Summer of Sam, Pt. 3: San Francisco

On his way to work Kevin dropped me off on Polk Street and said explore. I was to belong to my own curiosity for the next few hours until he got off. I poked around Polk, then wandered into Good Vibrations, past the display of antique vibrators the size of car engines, past the rainbow of dildos and tubes of lube and found myself in the back room where Kevin was to read poems the next evening--my task as his friend to introduce him.The space was simple, its walls white, cheap chairs set up. On the walls was an installation exhibit on the gentrification of Polk Street.

Ah, gentrification. A word on the tip of lips lately. Mounted on all four walls were photographs printed on canvas. They were photographs of people in the neighborhood, headphones hanging below—each headphone promising five minutes of this person’s story, take, or stake. Totally ignorant to the history of this area, from the stories I gathered that Polk Street back in the day was a seedy safe haven where homeless drug addicts, prostitutes and gay teens redefined home for themselves. Polk street: the seedy Castro, necessary and specific in its allure. Teens from as far as the Midwest, after being banished from home after coming out to their red state families, gravitated all the way to the legendary Polk Street.

Out of the 15 or so on the walls, the story that will remain with me is Donna’s. Her photo most striking. She stands with a searching stance in the middle of a desolate street at night, empty syringes blooming out of one hand, gripping plastic armbands with the other. She runs a one woman needle exchange for heroin addicted teens. Her thing is: look, they’re using. Might as well ensure clean needles to prevent infections. She didn’t elaborate, but her childhood was “not cool” and she and her brother started shooting up when she was 14 and he, 12. I assume she’s clean now and out of her own pocket buys clean syringes for teen users. This is Polk Street.

Boutique hotels are replacing the halfway houses that provided beds to homeless gay teens. The seeds that made the area seedy are being swept into the gutters of oblivion. Other denizens of Polk Street welcome the bulldozers of change, the improvements that are happening in the neighborhood.

I keep wondering. All these people that are getting pushed out. The vagabonds. The artists. The insane. Where do they go when they go bye bye?

After leaving Good Vibrations I walk down Polk and turn left on Ellis, toward the Union Square I find inferior to the Union Square of my beloved New York City. I only vaguely know I am walking into the Tenderloin district, through which Polk Street serves as a major artery. Kevin told me last night why they call it the Tenderloin: back in the day it was such a dangerous part of town, that the cops brave enough to cover the area got salary enough to be able to afford steak.

It’s broad daylight. I am walking down Ellis Street in an inspired state, thanks to Donna’s story. Little do I know I am about to get even more inspiration—more than I would know what to do with. Damn these funkified Moleskines. These notebooks are so delightful to work in, they can get your ass killed or in some kind of trouble. Back in the black bullet days I used to whip it 70 mph on the highway between one gig and the next, thoughts avalanching. Now here I am, walking through the heart of the tenderloin district with red palm sized moleskine in hand, scribble scratching verses. My eyes are not seeing eyes.

A man appears beside me. If he’s not homeless he’s damn close. I do not feel threatened by his broken. He asks what I’m writing. I tell him a poem. He asks if I will write down his poem and then moves to recite his phone number. I stop him cold with warmth. He stops his step and allows me to walk off. He is defeated.

I put away the Moleskin and look around. I begin to really take in my surroundings. I am the only non addict on this street. Crack addicts, Meth heads, Dope fiends—you name it. Walking the streets like ghosts. I walk in front of a halfway house, a throng of folk lining up hoping to get a bed for the night. In my pencil skirt and goddess sandals, I walk past the throng, smiling at some, nodding at others.

When I tell folk this story they often ask me if I was frightened. The answer is no. More saddened than anything to be witness to this boulevard of broken souls.

I pass a dude posted on a fire hydrant with a stack of little manilla envelopes in his hand. The broken form a loose line,it echoes the line of us grand slam hopefuls at bar 13 just minutes before the slam list opens at 7. The addicts hobble up to their dealer. The transaction is as swift as it is blatant. It is daylight. At the end of that block, I pass the law. Blue uniform and badge, he is wathcing the entire scene with the eyes in the back of his head.

Two blocks later I find myself staring at the Banana Republic.