I was sitting on a bench waiting for a bus today and a dirty, smelly, old man greeted me by complementing my skateboard.
"That's a sweet board! I had one of those back in the day!!!"
His teeth were very poorly taken care of, one of them was literally ****ing purple. He wore a bomber jacket with a DK's pin and a Flipper pin and so I complimented his pins. He had a guitar in a guitar shredded bag.
"Ya like Flipper!!??!!! You ever seen um live? I saw them back in 82, they were LOUD!".
"Yeah, I saw um a year or so ago at Amoeba records, they were really noisy."
He sat down next to me and drooled on his pantleg.
"Oh, uh, sorry. I forgot to take my medications this morning. Sometimes I drool a little," he explained.
"I don't judge man, **** happens," I said.
"My name's Rainer," he says, holding out a fist for bumpage.
"I'm Mikael,"
"WHAT???! SPEAK UP KID"
"I'm Mikael,"
"KID I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
"People call me Kael. Like the vegetable."
Fists were bumped.
Shortly after, we get on the bus. There's a three seater with this stuck up hipster sitting in the middle. Nowhere else to sit, so I sat next to the hipster. Rainer sat on the other side of the hipster. I laughed a little at the hipster, who had his music on extra loud- I assume so everyone would hear what he was listening to and think he was cool. No one thought he was cool.
From the corner of my eye I notice Rainer was trying to get my attention. It upsets him that there's a douchey hipster with loud music and a condescending attitude sitting between us. I was a little irked too.
"So! You play bass, Kael?!"
"Sorta. I kinda suck dude, I can play a Ramones song and a couple **** I've made up. I wanna learn drums, I like to hit ****."
"Oh man, that's too bad. I got a drummer already. He's really good, he used to be in a jazz band but now he plays more Hard-Rock and Punk. Like Motorhead. Do you like Motorhead!?"
"Yeah man, I mean I'm not a huge fan but Ace of Spades is killer. And that cover of the Ramones song is awesome."
"Oh yeah. Huh. Uh huh."
Rainer drooled on himself again and apologized again. The hipster was completely appalled, let out an effeminate gasp and got up. He exited the bus on the next stop, seemingly relieved. Rainer scooted next to me and nodded at me, pointed at the kid, and said
"That kid's spoiled. Kid's these days, they don't know. ****, he's got a home. He ain't homeless. I'm homeless."
"Been there, done that. **** ain't fun man," I responded.
"It's crazy! Kids these days, they think they're on an adventure! They just don't know how to be homeless. And they always have rich parents!"
"RIGHT!?" I responded, and elaborated:
"Man it's ****ing ridiculous. They try and romanticize poverty but the SECOND **** starts getting sketchy they run back home to mommy and daddy. I didn't have that **** when I was homeless."
Rainer looked confused for a moment.
"Yeah kid, me neither. Hey, do you know where to get some food around here? Free food?" he asked.
"Uhhhhhhhh. Hmmm. Man, check out Food not Bombs. I think they set up at the Civic Center every night almost. They give out soup and bagels and stuff."
"Food not Bombs! Yeah! I know about them," he says.
"That's tonight?"
"Yeah man, I think so. Every night, I'm pretty sure."
"Do you like split pea soup?"
His question about soup caught me off guard. I noticed everyone on the bus is looking at us. The 19 bus goes mostly down Polk street. North of, oh, I don't know... Clay street, Polk is safe beans. But south of Clay it starts to get a little hairy. From Clay down to market, from between Van Ness and Leavenworth, it's the Tenderloin district. Home of junkies, hookers, dealers, gang-bangers, lost causes. It's ****ing depressing man. I bring this up because when you're on the 19 you can tell who is from south of Clay and who is from North of Clay. Everyone on the bus north of Clay was judging me and Rainer. Everyone else was south of Clay, eavesdropping, and fascinated for whatever reason.
I snapped out of it answered him:
"Yeah man. I actually kinda work with food. I love soup! It's my favorite thing to make!"
He nodded, seemingly ashamed or embarrassed. And then he drooled again, apologized again, I told him not to worry about it.
"What stop are you getting off at?" He asks.
"Civic Center. The library. Gotta catch the L to get home."
"Oh the Library! I like the library. They're very kind to the homeless. I'm getting off at Market Street."
"Yeah man, I remember that. There are good people at the library."
"One time, I was skateboarding. I'm a 48 year old man so I don't skateboard like I used to but goddamn kid. I had to piss. And I was at that Burger King. They wouldn't let me take a piss at the Burger King! I says, what do you want me to do?! I gotta piss! They still wouldn't let me piss at the Burger King so I flipped um off and said '**** YOU!'"
I laughed a little.
"Yeah man. Be careful though, those ****ers look for any excuse to call the cops."
"Yeah," he says.
"Although, man, I gotta say. I've never had much of a problem with SFPD, they're usually pretty reasonable. I've heard stories from friends out in like, New York. ****'s bad out there. Racial profiling, you got a weird hairut... man they'll stop you for the **** of it."
"**** the pigs!" He says.
I laughed.
"Hey what's that on your skateboard?" He points to the sticker of a stick-figure Devil on my skateboard.
"Huh? Oh yeah man. That's a band sticker. Piglet, they're from Chicago."
"Oh man. Chicago's cold, kid. I'm from Chicago. It's really ****ing cold."
"Yeah man, so I've heard. My uncle lived there for 10 years but he loved it."
"Did I show you my hat?"
He pulled off his hat. ALASKA is written on the brim.
"Uh... cool man," I said, confused.
"I'm gonna go to Alaska and work there as a fisherman!"
"Oh no kiddin!? A family friend of my mine did that. After the military he moved to Alaska to fish. There's good money in that man, he made like 150,000 in two years dude."
"Oh man. But that's only like 75,000 there though. Things are expensive up there, they have to ship everything up like they do in Hawaii."
"No kiddin? I never knew that."
"You know Sarah Pailin's from Alaska?! I hate that dumb bitch,' he says.
"Uh... yeah dude. I don't know man, I don't care about politics. I just try and have a good time, ya know? But, yeah, I guess she's pretty ****ing stupid."
Things went quiet for a bit after that. A few stops later, a man gets on the bus and sits on Rainer's opposite side.
"Hey! You like the 49ers!? I saw your hat!" Rainer says.
He and the man with the 49ers hat start talking about sports. I zone out for a bit and think about what I want for myself in life. Rainer drooled again, explaining his condition to the man with the 49ers hat. The man tried to hide his disgust and asked about a boxing match or something. I zoned out.
We get to the Library.
"Later Rainer, good talkin to you man, this is my stop" I said.
"Oh, uh, okay kid. Good talkin to you too kid. Oh uh, hey, is this Market street?" he responds
"Uh, sorta. We're just short of Market. There's another stop across the street and that's basically Market."
"Oh uh, okay. I gotta get to Howard and 3rd. You know there's crack dealers down there!?"
"Haha, yeah man. I know. Later."
I hopped off the bus, walked across the street to the underground rail station and got on the L.
