A Horse Named Sorrow

50

225 50 It was 6:00 a.m., so Guer­ rero ­ Street was more or less empty, ­ fogenshrouded —all the bet­ ter to make my es­ cape. But so beau­ ti­ ful too. San Fran­ cisco was a mad­ den­ ing city, hard to leave, a place where nos­ tal­ gia could set in ­ thirty sec­ onds on the back of an image. Every place else took years, but San Fran­ cisco was beau­ ti­ ful like a curse. It­ wouldn’t let you go. “Left my heart” and all that. Plat­ i­ tudes with an iron grip. I ­ pulled, took a deep ­ breath, and re­ minded my­ self that de­ spite all ev­ i­ dence to the ­ contrary, I was in re­ al­ ity. San Fran­ cisco may be cov­ ered with Vic­ to­ rian sugar, but the bis­ cuit under the frost­ ing is the same as any­ where else. ­ You’ve got to keep re­ mind­ ing your­ self of that. Oth­ er­ wise it’s the city of prom­ ises never quite de­ livered. And that could be any­ thing from a sunny day to the fa­ bled Oz of homo­ sex­ u­ al­ ity, which was chip­ ping away like old paint as so many of us died. Some­ times I plain hated San Fran­ cisco, the way it dis­ sem­ bled and se­ duced. The ac­ ro­ nym ­ closed in on Jimmy just as soon as he ar­ rived. He was sick ­ within two ­ months, after hav­ ing been asymp­ to­ matic until he­ reached our fair city—our fair, en­ chanted city, shad­ owed by the angel of death that no one sees until it’s hov­ er­ ing over you like the fog and you can’t get out from under it. Trick­ ster city. Black widow with a­ pretty Vic­ to­ rian hour­ glass on its belly, and we’re all crawl­ ing ­ around clue­ less as fools on its web. And it wants your heart, so don’t doubt it’ll ask. ...