Last Night

Last night I ventured out into the cold, rainy, San Diego evening at around eight oclock. The sun had been down for a little while, and my stomach was full of creamy chicken Ramen Noodles. Travis texted me at six and told me that Allison was having a birthday party at the Ruby Room. After locking the front door for the evening, leaving the well being of my possessions to a wildly incompetent kitten, I hopped on my bike and headed West toward Hillcrest. After a quick check in the old billfold, I realized I needed to make a pitstop at the grocery store for some easy green. I decided twenty dollars should be more than enough and continued on my way after declining a receipt from the ATM.

I arrive at my destination, the Ruby Room on University Ave. Good thing I rode, because parking is always a nightmare here on the weekend. I'm happy to find out that there is no cover tonight, even though bands are going to be playing. I'm also a bit surprised at how empty the place is. Every time I had been there before it was a total mob scene of hip cats and multicolored track bikes, or "fixies" as the obnoxious like to call them. My friends become apparent to me immediately as they are the only people who are already wasted. I don't often find myself on this side of the beer goggles, so I get a kick out of how silly everybody is being and order myself a drink.

The night progresses for about an hour until my party starts discussing the appeals of going to sleep soon. A few taxis are called, and the over served depart upon their journeys home, safe and drunk.

At this point only Hannah, Ky, Eddy, Rick, and myself remain. It's about 930 and four of us discover that our fifth counterpart was accidentally left behind from the wagon train of taxis and should really be somewhere that doesn't serve alcohol. Identities shall stay protected, but we close our tabs while sketching up a plan to drop off the load and regroup at Bar Pink in North Park.

I'm outside now, unlocking my bike and trying to ignore the pitter pattering rain on my hoody. An older, obviously homeless gentleman approaches me and asks if I saw "the fight last night". He dotted the metaphorical question mark with a swig from a pocket flash. Not sure if he was referring to a televised sporting event or a street brawl, I just say no because it wouldn't be a lie either way. He gets a little excited and starts recounting about a young white fellow who approached him with distasteful remarks about his skin color. I wasn't really sure what the man was implying or why he felt the urge to tell me about this happening, but I sensed concern in the man's voice, so I tried to comfort him by expressing my opinions on white power shitbags.

I could tell he was pleased with my passion, because he followed up my shpeel up with the phrase "I mean come on, it's two thousand nine!" I almost geeked out and told him how often I use that very same expression, but I settled on a quick smile in agreement. So after all this, I finally hear the story of "the fight from last night." It boils down to something like this, some racist guy approaches my new aquaintance talking shit. A body builder looking white guy happens to be walking past and immediately starts thrashing the racist, eventually knocking him off his feet but still continuing the beating. The body builder eventually stops and leaves the racist lying in a pool of blood with nobody to help him. somebody calls an ambulance and the bloody meat pile is taken away.

Well, I tell Rolando (at some point during the story we exchanged formal greetings)how glad I am that this story had a happy ending, and cap it off with a few more opinions on those types of people. I almost ended the conversation with the drop of a few coins into his cup, but I remembered that I was only going to another bar and I probably had better odds for good conversation right here on this rainy street corner. I tell him I'm not in any hurry, so he tells me another story about how last weekend, some good lookin girl walked out of the thai restaurant a few blocks up and offered to let him suck on her tits. He shat me not, and said that she was going to let him fuck her if he had a condom, but unfortunately he didn't. I saw no reason not to believe him, so I congratulated his courting abilities and we laughed about it for a few minutes. Here and there, the two gentlemen Rolando had been hanging out with would pop up and try to get in on our bro down, but they were both pretty messed up and didn't do very good jobs staying involved. Here's when things start getting really good.

An even older, maybe early sixties aged black man, well dressed by 1978 standards, stopped on our piece of sidewalk for a quick chat. I got the impression that he and Rolando had met before because they gave brief hello's to each other and Rolando told the man that he was looking to shoot some pool, then chuckled and said that he was actually joking. I assumed it was an inside joke, so when the older man turned to me and asked if I would like to shoot some pool I tried to side step the question by apologizing for my lack of skill in that particular game. He posed the question again, saying that he didn't care if I was any good, but that he'd buy me a drink while we were at it. Somewhere inside me a few gears started clicking, and I replied with a straight forward "no thanks man." I noticed Rolando giving me the wary eye, and shooed the older man off by telling him that we only liked girls, and that shit is for exit only. The older man made a few more comments, flattering me with the old "you're a pretty white boy, I'm looking for a pretty white boy to keep me company tonight. come find me if you change your mind." I agree to do so, and the man bids us ado. In his own words of course.

Rolando and I shoot the shit for a little longer. He tells me he has a Bachelors in Biology, that he is a Katrina victim, that his wife had passed due to breast cancer, and that he wanted to work but couldn't find anything that paid well enough to get by. I didn't challenge anything he told me. I don't really care if they were true or not, it doesn't matter to me. I could tell he needed somebody to talk to for a few minutes who wasn't just another fucked up hobo or a sneaky religious type with a carrot on a stick. He told me he had a dry place to sleep though, and that he hoped to get back on his feet one day even if he never got anything from his home insurance policy in New Orleans. I was thinking about kicking it with him for longer, but i realized that I had already ignored three phone calls from my friends who were now at Bar Pink and wondering if I was okay. I told Rolando I was going to get out of the rain, and that I hoped he stayed dry and safe. He actually thanked me for talking to him like a real person and told me that he hoped to cross paths again sometime. I agreed, thinking about how I used to like running into guys like Pete and Grady back in Richmond.

I didn't really mean this to turn into a lesson on being nice to people, but I guess it did that for itself. I hope you enjoyed reading it!