Polk and Post

by Joe Donohoe

I never know what to expect when I pick up in the Tenderloin. I probably shouldn't pick anybody up there after a certain hour, but it can be so interesting. One night an old black man and a drag queen jumped in front of my cab at the intersection of Eddy and Hyde, and I could tell that they were both high, even by the liberal standards of the Tenderloin at 1 AM. There are certain drunks that are never worth it, whether they be inebriated frat boys in the Marina or inner city freaks. They can't find their money, they'll puke on the floorboards, and they'll delay you from getting more lucrative fares. Sometimes though, I'll take people simply because I know 90 percent of the cab drivers in the City would not take them. It's my sentimental side. The fares won't get picked up because of their race or because they have tattoos or because they've just gotten out of the Power Exchange and they're still wet. Or because they're poor drunks in the Tenderloin.

The transvestite got in and the black guy didn't. Most of my tranny fares are solid. They won't rob you or bullshit you, but I wasn't sure this person was even a transvestite except for the classical definitions that they were a man with fake breasts and a dress, but unlike most of the drag queens in San Francisco this individual didn't try too hard. It was the five o'clock shadow and the smell of screw top wine.

"How are you doing?" I asked her.

"I'm fucked up," she said.

The smell was pretty bad. I dropped her off at Diva's on Post and Polk and I imagined the smart, almost psychic trannys of one of the city's premiere transgender locales ripping this individual to pieces; mark and exile the one drunk you never let into your bar. They had a reputation to maintain especially with the theoretically heterosexual middle-aged men who came to drink at Diva's from all over the world.

She took forever to get out, and the smell was worse than before; she slid slowly down the back seat to the passenger side exit. When she left I looked into the back seat and saw that it was completely wet. Sweat? I hoped it was sweat, but the no-bullshit part of me knew better. It was urine. Motherfuck it was urine! As a trained EMT I'm not supposed to be overly bothered by that but I was. I looked up and saw my former passenger lift her dress and aim her big cock, still tucked in black panties, into the waste bin out in front of the nightclub at the end of the bus stop. A sober she-male smoked a cigarette in the doorway and rolled her eyes perhaps thinking something like, "Please darling," eyelids aflutter like Marlene Dietrich but not too much so because that would have been obvious.

I drove all the way to my house with all the windows down, even though it was freezing, to fetch water and bleach. Fortunately I was driving a cab with vinyl seats and not velour. The smell was more persistent than adolescent acne.

One time at Diva's, a Latino drunk rolled into my cab.

"Drive here, down there, there, there..."

When my patience is tried I say "Where do you want to go," as an order. If you say it right, with your heart in it, you don't need a gun.

"Right here, right here," we had gone half a block.

"Hey baby, yeah, let's go party," a really stylish tranny, rock&roll post punk, motorcycle thigh boots, approached and got in the front seat next to me. I didn't blame her for not wanting to sit in back with the drunk guy.

"Oh it's you," she said.

"Yeah I know a Russian club in the Richmond where they have cocaine and they stay open all night for the right people. Let's go there. But be careful, the men, they are violent."

"That's all right I like violent men," she said. "I have to ask my boyfriend. We were supposed to go to his apartment, and I was looking forward to fucking all night long but maybe I can convince him to come with us to visit the Russians."

"Yeah you do that baby. We get some coke," he laid down in the back seat and closed his eyes while I idled. The tranny spoke to her boyfriend on her cell phone.

"Hey baby, I met this really amazing Latino guy and me and him really bonded tonight at Diva's. I felt like I met someone who could touch my soul. Anyway he said that there's this Russian mafia place or something where we can party all night if we want to. Do you want to come?"

"What did he say?" the Latino guy asked.

"He dumped me," she said "Let's go to your party."

"Oh that's okay you can marry me then," he said.

"Oh yeah right, like your Spanish Catholic grandmother I'm sure would be happy to meet me."

"I'm not Spanish and I'm not Catholic. I'm an atheist and I'm an American."

"Yeah but you're whole family is Catholic. Ninety-five percent of the world is Catholic or Muslim and they all hate people like me anyway."

As I drove out to the Richmond she asked me my least favorite question: "Where are you from?" I get so sick of this question. Why does anybody care? Where you are is what is important and whether or not you're living with humor, style, and wisdom. If I applied more imagination to my job I'd tell people that my dad was in the Foreign Service, and I grew up in Sri Lanka where, as a child, I incorporated the bodies of dead water buffalo to white water raft down swollen river channels after the hurricanes. The trick was to make sure that the water buffalo's anus was properly sewn tight. Then, of course, there was the old witch in the shack across the ravine filled with corpses who taught me the secrets of Indonesian magic when I saved her from a viper.

"I'm from Fresno," I said.

"I'm from Fresno, too!" She said genuinely excited. I hate having to remember Fresno. There are actually things I like about the place, like the old rail yards that Jack Kerouac wrote about that are still there, but the weather sucks and the huge homicide rate is like something out of Florida or Texas or Rumania.

"Where did you go to high school?" she asked.

"Clovis West."

"Rich kid! Snob!" she shouted.

"Hey relax, I hated most of the people at Clovis West, too. My district was Roosevelt but my parents were weird over protective Catholics who thought I would become a gang member if I went to a high school with working people."

"Your glasses are sexy," she said. The man with whom she had soul bonded with was snoring and mumbling in the back seat.

"Thanks," I said, and I thought she was sexy, too, but she had an Adam's Apple and liked violent dudes and cocaine so I didn't pursue it.

I let them out at 14th and Geary.

"You have cocaiena?" She asked him.

"Si, tengo. Tengo mucho." He said.

"We should get along honey. We both speak Spanish and French and appreciate culture," she said to him, "We should move to Thailand. Fuck this country. It's too self-righteous." She turned around and looked at me and winked as she walked him away.

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