Mr Patel was polite but unyielding. "I cannot be here to let you into your room after hours."
"I don't want to go, please don't make me go."
"I cannot have you sleeping in the hallway, but I also cannot be here to let you into your room when you keep losing your key."
I only typed it twice, but they repeated variations on this dialogue over and over, and I watched and listened and said nothing, because what the hell could I say?
The mumbling man loses his room key, often, and Mr Patel said that he doesn't much mind letting him into his room when he's here. He even said he keeps extra spare keys for #306, and every time he goes to a hardware store he gets another copy of the key for #306, so he won't run out of spare keys the next time the mumbling man locks himself out. But Mr Patel doesn't live at the hotel, and he said very firmly, "I cannot, will not come back to the hotel to unlock your door after I have gone home for the night."
Therefore, mumbling man is being evicted. "I don't want to go," he said again. "Please don't make me go."
Man, this is painful. I'm of the Eddie Murphy "Kill My Landlord" school, but Mr Patel is actually an OK landlord, and I can see his perspective. At 5:00 he goes home to his wife and all the little Patels, and he eats dinner, gets comfortable, and then there's a phone call asking him to come back to the hotel and unlock this guy's room. And it's the same guy who needed his room unlocked the night before, and probably tomorrow. After you've gotten that phone call enough times, well, then that tenant has to go.
Enough of this sadness, I walked out the door to eat at McDonald's, but even two Big Macs and two Quarter Pounders and two large fries and two strawberry shakes didn't cheer me up. Mumbly man's last words as I left the lobby kept playing between my ears: "I don't want to go. Please don't make me go."
I've never heard him speak in sentences before, and honestly didn't think he could. I guess the mumbly man can communicate when he needs to, and what he's communicating is, he doesn't want to go.
It sucks, but I think he's going to have to go.
♦ ♦ ♦
After that blues-inducing start to the day, I ran a few errands on Muni, walked around the Mission, and did nothing much else. It was a pretty good Saturday. Lazy, like me, and alone. But here's an addendum to yesterday's rant about the joys of solitude:
Yeah, I prefer being alone to being with dingbats or dullards, but it would be nice to hang out with a human being who possesses a brain and a heart, and a triple-digit IQ, and a quadruple-digit vocabulary. Maybe that's asking too much, or — maybe that's you? If there's anyone on this planet I might be able to tolerate, and who'd be able to stand me without barfing, somebody who likes this zine seems a likely candidate. The zine is mostly me, and most of me.
Which sounds like a really embarrassing plea for friendship, because that's what it is. Drop me a post card, ya bastard, or dial my digits, and maybe we could be buddies.
♦ ♦ ♦
Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz was tonight's double feature. I've seen both movies several times at several cinemas, and of course many more times on the telly. They're always best on the big screen, though, and the Castro Theater — where I went tonight — might be the biggest screen in town.
If you don't know San Francisco, know this: The heart of the city's (and world's) gay community is Castro Street, and the heart of Castro Street is the Castro Theater. It's a huge movie palace with curtains and a balcony and an organ, and it's a great place to see a great movie. Or two, like tonight. Sitting with a big crowd in the world's gayest neighborhood, watching The Wizard of Oz, when the Scarecrow says, "Of course, some people do go both ways," it's friggin' hilarious.
♦ ♦ ♦
SUNDAY — It's Sunday morning and I didn't go to church. Didn't even think about going to church. Fuck church. Instead I slept late, had breakfast at Tad's, then spent the rest of the morning reading zines in my tiny room.
For lunch I devoured a big bag of cookies in bed, with too many Twinkies for dessert, all with no interruptions and nobody nagging me about nutrition or the crumbs. Then, more zine-reading.
Come dusk, I took the train to Palo Alto for a science-fiction double feature. The last time I saw Forbidden Planet was at a sci-fi convention when I was 19, where they showed a scratchy old print on a tiny screen like you had in biology class, and the speaker malfunctioned and went silent a few times, and it was still a pretty good show.
Well, the print at the Stanford tonight was pristine; I've seen first-run movies with more scratches and blips. It's an even better movie than I'd remembered. Yes, the introductory narration is dated, as we're informed that mankind reached the moon in the late 22nd century, and the movie's all-white and almost all-male future is not up to Star Trek's standards or racial harmony and gender equality. But the movie is older and smarter than me, the special effects are still effective, the music is freaky, and its story of high-tech psychosis is still worth telling.
After such a great movie, almost no second feature could measure up, and indeed The Time Machine was only OK. It starts good, but then gets kinda hokey and dumb. Fortunately, there was a pretty lady sitting in an aisle seat two rows ahead of me, wearing shorts so short they used to call 'em 'hot pants'. Her legs kept me entertained when the movie didn't.
♦ ♦ ♦
After the movies, as I was waiting for the CalTrain home, a middle-aged man was holding a younger woman's hand, and they shared a nice long kiss. Then he said, "Thanks for a terrific weekend. I hope your husband doesn't find out." With that he walked away, leaving her alone on the station platform, with ten minutes before the train was supposed to arrive.
That pissed me off, and I hope it pissed her off, too. 1.) If I was
getting weekend pork, I could at least come up with a few minutes of
small talk at the depot. And 2.), a gentleman never abandons a lady
after a date, let alone after a weekend. Not that I'm a gentleman, but I
know the rules, and he should've at least waited until the train came.
From Pathetic Life #2
Saturday - Sunday,
July 16 & 17, 1994
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
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