a night in California
One night, I show up to work at Hamlet only to discover that I do not need to be there. As a reward for showing up when I don't need to, rather than not showing up when I do need to, my boss pours me a glass of wine that I know for a fact is the equivalent of two glasses of wine. It's the Barbera, a new wine that twice people have asked me to send back because it has turned, and to whom I twice have had to respond, politely, that the wine is fine, I have just opened it, and that it is their taste in wine that in fact has turned. It has a delicious little burst of fizz, and it is fruity, juicy in a way that you don't necessarily expect from a dark red wine.
After a glass and a half of generous pours from my boss, I turn to my coworker, who is also there when he doesn't need to work, and ask him what he thinks of Medium, the website. It's a coy way to brag about how I've lately been getting attention for the pieces I've published there, and it kind of works. We talk a little longer, and begin discussing the way that foreign investors have begun to buy up all the houses in cities like San Francisco as a way to store their money in a market outside of their home country. It's a trend that has begun leaving neighborhoods empty and sad, with no kids playing outside, and creating instances like the one in my cousins' neighborhood, where no one was around to appreciate that my youngest cousin opened up a shop to sell rocks and paper cups of water. I mention this, and the concept of the fuerdai, or Chinese trust fund babies living and spending money in North America, but he doesn't seem as enthusiastic, and so I quiet my voice, let my sentence trail off until we are talking about something else instead.
Later that night, I leave Hamlet and take the Muni into downtown San Francisco, there to meet a friend named Lukas for a drink before he has to go to band practice. I walk in, and he has just put down his saxophone, and a middle-aged couple to his right is clapping, and I order a drink, and request that he play another song so I can hear it this time. He starts to play, and the bartender hands me my wine, and she leans in and asks me whether I am with the guy playing the saxophone. I tell her yes, he is my friend, but that I can pay my own tab, and she says "no, no, are you with him? Because right now he is on our 'performance' tab, so he isn't paying for his drinks." and I say "oh" as I suddenly get it, and tell her that I am indeed with him. Lukas finishes the song, we talk for a few minutes, and then he has to go to band practice, and I am instructed to stay in this bar where he will return in an hour or so. I try to read for a moment, then make friends with the bartender instead; her roommates come in to visit her, they all drink together and we all share a cheese plate.
Lukas does indeed return an hour later, we drink a bit more, and find ourselves discussing this piece I wrote on Medium recently, it's called "Things I wish I had known about sex (before I started doing it)". We're both a little drunk, and I tell him to be brutally honest, and he says, after reading "okay, let's go line by line" here, but for the most part his comments are good, and he is one who finally recognizes and comments on my favorite line of the piece: "and sometimes it makes you feel insignificant and unwanted, in the way that water feels insignificant and unwanted when you let it run straight down the sink." It's his favorite line too, and I'm thrilled to hear it. Later that night we are walking, on our way to another bar I have suggested, when we find ourselves walking through a tunnel on Broadway Street, and it has fantastic acoustics, and we both recognize that he must take out his saxophone from its case and play a song as we walk through this mostly empty tunnel. As the song he plays comes to a close, he comments, kindly, that this is something we needed for our friendship, one of those nights where you slowly and then quickly get drunk together and you spend your time enjoying the experience and the company.
We go home and I fall asleep at 2:00, and wake up the next morning with the hint of a hangover, and a shift at my other job at 9:30.
After a glass and a half of generous pours from my boss, I turn to my coworker, who is also there when he doesn't need to work, and ask him what he thinks of Medium, the website. It's a coy way to brag about how I've lately been getting attention for the pieces I've published there, and it kind of works. We talk a little longer, and begin discussing the way that foreign investors have begun to buy up all the houses in cities like San Francisco as a way to store their money in a market outside of their home country. It's a trend that has begun leaving neighborhoods empty and sad, with no kids playing outside, and creating instances like the one in my cousins' neighborhood, where no one was around to appreciate that my youngest cousin opened up a shop to sell rocks and paper cups of water. I mention this, and the concept of the fuerdai, or Chinese trust fund babies living and spending money in North America, but he doesn't seem as enthusiastic, and so I quiet my voice, let my sentence trail off until we are talking about something else instead.
Later that night, I leave Hamlet and take the Muni into downtown San Francisco, there to meet a friend named Lukas for a drink before he has to go to band practice. I walk in, and he has just put down his saxophone, and a middle-aged couple to his right is clapping, and I order a drink, and request that he play another song so I can hear it this time. He starts to play, and the bartender hands me my wine, and she leans in and asks me whether I am with the guy playing the saxophone. I tell her yes, he is my friend, but that I can pay my own tab, and she says "no, no, are you with him? Because right now he is on our 'performance' tab, so he isn't paying for his drinks." and I say "oh" as I suddenly get it, and tell her that I am indeed with him. Lukas finishes the song, we talk for a few minutes, and then he has to go to band practice, and I am instructed to stay in this bar where he will return in an hour or so. I try to read for a moment, then make friends with the bartender instead; her roommates come in to visit her, they all drink together and we all share a cheese plate.
Lukas does indeed return an hour later, we drink a bit more, and find ourselves discussing this piece I wrote on Medium recently, it's called "Things I wish I had known about sex (before I started doing it)". We're both a little drunk, and I tell him to be brutally honest, and he says, after reading "okay, let's go line by line" here, but for the most part his comments are good, and he is one who finally recognizes and comments on my favorite line of the piece: "and sometimes it makes you feel insignificant and unwanted, in the way that water feels insignificant and unwanted when you let it run straight down the sink." It's his favorite line too, and I'm thrilled to hear it. Later that night we are walking, on our way to another bar I have suggested, when we find ourselves walking through a tunnel on Broadway Street, and it has fantastic acoustics, and we both recognize that he must take out his saxophone from its case and play a song as we walk through this mostly empty tunnel. As the song he plays comes to a close, he comments, kindly, that this is something we needed for our friendship, one of those nights where you slowly and then quickly get drunk together and you spend your time enjoying the experience and the company.
We go home and I fall asleep at 2:00, and wake up the next morning with the hint of a hangover, and a shift at my other job at 9:30.
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