Yuma

At the gas station, we're behind a black SUV with Arizona plates. Gothic lettering across the back window reads "So Cal." Much smaller, tucked into a corner of the window it says, "One love."

The driver gets out, a shave-headed kid with tattoos creeping down his calves. His wife dismounts from the passenger side. She's blond, taller than him, her hair in a ponytail. As she unfolds, I see she is pregnant. They don't speak, pointedly looking anywhere but into each other's faces.

We go to IHOP for lunch, the International House of Pancakes. Behind us sits a cowboy, hat shadowing his eyes, talking on a cell phone. The place is crowded. Near the wall sit three people and a baby. The young man reminds me of one of my brothers, thin and buzzing with energy. Across the table is the young mother, her mouth in a voluptuous pout, leftover pregnancy fat still pushing her belly out. She looks fourteen. She's eating like she hasn't seen food in months, jiggling her foot beneath the table. Beside her is her mother, no older than forty-two. She and the young man are talking earnestly in Spanish. The young mother looks bored. She puts the baby into a carrier on the floor, rocking it with her foot. She pulls the young man's plate over and tucks in.

To my right is a freckled girl with her family. She cinches her hood down around her face, hiding from her family, from everyone. In front of her is a dark-eyed girl who looks like she is just now beginning to realize how beautiful she is. Her smile is brilliant, blinding.

"Those aren't clouds..."

Driving home through the Arizona desert, long stretches of hard empty. Disintegrating garages and drive-ins eaten away by sun and wind; ruins, like ancient Roman roads in odd corners of Britain. Cockeyed trailers with stripped or rusted cars out front, half-shielded from the highway by palm trees.

I point out clouds lying low over the distant mountains before Yuma. We watch giant saguaros roll by, dancing in couples, arms reaching for the wide blue sky.

Further down the road, Mr. Billy squints through the windshield. "Those aren't clouds," he says.


It looks more like smoke.

Before long, traffic comes to a stop. A firetruck passes on the shoulder.

Finally, we can see the lights flashing ahead, orange cones marking off the scene.


I'm clicking away, furiously.



I'm thrilled. I can see the wreck is just beyond the firetruck. Traffic speeds up.


No, no, no, we're going too fast.


I didn't have time to zoom out; I've fucked the money shot.

"Shit," I say, twisting around in my seat as we leave the burning skeleton behind, winding up to speed. "Shit, fuck, fuck!"

I'm scrolling back through the photos, foaming with frustration. Dammit, I need more practice with this thing, I could've had a great shot.

Then I stop at this photo.


There was no ambulance. Was anyone in there? We couldn't even tell what kind of vehicle it was, before. Was it an RV? Were they on their way home after Thanksgiving, like us? I shield my eyes, looking closely at the picture. I can't read their faces.

I'm quiet for a long while after.

Long Beach

"Hey, look...!"

Billy in the desert

I'm off for a week in Arizona. Will bring back stories and pictures.

...in god's eye

Salt flats

Contact

My laptop is back, finally finally, purring warmly on my lap, glowing in the dim light of the living room.

I've missed you all.

Tonight, waiting at the bus stop, an old black man, bent at the waist, holding on to the signpost with both hands. A car passes, and he reaches out a hand, hailing it, watching it down the road.

"I need a cab..." he says.

A younger man with gray black skin, missing several front teeth walks by. "You need a cab?" he asks loudly. "I'll find you a cab."

The younger man stands on the corner, eyes open for cabs. It's a busy corner, surely one will come by soon.

The old man thinks every car is a cab.

"Cab!" he says, cranky now. "I need a cab."

Finally one stops on the opposite side of the street. I wave to the cabbie, then ask the man if he needs help crossing the street.

"Wha-?" he says, eyes looking wide into mine, tightening his grasp on the signpost. "I'm not going over there, no. No." He braces his feet against whoever is surely determined to drag him away. His irises are ringed with blue.

The younger man yells at the cabbie to turn around. The cab pulls around the corner, slows, then drives away up the street.

The younger man walks away, shaking his head, frustrated. "If he won't take a cab when I find him one..." I think I see another cab on the opposite side of the street. I ask the old man if he could cross the street with my help. He seems to be considering it when he spies another car.

"CAB!" he cries.

I watch for a taxi on my side of the street, when a bus pulls up. "Cab..." the old man says, then climbs the stairs onto the bus.

The younger man reappears. "He find a cab?"

"Got on the bus."

"Well, good. I figger, I hope someone helps me out when I'm old, you know?"

I nod and thank him. My bus is arriving. Time to go home.

Laptop down

To my charming, attractive and terrifyingly intelligent readers: my laptop is bollixed, screwed, mangled and nearly ashcanned. Normally, this would only be an inconvenience, as Mr. Billy is generous enough to share his with me; but as Fate likes to have a laugh now & then, Mr. Billy's laptop is similarly kaput.

So, my digital umbilical severed, I have to cadge lunch-hour time on the day job computer to let you all know this: I haven't forgotten you.

Full moon on Haight

The bus is late. I've been standing here for twenty minutes, while the bus stop fills up with people. A woman with a cane found a transfer on the sidewalk, still good for another hour. There are no takers; we all have passes.

Taxis troll by. One slows as it passes, the driver looking hard at me. I shake my head. Do I look like I want a taxi?

Still no bus. The moon is hanging just over the Walgreen's across the street, looking like a bright piece of candy. I'd like to reach up and pop it into my mouth, moonlight dribbling down my chin.

The taxi from before comes around again, stopping in the bus lane. The driver leans across the seat.

"You fightin' the feelin'? Don't fight the feelin', girl."

He's looking at me. Why me? I look around at the other people at the bus stop. Do I look like I can afford a taxi? I want to turn my pockets out to show how empty they are, but I don't have pockets.

"C'mon baby. I'll give you a discount of...twenty-five cents."

I have to laugh at that. He's getting into it.

"Fifty cents, then, whaddya say? Don't fight the feelin'."

He notices the woman standing next to me.

"Hey, I know you. I used to wash the windows in your neighborhood. Remember me?"

"Oh yeah," the woman's voice is deeper than his, like it's rising out of a tin pail of rocks, "I remember you. Didn' know you washed windows, though. I'm on disability now. Got a bus pass."

A couple comes out of the diner behind me.

"You're welcome to call me if you like," says the woman, "although it isn't a requirement."

She kisses his cheek, and walks away. Was it a date, or a job interview? Who the hell says it isn't a "requirement" to call?

The bus, finally. Two buses, one right behind the other. The one behind is empty, but I'm grooving on the people. I take the one in front.

I sit next to a woman covered with freckles, so deep and beautifully dense, it's like alien skin, like brocade, like a decorative tattoo. Her eyebrow is pierced.

In front sits a white man with a service dog at his feet, so blond he's almost albino. Beside him is a blue black man. The white man asks the black man if the dog bothers him. He says no.

The white man rocks in his seat, an extended nodding, constantly renewed assent. Beside him, his neighbor rocks in counterpoint. His movement is impatient; at any minute he'll rock himself onto his feet and off the bus. The blond man places one thumb on his knee, spreads his hand, measuring the distance from his own knee to the knee of his neighbor, his pinky hovering a naked millimeter above the other man's knee, until he can feel the electrons bouncing off the stranger's legs. He retracts his hand sharply.

Out the window, I see a poster for America's Next Top Model. A collection of arms, legs, breasts, blank faces. All these girls smashed and reshaped like playdough; I can't tell one from the other. Is this beautiful? I'd rather look at the people on the bus, the men rocking back and forth, the freckled woman next to me.

I think I'm in love with her. She's talking on the phone.

"Yeah, well I think she's still trying to deal with her mother's death, you know? She's seeing - she's Catholic, right? - so she's seeing this nun, like once a week, and this nun told her about a big cross in Burlingame. It's like this big cross, and you leave your problems at its foot, you know? So that's happening tonight, and I thought I'd go with her..."

Or the old woman across the aisle. Skin wrinkled and creased like a foil gum wrapper. High, proud crook to her nose. Well dressed. She could be a duchess, riding the bus. A button on her purse enjoins me to "Be Green."

My stop. I pull myself away from the freckled woman, the duchess, the rocking men. I wave at the bus driver, stepping off. The bus pullls away into the night, lit up inside like a rolling living room, like another person's life, warm and alive, glimpsed for a minute, then moving on.

Road trip

Gold N Silver Inn, Reno, NV.



Hal the Pilot. Women's room in Wendover, NV.


Basque breakfast at the Toki Ona Bar in Elko, NV.

"Legalizing tyranny in the United States"

When I began Chemical Billy, less than two years ago, I had an idea of being a political blogger. I soon realized, however, that I had neither the time, the contacts, nor the expertise to add anything new to the discussion. I decided instead to stay with the type of writing I know best, my own twisted view of my corner of the world. But this is a time when, as a citizen of this country, I feel it is necessary to climb onto my tiny soapbox and add my little voice to the chorus.

I've just returned from a road trip across the desert to the town where I grew up. Any trip to the desert is emotional for me. John Updike described the experience well, in reference to his own hometown: "I loved Shillington...as one loves one's own body and consciousness, because they are synonymous with being." I love the sun-blasted emptiness of the desert deeply; when I lived abroad, curled up with homesickness, it was the savage desert that I pined for, that for me represented America and all I love about it.

While I was gone, I didn't read the news. No internet connection, no newspaper, no television. So when I returned, full of love for this wide and ragged country - for slot machine jockeys and maternal waitresses, for transplanted Basques and long-lost relatives and old friends - I was shocked to see how completely we have betrayed ourselves, and so quietly, with barely a whimper in protest.

I can see I've buried the lede, but it's hard to know how to approach such a brazen abandonment of the ideals that make us Americans, of the very foundations of our democracy. I'm talking about the detainee bill that is virtually guaranteed to pass the senate today. I'll let Glenn Greenwald explain what is contained in this bill, with far more clarity than I can:

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The legalization of torture and permanent detention

And the Rude Pundit brings it down to essentials (the Rude Pundit is known for being, well, rude, but the only obscene word in this post is "evil"):

Regarding Evil and American Identity

Any parent of a wayward kid will tell you that it hurts most to see one you love doing wrong. It hurts me, right to my core, to see fear eating away our national morality. I love this country, all of it, and more than anything, I want it to do right. No idea of "safety" is worth trading our souls for.

And just how "safe" does this bill make us? It makes it legal for the president to decide that anyone, citizen or not, is an "enemy combatant," and can be held, without charge, forever. It will now be legal for the president to decide, say, that because of this post, I am a threat to the safety of Americans. He could then throw me in prison in Syria, and have me tortured, for the rest of my life. I would never get a trial. Sound extreme? Maybe it would never happen - I sure hope it doesn't. But there is nothing to keep such extreme things from happening now, except the good will and conscience of the president. It's all up to him, now.

I hope with all my heart that we can turn this around. I hope that we can vote in some people who will stand up for the America I love. I will not believe that it's too late for us, not yet.

I could go on and on, but it's all been said, and much better, by many others (though clearly, not enough). Back to my regularly scheduled programming, and pictures from the desert, soon.

Billy on SFist

Readers who have been with me awhile know about my long-running love affair with Muni. But, as in all relationships, we have our spats. And since I've adopted San Francisco as my home city, Muni service seems to have been on a long downhill spiral, eliminating and reducing routes, pink-slipping hundreds of drivers, not to mention municide. SFist has done a grand job of keeping editorial focus on the continuing problems, and several weeks of a bad commute finally prompted me to write to their Dear Mr. Ford column (as well as to Muni itself) under my meat world name. Imagine how tickled I was to see that SFist had published my letter while I was off in Utah-land. Thanks, SFist!

Billy on the road

Mr. Billy and I are off on a road trip to dance at my dad's wedding. I'll miss the city: the woman I pass on the way to work who stands out front of her dry cleaners, grimly hula hooping; an Indian woman in a lush gold sari, grooving to her iPod; the man on the bus with great loops of skin for earlobes, carefully cultivated; but Utah offers its own attractions.

I fall in love too easily

I fall in love every day, sometimes twice.

Today it's two women at Trader Joe's. I first see them in the parking lot, talking with each other and gesturing so emphatically that I initially think they're speaking in sign language.

One is a skyscraper, the tallest woman I've ever seen. Dressed conservatively, in a below-the-knee skirt, black pumps and nylons. Long straight hair, parted in the middle. Legs like lampposts. Her companion (of course, of course) is tiny; maybe five feet tall. Messy red hair, fierce freckles, thrift-store chic.

Inside, they park their cart directly between me and the shelf I'm scrutinizing. I forgive them this minor transgression; I'm ready to forgive them almost anything. Skyscraper Girl's neck is ridiculously long, her head bobbing bewildered far above her shoulders; she looks just like Alice after a bottle coyly tempted her: "Drink me."

Her face is smooth, unlined, girlish. She may not even be done growing yet. She can look right over the top shelves to see what's in the next aisle, and the next.

I'm dizzy standing next to her.

In the checkout line, I peek through my eyelashes at their cart: two cartons of soy milk, soy ice cream, cheap champagne.

I picture them in front of the fireplace in their apartment, empty cartons of dairy-free treats and champagne glasses tumbled on the rug, Skyscraper Girl's head pillowed in Red's lap, like Alice dreaming of Wonderland.

If I was a man

If I was a man, I'd walk big in my boots. I'd spit on the sidewalk, and sit with my legs wide apart on the bus.

If I was a man, I'd be secure in my opinions. Other men would nod sagely at what I said. I would be an expert on everything, and nobody would doubt me when I say it is clearly a problem with the timing belt.

If I was a man, I wouldn't own a mop.

If I was a man, I would smoke Marlboros and squint into the sunlight. I would wear the same style of jeans I'd worn twenty-five years ago, and leather boots that held the print of my bare foot.

If I was a man, I would drink beer every day.

If I was a man, nobody would tell me not to go there alone. I would know how to fight, and how to win. I would know the logic of meat and bone, and other men would make way for me on the street.

If I was a man, I would grow a beard, or not.

If I was a man and I wanted a job, I would walk onto a construction site and be given one. I would make buildings grow from bare earth, and reduce tall buildings to piles of rock. I would get dirt under my fingernails and callouses on my hands.

If I was a man, no stranger would presume to comment on my haircut or my outfit.

If I was a man, I would ogle women. I would stare at their hips, their breasts, their necks lifting from collars. I would imagine the feel of their hair on my lips. I would consider any one of them mine by right. In looking, I would possess them.

If I was a man, I would hold my cock proud in one hand. I would write my name in the snow.

If I was a man, my woman would bend to fit me. She would shave between her legs to please me. She would grow her hair long, and dress in my favorite color. And when I get bored, I would trade her in for a newer model.

If I was a man, I would take any suggestion to change as an affront to my essential self.

If I was a man, I would be in on the joke. I would never be expected to cook. I would be invited to poker games. I would not think about my looks. I would choose to wear a condom, or not. I would not be measured by the cleanliness of my house. I would have children I didn't know about. I would not have a skin-care regimen. I would be offered a cigar. I would be forgiven if I brought flowers. I would not write thank you notes. I would not wonder what to wear. I would be picked for the team.

If I was a man, I would walk big in my boots, and I would rule the world.

Bus writer

He's at least seventy-five, maybe in his eighties. His face is bright red, a fringe of silky white hair around a bald top. When I walk past him to a seat in the back, he jumps, swinging his face around at me, eyes bugging out like I'd just straddled his lap.

I sit behind him. He's holding a fistful of crumpled notebook paper, the wide ruling not big enough for his looping handwriting - each line of text takes up four lines of paper.

I can read it over his shoulder.

...but Mr. Berghof said that he preferred a rural setting. After a light meal dinner on board, Berghof indulged in a "coffee-brew," as the phrase goes.

C-- continued...

The old man bunches up his shoulders like he can feel me eavesdropping, a burning on the back of his neck. He puts one gnarled hand flat on the paper, covering up the words, then folds it emphatically into thirds, scrawling something on the backside before shuffling it with the other papers he holds.

He straightens his sheaf of paper on his lap, then tucks it into a blue folder, automatically putting it down to his right, as though he expects to find a filing cabinet there, instead of the floor of the bus. He swivels his head around, looking for his truant filing cabinet before shifting the folder to his left hand and setting it on the seat beside him.

He drums his fingers on his knee, then reaches again for the blue folder, removing the sheaf of papers, and turning the folder inside out before replacing the papers.

My stop is coming up. It's only reluctantly that I leave him behind, glaring at me accusingly when I dare to pass him again.

His words stay with me all day. Coffee-brew. Does the phrase go that way? I've never heard it before. Is he a nutcase, or a successful writer? Is there a difference?

Coffee-brew, I think, walking to work. Coffee-brew, coffee-brew, coffee-brew.

The long ride home

I sit near the back of the bus. In front of me is an old man, with his middle-aged son. The old man is talking, an endless stream of words dribbling out of his mouth, his son looking out the window.

"I know I've always been a negative person, there was a thing in me, this negativity, I don't know how to get around it..."

A beautiful young black man sits with a friend. He turns to look out the back window, showing tattoos on his long neck.

"People are killing each other over water, man," he says, gesturing with a paper bag, "and here we are with croissant sandwiches." He shakes his head, an orange-red gem flashing brilliantly from one earlobe.

"Your sister's the same, you know," the old man is spilling out a lifetime of words, the sun shining through the thin tissue of his ear, "Negative, negative, all of us, the whole family..."

A woman with blond hair pulled into a tight bun gets on. She carries a bouquet of pink tea roses, the petals tender as a baby's lips. Her face doesn't match; she squints and grimaces, mouth hanging open.

Behind me, I hear a woman talking on her cell phone:

"So I asked her what she saw in him, and she showed me his letters. His letters. I said, 'Girl, of course he's gonna be writing you good letters. He's in prison. He doesn't have anything else to do...'"

A plump boy comes toward the back with his mother. She pushes him toward a seat while she sits across the aisle. They're speaking Spanish, but I can tell he objects to his seat: a homeless man sits beside him. The mother trades places with him.

"I mean, she was the one who called the cops on him in the first place. And she's all like, 'no, he isn't like that any more. I mean, I didn't know he was a child molester...'"

"Negative, all of us. Even you. You're negative, all the time..."

"...and she's all, 'No, he's totally changed, he's different now,' and I'm saying, well, how do you know? I mean, he's been in prison for years..."

The homeless man holds a chunk of bread with both hands. He's a white man, but his skin is burnt ashy. He gets off at Haight, and I watch him walk slowly down the street as the bus pulls away.

Ascension, part two

Ascension, part one

Escape the World

Mr. Billy and I are just back from a trip to my childhood town of Provo, Utah, strung out and sleep-deprived and sinking gratefully into the freaky embrace of our adopted home of San Francisco.

Every visit back to the old country triggers a spell of schizoid reaction in me, ratcheted up a notch or two on this trip by our timing; we were there for the run-up to the We Are More Patriotic Than You Orgy, otherwise known as America's Freedom Festival. From the baby contest to the Grand Parade (my moment in the sunlight of the Grand Parade was as a flower, waving adorably from my flowerpot on some beauty queen's float when I was six), and climaxing with the - wait for it - Stadium of Fire, Provoans' patriotic fervor gets Bigger and Better every year.

My favorite part of the festival is the hot air balloons, and this year we got to see them up close and personal - more about that in another post.

Mr. Billy and I drove down Center Street (now with a sign touting it as "Provo's Historic Center Street") where I cruised on Saturday nights with my much better-looking friend ("I get the blonde one, okay? You can have the other one." "No way man, I got the plain one last time..."). On the left is a fountain I jumped into on a hot summer night, just after breaking up with my boyfriend. To the right used to be the library, where I weekly filled a basket as big as me with books to take home. When I'd plowed through every book in the children's section, I was granted a special dispensation to check out any book in the library, the adult section opening to me like paradise.

Just off Center Street to the right, La Dolce Vita is still in business - a restaurant run by a family fresh from Italy in the '80's. I used to read the mother's palm while her glamorous, dark-eyed son translated. In exchange, she gave me rum baba or a heavenly slice of pizza. To the left is NuSkin Plaza, shiny monstrosity plopped in the middle of the older buildings, a creepy, larger-than-life sculpture out front of kids, faces stretched into leering grins, flying around a globe. Mr. Billy says it reminds him of Soviet-era art.

The left side of the street is blocked off for parade preparations.

Mullett Hoover is still around, but Art's Shoe Repair - where Gary Gillmore used to work - is under new management. Gleaming bicycles wink at passing kids from a rotating platform in Bingham Cyclery.

I think it was during the first Gulf War that 200 West was renamed Freedom Boulevard ("Because the more we use the word freedom, the more we can curtail yours!"). The building where I used to take ballet is empty and derelict, paint peeling away like leprosy.

As we ramp up the freeway, I spy a small, hand-painted sign that reads, "Iglesia Cristiana." When I look in the direction the sign points, all I can see, as we speed by, is another LDS chapel.

A billboard shows a soft-focus picture of a young woman, hair pulled demurely back. "Modest Wedding Gowns," the sign reads, "Modest Formals, Modest Prices."

I'm remembering the 4th of July, another year. My dear friend Geo used to live, with other students, in a big old house on Center Street. After the parade went by, Geo tied a stars-and-stripes bandana to her head, and led us on our own parade down the street. We marched with Geo in the sunlight, singing and whistling, waving at the remnants of the crowd as they packed up their blankets, and balloons - escaped from sticky kids' hands - rose quietly into the sky.

Mr. Billy and I are driving north on the freeway. "Escape the World," says a billboard.

Welcome to Utah.