San Francisco Shorts by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

Windmill with a View

by Mike Bozart

© 2021 Mike Bozart

Prefaçorial [ sic] remarks.

Yes, another short story centered around that knowhere [ sic]

bar called Sidle on N. I know what you are thinking: Jeez, Mike, another one? Really?

Please bear with me for just a few more. The vault of 2014 is now almost emptied.

These Sidle on N short stories led up to the Mysterieau of San Francisco novella. Some of the characters, scenes and plot ideas made it to the novella; others are lying in the fog somewhere in westernmost San Francisco.

Curiously enough, Mr. Malloy was on holiday for this one.

Maybe there was a [San Francisco] Giants home game.

Any ways and all waves, thanks for your interest, time and mind space.

-MB

It was back in the summer of 1992, while in a small studio apartment in downtown San Francisco (the infamous Tenderloin) – way before psecret psociety was created and formally promulgated on Facebook (and obviously long before such) – that I imagined myself as some kind of meta-real agent. I knew the agency part would fall into place sooner or later (actually, much later).

I found myself having another end-of-day grog at Sidle on N

on Judah Street. (The bar, Sidle on N, is featured in the Mysterieau of San Francisco novella, as well as in the short stories, A Search for Sidle on N; Water Hammer; Ok, Roll the Dice; and The Right Triangle.) As usual, and as prescribed, only three people were in the little dive bar in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco.

There was a 40-something, slightly pudgy, mustachioed, white guy in a cowboy hat, who kept nervously looking out the door at the perennial late-day fog passing by. He seemed paranoid. Who is he looking out for? Is he hallucinating? Is he a marked gaucho from a lost gulch? I need to write that line down on a piece of napkin. Might use it twenty or so years from now.

There was an Asian couple, probably college age, talking softly in a corner. They’re probably reviewing notes for an exam.

Behind the bar today was an Amerasian dude named Dash.

I was never sure if that was his birth name or just an adopted American nickname. I never asked him. He was about my age at that time: 28.

I got used to seeing him in there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Today was a Wednesday. A Wednesday near-evening that seemed to hang by a mid-week tendril on a branch of disbelief. Well, perhaps.

However, no one in this so-easy-to-pass-right-on-by joint was howling for abstract poetry at this moment. And, believe the essence of yew, they weren’t aware of the cancer-fighting potential. And, for that matter, neither was I.

I laughed to myself when that last couplet sailed through my cranium, glancing off some remnants of gray matter. Dash caught my nascent chortle.

“Something funny, eh?” Where did he pick up that Canadian accent? Toronto? Montréal? Hamilton? Or, maybe in Yellowknife with a steak knife? Internal laughter.

I recomposed my countenance for anyone counting. But, wasn’t sure if Dash was.

“Yeah, just a one-two combination that I might use sometime in the future. That’s if I ever start writing.”

“Twenty-two years from now?” How odd that he would pick 22 years. It’s always odd in here, though. Shouldn’t really be surprised anymore.

“Maybe so, Dash.”

“You think that you’ll still be alive?”

“I don’t know. Hard to say. Do you mean exactly 22 years from now, not an even 20?”

“Yeah, I think that I will stick with that number. Repeating digits, you know. Maybe some magic there.”

“Dash, you’re mad, man. But, you’re no madman.”

“You funny American guy, Mike.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret: It’s only parfait [perfect in French] if you can make it pay, mon ami. [‘my friend’ in French] Got to pay those bills. Must stay afloat in this stagnant moat.”

“You better write that one down, man, before you forget it.”

He handed me a red ball-point pen and a cardboard PBR

(Pabst Blue Ribbon) beer coaster. I jotted the line down and dated it. Then I tossed it into my green backpack and zipped it shut.

“Speaking of making it pay, how do you make it, Dash, just working three days a week? Do you have a second job somewhere? I mean, this is one expensive-ass city.”

“You aint kidding, pal. Let’s just say that I cut out a big expense.”

“Let me guess: You drive an older car that is already paid for; thus, no car payment.”

“True in part, Mike; I have no car payment. But, it’s because I have no car.”

“Well, I don’t have a car, either. This is one of the few American cities that you can live in delightfully without an automobile.”

“True dat, bro.”

“But, Dash, how do you make the rent if I may be so bold to ask?”

“I live rent-free, man.” What?!

“Are you a squatter in some Lower Haight, soon-to-be-razed, faltering flophouse? Or, are you in government-subsidized housing in the Western Addition?”

“No, no, Mike; nothing like that.” I bet he camps in Golden Gate Park and showers at the Y.

Dash grabbed his stringy goatee and ran his fingers through it like a four-tined rake. “I live in a very interesting, unique place,” he cautiously announced.

“A mental hospital?” I chuckled at my little zinger.

“You are very funny guy, Mike.”

“Oh, I’m just joking with ya.”

“You must want to be comedian.”

“No, not me.”

When Dash noticed that I was serious again, he continued with his lodging revelation. “I have a place in Golden Gate Park for the time being.” Ah-ha! Golden Gate Park. I knew it.

Just as I suspected: a camper in the bushes.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Listen, I’d like to tell you where, but my girlfriend has sworn me to secrecy. She doesn’t want us to lose our kewl [ sic]

digs.” Digs? Maybe they live underground. Or, semi-underground, in a lean-to-a-sand-dune.

“So, somewhere in Golden Gate Park. That’s some prime, publicly owned, surreal estate if you can maintain the subterfuge. I hope they don’t find your tent behind North Lake.”

“Oh, trust me; we’re not living in a tent. I’ll give you a hint: It’s a permanent structure. That’s all I can say. I think that I shouldn’t have even said that. Can I take that hint back?”

“Sure, Dash, consider it erased from my bean.” Not.

He looked at me and grinned. “One more dark brew to-go for the train ride back home?”

“Sure, put it in a brown paper bag, Dash. Thanks in advance and in retrograde.” What a strange one he is.

“I remember the routine, Mr. Mike.”

“And that is why I tip you so well.”

“You just want my sister’s phone number.” He’s onto my scheme.

“Yeah, maybe so.” Of course you do.

“Maybe so next time,” Dash concluded.

I put a $5 bill and five quarters down on the bar and exited the tantalizing travesty of a tavern. I crossed Judah. Lucky me, an N-line train was waiting at the western terminus. Ah, just like I ordered it.

I jumped aboard the front car. I couldn’t stop wondering where Dash and his girlfriend were living in Golden Gate Park. Are they living in a large storm drain vault? No, that would be too damp. Couldn’t imagine a 20-something female voluntarily living in such a space. Are they really living in some subterranean void? Where do they use the bathroom?

Outside in the woods? No, I couldn’t imagine a girl living like that. I can tell that he’s not living like that, either; he is getting a fresh shower every day. Does he have a key to some park maintenance building? I bet that’s it. I’ll have to poke around out there this weekend.

The MUNI train stopped at 22nd Avenue. The man from Sidle on N with the cowboy hat crossed the street with his head down, headed south. He glanced at the front of the train as he passed by. The last new passenger got on the rear car of the train, and we were rolling again. I never saw him leave the bar. I wonder what his story is. Lost to time. Another mystery gone to the fog.

Twenty-two minutes later, the N train pulled into Civic Center station. I got out and walked up to my Hyde Street studio apartment, wading through the aggressive panhandlers. I couldn’t stop wondering about where Dash and his girlfriend were living in Golden Gate Park.

Four days later, I spent a whole Sunday checking out the various structures in the park for signs of human habitation.

Nothing looked remotely lived in, even when I zoomed in on the shed and shop windows with my binoculars. I was ready to call it quits in the southwestern corner of the park, when I noticed the old, broken-down, closed-up, sail-less Murphy Windmill.

I glanced at the little rectangular windows. In a middle one, I thought I saw a face. I quickly looked through my binoculars.

There was a young Asian female’s face surrounded by long

black hair. She was looking down at me. What the heck! Is she a ghost? Am I really seeing this?

I saw her just for a few milliseconds. Then she was gone.

She disappeared that quickly. So suddenly in fact that I wondered if I had truly seen a real living person. I then doubted the visage altogether, and wrote it off as just another one of my dehydration delusions. Need some water, and quick.

However, a trip to Sidle on N the next Wednesday confirmed my initial impression.

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory

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by Mike Bozart | June 2014 (rev. Sept. 2015, and again in Feb. 2016)

Ok, Roll the Dice

by Mike Bozart

© 2021 Mike Bozart

Staying in the summer of ’92 in San Francisco, and staying planted in that how-did-I-ever-stumble-into-and-root-myself-into-such-a-displacement-in-knowhere [ sic], the mind-sink called Sidle on N; well, this me wondered, as yet another MUNI train clanged its way on by, parting the fog with well-learnt pry-cision. Molecular memory?

It was another mild, overcast, foggy-in-spots, August Thursday. Another one that I had grown to love.

Dash wasn’t working today, as he only worked on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Ok, I think we covered that in a previous installment (but, just in case you are reading this first, Dash was an Amerasian bartender at a fabulously forlorn joint in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco that went under the pun-ishing [ sic] moniker of Sidle on N.) Yeah, I can remember the little, silhouette-style, rusty metal sign. Or, was it made out of wood and painted to look like metal? I should’ve taken it as a souvenir. Darn it!

Often times the trio of Shoulda, Coulda and Woulda would be spreading Gouda cheese on some thin windmilled crackers. Ok, ok, enough nonsense. Message received, loud and clear. Let’s get this tale moving nose-ward.

Maria was behind the cherry wood bar today. She was originally from Honduras, in her late 40s, and worked as you might have surmised, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. (The 333-square-foot demi-lounge was closed on Sundays; at least, I tend to think it was.) It was now about 3:30. They usually opened the door at three. And once it was open, no one seemed to close it.

We were the only two people in the place. I never said much to Maria. I just figured – ignorantly – that she took the part-time gig to pay bills, and had no creative interests or inclinations, or any attention to be paid outside of the day-today mundanities [ sic] of life.

Boy oh boy, was I wrong, as I shelled out my sails to sea. I mean, as I shall set out to see. Or, wri-type. I think you get the jist [ sic] of my drift.

Anyway, I was doodling mindlessly on a copy of SF Weekly when Maria walked by the little table where I was sitting. She glanced at my little cartoonish rendering.

“Are you an artist?” she asked with just a slight south-of-the-border accent.

I looked up at her. “I think the jury is still out on that, Maria,” I replied.

“What do you mean by that? Does someone have to certify that you’re an artist now? What is this silly city coming to?”

“I mean that I’ve been shopping my art to dozens of galleries in the Bay Area [chronicled in the novella Mysterieau of San Francisco] over the past five months, and I all have is two walls in a South-of-Market coffeehouse and a handful of low-dollar sales. I’m not exactly the next Andy Warhol. I’m just another forever unknown, it would seem.”

“Oh, I see; you think that only if you become famous can your art be deemed good, worthy or valuable. And, until such time, it must be caca. [Spanish for crap] That’s such Americano loco [‘crazy American’ in Spanish] nonsense.

Just keep doing your art and let the chippies [ sic] fall where they may, amigo. [friend in Spanish] You understand me?”

“Sí, [Yes in Spanish] I do. I’ll take that advice. Muchas gracias, [‘Much Thanks’ in Spanish] Maria.”

“Hey, I really like that little spaceman drawing. Can I buy it?”

“Buy it? Oh, please. Here, I’ll give it to you.”

I carefully tore the nine-square-inch doodling off of the back page of the newsprint periodical. I looked at her as I handed it to her. “I hope this brings you some good luck.”

“Hold on now, amigo; I have got to pay you back with something.”

“No, really; it’s ok. I don’t want anything for this little sketch.”

“You stay right there, artistimodo.” [ sic] Artistimodo? Did I hear her right?

“Ok, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Just uno minuto. [‘one minute’ in Spanish] Let me get my magic dice.” Magic dice? Is she going to hustle me in a craps game? Probably some loaded dice.

Maria walked back behind the bar. She then bent down and retrieved a small cardboard box. She seemed very excited about the box. Honduran jumping dice?

When she put the box down on the table where I was sitting, I noticed that it was actually covered in well-worn black velvet. She then sat down across from me.

“You’ve had this box for a long time, huh, Maria?”

“For three decades now,” she said with pride.

“I can tell that you greatly treasure what’s inside this box, Maria. You don’t have to give me your dice. Really. I already have some.” Él no tiene estos. [Spanish for ‘He doesn’t have these.’]

She didn’t even acknowledge my declination of offer. Maria just undid the interlocking bands and opened the small box to reveal a pair of slightly blue-tinged white dice.

“I don’t usually play craps, but when I do, I wear man diapers.” Couldn’t resist saying that one. Probably just confused her.

“What did you just say, amigo?” She was indeed confused by my lame joke.

“I’m not sure, Maria. It’s like the words just got shot out of my mouth from somewhere, maybe from Yellowknife.” I really need to tone down the nonsense. It’s not fair to her.

“All of you artists in this town are so silly.”

“Yeah, you may be right on that, Maria.”

She then intently looked in my green eyes with her dark brown eyes. “Do you want to know about your future?” she asked.

“Sure, who doesn’t?”

“Ok, amigo, grab both dice with one hand.”

I scooped up the dice, which felt very department-store ordinary, with my right hand. I wonder if she has ever done this trick with Dash.

I cleared my throat. “Ok, what now, Maria?”

“Ask a question to yourself – silently – don’t tell me – in which the answer is a number.” Now I see where this is going. A little fortune-teller action. I’ll just play along so as to not hurt her feelings. Well, I may as well ask a numerically answerable question. I know one: When will I get married?

I nodded to Maria and then rolled the dice. A lucky seven came up, made up of a six and a one. Too bad I’m not in Reno. Maybe do a weekender next month.

Maria looked at the dice for a few seconds. She then placed her left hand on her forehead and told me to roll again. She didn’t exactly look happy; in fact, she looked fairly distressed.

“Ok, Maria, here goes roll number two. Wish me better luck.”

And with that remark, I rolled the dice again. Boxcars. A twelve – a pair of sixes. Hmmm … 7 + 12 = 19. Do I get married 19 years from now? Jeez, I’ll be 47! I don’t want to be in some cheesy singles bar at 47! Or, does it mean that I get married on July 12th? Or, is it going to be on December 7th? Oh, it’s just nonsense. Just stop thinking about it!

“ Would you like to know what your two dice rolls mean?”

“Why, certainly! How much does it cost?” Here’s the rub.

“It’s free, hombre tonto. [‘silly man’ in Spanish] The price is nada. [nothing in Spanish] Nada, nada, nada thing.

Remember, amigo, I owe you for that drawing you gave me.”

“Oh, ok.”

“Here’s the interpretation as I learned from my maternal grandmother. Your roll of seven had the six die above the one die. While rolling a seven is usually seen as good, this particular combination is not favorable. Due to this result, I had you roll again. You then rolled a twelve. What this means is that something of importance will happen in seven units from now. It could be days, weeks, months, years; only you will know. But, that endeavor will not be successful.

However, that endeavor will be re-attempted twelve units later with success. This is all that I can tell you.”

“Well, thank you, Maria, for that interesting and very intriguing reading of the dice. Buenas noches. [‘Good night’

in Spanish] I’ll probably be back next Tuesday.” If I don’t get run over by a red-light-running car like that guy on the 3rd floor of my apartment building, that is. Man, did that car send him sailing through the air. Brutal. Ughhhh.

I got up to catch the N train back to downtown. My thoughts as I waited at the tram stop: Divining the future. Such an old game. If it were only as easy as rolling dice. She seems to really believe in it, though. I won’t burst her bubble. That would be cruel and so unnecessary. When I see her next time, I’ll just tell her that I’m still trying to figure out the units of her interpretation.

In 1999 I would get married to the wrong woman; in 2011 I would get married to the right one.

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory

The Right Triangle by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | June 2014