Five women in one day

An unexpected parade woke me early — marching at 9AM is nuts, if you ask me, but I would've looked out the window if mine looked out on the street instead of the dumpsters. Cinco de Mayo, I assumed, but I assumed wrong.

Wasn't hungry and didn't feel like showering, so I shook off some of my morning grogginess, put on pants, and made it downstairs and out the door quick enough to join the tail end of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Marching Band.

I walked to the BART station accompanied by their peppy rendition of the theme from the original Star Trek. Then, still keeping time with the rhythm, I marched down the stairs and onto a crowded train to Berkeley.

On Sundays, all the trains are crowded.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

It must be springtime, or maybe the onset of male menopause, but all day, pretty women paid attention to me. That never happens, so it was a pretty terrific day.

A cute punk dame stepped onto the train at Embarcadero, and sat in the seat in front of me, facing me. She had pink hair, and was wearing cutoffs and a t-shirt but not a bra. Every bump of the train made her jiggle, and dang it I tried not to ogle or drool, but she caught me peeking and smiled.

She caught me peeking three times, and every time we made eye contact her smile seemed bigger. She was driving me nuts and knew it, I swear, and her smile said I should say something, but I couldn't find any words that wouldn't sound stupid or worthy of a slap.

At 12th Street in Oakland, she gave me one last smile, then stood and jiggled off the train. We'd had a torrid affair, married, spent our lives together and happily never had children, and we hadn't said a word.

Then I walked to Jay's house, got the cart, and rolled it to Telegraph. Almost as soon as I'd set up the table, a drop-dead beautiful woman asked me to watch her dog while she went into a store.

"Absolutely," I said, and asked the dog's name, asked if it would bite me if I tried petting it. Her answers were friendly and she laughed a few times, and again I was planning the nuptials. 

She was inside the shop for fifteen minutes, while I sold fish and made friends with Fido. When she came out with a bag of whatever she'd bought, we talked again for a long time — five minutes, maybe, and there was some impressively-relaxed banter on my part, but it all passed without me finding the gonads to ask her name.

Then an older, slightly graying and gorgeous woman stopped to look and laugh at the fish, bought two of them, and we spoke of religion for a few minutes. "You have a sexy voice," she said, 360ing the subject.

In point of fact, her voice was sultry, almost hoarse (from a flu, she said) so I returned the compliment. She batted her eyes and blushed and said thanks, smiling as big as Candlestick Park, and then she walked away.

Later two college girls came up to the fish stand together, and I was particularly drawn to the chubby redhead. (I, uh, like ladies large enough I can at least daydream an embrace without breaking them.)

She seemed to like me too, and we chuckled at each other's jokes about The Lord and the weather and the loud maniac across the street (Jasper). She said she liked the fish, and I said that I liked her fez, and I even remembered to talk to her friend, too. I would've almost, almost said that me and the redhead were flirting, until she bought a gay pride fish and left holding the other woman's hand.

Late in the afternoon, another pretty woman walked by, and I said, "I have funny fish," something I say a thousand times every day at the fish stand. 

"Well, I have tits," she said, giggling and lifting her shirt, flashing me without breaking stride, and then walking away. She'd been wearing silver nipple rings, something I'd never seen in the flesh before.

Maybe you're suave and none of this seems out of the ordinary to you, but I'm pushing 300 pounds, piss-poor and butt-ugly, with bad teeth, a crewcut, and stale clothes. Having five women in one day give me some brief attention is incredible. Unprecedented. Even the Hindu women were going dotless.

From Pathetic Life #24
Sunday, May 5, 1996

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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