call me if the stubble starts to itch."