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31 8 I reached down and grabbed my water bot tle, quaffed a gulp, and re turned it to its holder on the bike frame. Then I hopped on the bike and rode down the very same street Jimmy and I had wan dered a year ago, only now it was misted with morn ing fog. There was the empty side walk and the curb and the open lot, and the fennel-choked cyclone fence where we sat and drank King Cobra and dis cussed the vir tues of in fant crit ters, the life cycle of sal mon, the dream of Cal i for nia—the col ors of that not very long-ago sun set un imag in able in the morn ing gray. I went by the cor ner liq uor store next, and out front with a broom I saw the steel-wool pro prie tor. I hoped he wouldn’t rec og nize me, as I hadn’t taken his ad vice, about the forty-ouncer or Jimmy. But he didn’t even look up. And nei ther did I much, after that. Which means I ran red lights and stop signs and an gered driv ers, who an gered me in re turn. But I did what my mother al ways taught me to do: When you get angry, sing a song, she’d said. And it worked too. Hum ming Le o nard Cohen’s “Su zanne,” I couldn’t stay mad among the gar bage and the flow ers, which I soon learned is what the shoul der of every road is made of. Pinski’d once warned me about such music: “No ’70s folk music,” he’d barked. “Do you know how many peo ple have gone over the edge lis ten ing to that stuff?” 32 I hate rhe tor i cal ques tions. What do I get if I guess right? A trip to Mex ico? What are we—the sad le gions—jelly beans? “3,456,” I an swered him. He’d looked at me, vexed, but ever dis tracted and short on time, he dis missed it, not hav ing ex pected an an swer any way. “And why are you wear ing those gloves?” I had scabs on my knuck les from my habit of drag ging them along brick walls, but I wasn’t going to share that with him, al though just then some of the scabs on my knuck les were stick ing to the cot ton, mak ing me wince. “It’s the cold, Doc; it’s just the cold.” Be cause I didn’t tell Pin ski much of any thing. Not only be cause there wasn’t time, but be cause I didn’t want to talk to him. He was a drug dealer. I wanted the pills. Even though they never worked. Well, fine then, I’d tried and I could rust in peace. . . . all men will be sail ors then until the sea shall free them. I watched the fog down those inter mit tent street cross ings as it pulled back out of the bay and over the Golden Gate Bridge like a slow tongue, ser pen tine and tor por ous—the whole Bay Area a sleep ing dragon just like how the Chi nese im mi grants of gold rush days de scribed it, with each peak—Ta mal pais to the north, Mt. Di ablo to the east, Mt. Ham il ton to the south—the spikes of its back. And right in the cen ter, en cir cled, was its treas ure: Gold Moun tain, San Fran cisco. Or maybe it wasn’t a treas ure at all—such a trick ster of a city. Maybe it was a lit tle ant hill and the fog wasn’t a dragon’s tongue but an anteater’s snout, its long tongue reach ing in and pull ing out tasty mor sels like Jimmy, one by one. ...
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