< PreviousJack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 26Jim Stewart wearing a red bandanna around its neck, trotted on its little legs, attempting to keep up. As he neared us, he picked up the collie. His jewelry rattled. He leaned in toward me. “Pot?” he whispered. I shook my head. “Hash?” I shook my head again. He moved on down the line. Ahead, I saw someone pull bills from a wallet and hand them to Gypsy- Hippie man. My poppers rush was gone, but the little collie and its master were still there. “Who is that?” I said to the man in front of me. “That’s Jesus Christ Satan.” “Who?” “Jesus Christ Satan.” He laughed. “He’s sort of an urban leg- end around here. Rumor has it he used to be a lawyer in New York. I think he came here in the 60s,” he said, as if that explained everything. “He goes all over selling his drugs. The cops just leave him alone.” “Is he homeless?” “I don’t think so. I heard he declared his apartment’s inde- pendence from the United States and applied to the U.N. for aid to developing nations.” “Nice if you can get it,” the man behind me said. We all laughed. We were nearing the door. The music was louder. I saw Jesus Christ Satan cross Folsom Street. He had put the collie down again and it was working its tiny legs in a frenzy to keep up. They headed for The Slot. Once inside I saw it was well worth the wait. The crowd, half- naked, swayed to the beat of throbbing and pounding music. The DJ built the pulse as the closing hour of 2:00 a.m. approached. By then, many of the sweat-drenched men would be gone, heading for the baths or home, having peaked during the mass orgy of sucking and fucking in the back room. The back rooms were what could make or break a bar in the Folsom. I fought my way through the mass of bodies, groping and being groped, until I reached the bar for a cold one. With beer in hand, I headed for the back room.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues27 The smell of booze and cigarettes, weed and poppers, sweat and testosterone, enhanced the dark scene of men moaning and grunting like rutting pigs. Soon I was part of the critical mass of male flesh, grinding its way to the ecstasy of Revelations. I was. I am. I am to come. I came. My body sang. The din of disco music stopped. “Repent, you motherfuckers, repent!” The metallic sound of a shaken tambourine could be heard above the grunting and moaning in the otherwise silent back room. Again. “Repent, you motherfuckers! Repent!” Silence. “We’re not motherfuckers. We’re fatherfuckers!” a deep voice from the dark bellowed out in passion. A small dog barked. Oh God, Jesus Christ Satan, I thought. “Last call, gentlemen. Last call. You have ten minutes to drink up. It’s time, please.” The lights slowly began to brighten. Most men stumbled out the exits and toward the baths. It was Saturday night, South of Market, San Francisco, 1976. I headed back to the flat, threading my way in the dark down 8th Street and along the narrow alley-like confines of Clementina Street. Fog hung in a soft halo around the one dim streetlight that was still lit. An alley feline, searching in the remains of someone’s supper, tipped over a galvanized garbage can, sending its lid roll- ing and clattering into the gutter as the cat ran across my path. Silence again. My engineer boots on the concrete rang out in the early morning stillness. I made my way along the narrow sidewalk with its dark tunnels of unlit doorways. I stopped. I thought I heard footsteps behind me. Silence. I proceeded again toward my flat. Again I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped again, my heart beating, as if in sympathy with its earlier popper rush. Nothing. Then I heard a fountain splashing. I laughed. Some late night reveler, like me, had stepped into a darkened doorway to piss. I reached the flat. My recessed stoop and steps were dark. A Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 28Jim Stewart faint light found its way through the filthy glass in the old pan- eled door of my downstairs neighbor. It was close to three in the morning. My first night in my new place. Why was I jumpy? I managed to fit the key in the lock. I entered and closed the door behind me. I locked it. I reached the top of the long wooden staircase in the dark. I found the light switch in the hall and pressed it. A 40-watt bulb, at the end of a braided cloth-covered cord extending down from the ceiling, came on. I stepped into the toilet room, took a long beer-piss, and flushed the toilet. The tank did not fill up. Great. Bam! Bam! Bam! Someone was pounding on my front door. The short hair on the back of my neck bristled. Who the hell was knocking on my door at nearly three in the morning? I was no longer jumpy. I was pissed. I thudded down the long stairway, unlocked the door, and flung it open. “What the hell do you want?” I bellowed. A middle-aged woman with gray unkempt hair and wearing a worn-out chenille bathrobe, a relic of the 1940s, was standing in front of me. “I’m sorry to bother you. My husband and I live downstairs and water started dripping through our bathroom ceiling. You weren’t home and we didn’t know what to do. We called Mr. Thompson. My husband said he could shut the water off in the basement so Mr. Thompson wouldn’t have to drive all the way over here. So that’s why you don’t have any water.” “Oh.” Before I could introduce myself or apologize for yelling at her, she slipped back into her apartment. I went back upstairs. At least that explained why the toilet tank didn’t fill up after I flushed. I checked in the bathroom. What I thought was spilled Gatorade when I left, had turned into a wet circular stain on the new subflooring I had nailed down that afternoon. I had nailed into the new copper pipes that were laid high in the floor joists. Clarence would be over tomorrow. I’d have some explanation by then. I striped and lay on the thrift store mattress I had thrown on the floor in The Other Room. The odor of male sex still clung to my naked body. I’m going to like it here, I thought. I slept. Next >