If
you're showing San Francisco to a visitor, don't skip Alcatraz. It's one of
those rare tourist attractions that's everything you've been led to expect, but
also more. On the off chance anyone is unfamiliar with Alcatraz, it's a former
federal prison on an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. The roughest
and scariest prisoners were sent there, because escape seemed impossible – even
if an inmate found a way out of the prison, how would he get across the water?
Alcatraz
was exhausting, because there's a lot of walking, and sobering, because there's
a lot to think about. Stephanie and I spent hours on the grounds, walking past
hundreds of empty but unchanged prison cells, and it's simply not a place for
light conversation or joking around. You can't be glib and lighthearted on
Alcatraz – or rather, if you are glib and lighthearted, you're not
someone I'd want to be sentenced to spend any time with.
We
talked about what justice ought to mean, and how prisons ought to be run, which
is largely the opposite of how prisons are run. We were entirely in agreement,
and while our day at Alcatraz wasn't intended as a test, it allowed each of us
to further verify that the other was capable of a deep, serious conversation.
In my life, I've known a fair number of people who simply couldn't or wouldn't
have gone even a few sentences into the conversation Steph and I had that
afternoon.
Over
the rest of Stephanie's stay in San Francisco, I tried to show her the town,
because San Francisco in the 1990s was undeniably cool and I was proud of it.
The Bohemians hadn't yet been forced out of town by impossible rents,
Haight-Ashbury still had an echo of its groovy vibe from the ‘60s, and a grand
time could be had for the price of a ticket on BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit
system – we took rides to the end of the line
and back on every BART route, just to talk and hold hands, and see the sights
out the window.
We
visited Golden Gate Park, because it's gorgeous and inviting, just like
Stephanie. We didn't see San Francisco's famous Fisherman's Wharf, because
that's just a gaudy tourist trap. We saw the Mission, since that's the part of
town where I lived. We had lunch in the Castro, the rainbow flag-flying neighborhood
where outcasts from everywhere gather to become each others' families. We rode
on the cable cars, halfway to the stars. We went to the zine store, where Zine
World and oodles of other homemade newsletters and magazines were on the
shelf.
The
first movie we saw together (first of hundreds, or thousands if VCRs and
streaming count) was Barbie Nation, a documentary about Barbie dolls, at
the Roxie Theatre. It was my idea to see that movie; it looked interesting, and
the Roxie was literally just around the corner from where I lived. We shared a
big bowl of buttery popcorn, and we both thought the flick was excellent, with
a lot to say about how girls are gently nudged toward gender conformity and
judged on their appearance so much more than boys are. Steph was impressed by
the movie and impressed by me for suggesting it.
So
I scored points for being a feminist, which I am and always have been. Ask me about
women's liberation, and I'll just say it shouldn't be radical or outrageous to
believe that women deserve the same rights and opportunities as men.
We
went to City Lights, the famous book store and publisher of Howl by
Allen Ginsberg, and books by André Breton, Charles Bukowski, Sam Shepard, and
much of the pantheon of 20th Century American literature. If you care about
books or reading or the English language, City Lights is where your heroes hang
out, and we spent hours there. I got lost in the basement, and we left with a
bag of books for a reasonable price.
In
the same neighborhood, we strolled past the hungry i (lower-case intentional),
the legendary nightclub that gave big career boosts to many famous comedians,
including Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Professor Irwin Corey, Joan Rivers, Mort
Sahl, and Bill Cosby before he became more famous as a rapist and scumbag. We
strolled past the place but didn't go inside, because these days their only
entertainment is "exotic dancers." It's become a strip joint with a
famous sign out front.
We
went to an Oakland A's baseball game, our first of many. We both liked
baseball, and I'm not certain but we may have gone to our second Oakland A's
game too, during Steph's two-week visit. It's the perfect date activity –
you're outside and there's entertainment, but it's slow-paced entertainment,
without much to interrupt an easy-going conversation between two people falling
in love.
This
was pre-9/11, so security guards weren't yet digging through everyone's
backpack, and to save money I packed some sandwiches – tuna, and peanut butter
and jelly. She ate a sandwich and a half without complaint during the game, but
later she told me that the sandwiches were far too dry – the tuna needed more
mayo, and the PBJs needed more jelly. Sorry, Love.
I
brought her to the office where I worked, and that was a calculated risk. It
was a porn magazine, and even though I only did clerical work – data entry and
proofreading and such – some ladies might have hesitations about a man who worked
there. Steph, of course, was fine with it. (By the way, my boss at that job was
a great guy, and he's passed away since then, as has the magazine, but he'd
scowl at me for calling it porn – "Doug," he'd holler, "it's not
porn, it's erotica!")
In
Chinatown, we visited one of the many family-run shops selling all sorts of
Chinese-made doodads and trinkets, and Stephanie bought a sackful of stuff to
take back to Madison and give to her family and friends as gifts. What got my
attention, though, was that she didn't take an hour dawdling around the two
stories of store; she briskly walked through the place, focused on an area with
affordable but interesting knickknacks, and we were in and out in about ten
minutes. My lady didn't dawdle.
We
ate at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant up a flight of stairs in Chinatown. Why
did we go to a vegetarian restaurant, when neither of us were vegetarians? Good
question, and I don't have a good answer, except that Stephanie was
vegetarian-curious at the time. Chinese cuisine, for me anyway, is mostly about
the meat, and the interesting sauces and breadings and dips they prepare – for
the meat. Maybe a Chinese dinner without meat was a screwball challenge, a
dare we had to accept. And guess what? The food was bland, we left most of it
uneaten, and we stopped at a McDonald's on our way home. And never again did
Stephanie express any interest in becoming a vegetarian.
The
hamburger didn't get along well with the meatless Chinese food, because later
that night Stephanie said her tummy was troubling her, but she hadn't
remembered to pack her preferred antacid. I offered to run to a drug store and
get it, and she said, "No, that's silly. My stomach hurts but I'm
perfectly capable of walking to a drug store."
"Well,
nobody doubts that you're capable. I'm just doubting that's what you want to
do, 'cuz you seem to be miserable. I'm your host and your friend and your
fiancé, and I hope you'll let me fetch what you need."
She
relented and told me what brand and flavor of belly elixir she preferred. I was
back in five minutes, and I didn't even have to go to the drug store; there was
a tiny this-and-that shop run by an old Pakistani guy, just a few doors down
the street from my rez hotel, and they had Steph's mint-flavored Maalox on the
shelf.
How
many times did I run little errands like that for Steph, and she for me, over
the rest of our time together? Many, many times; that's how many. We fetched
newspapers for each other, and milk shakes, coffee, medicines, stamps, fuses,
whatever. I only wish I could've run a few thousand more errands for her.
By
her second or third day in San Francisco, Stephanie and I were together for
life. It was simply obvious. We were already married, in our hearts. The only
question was whether I'd be moving to Madison or she'd be moving to San
Francisco, and it was answered when we went to San Francisco's Russian area, in
the Richmond neighborhood.
Steph
had a degree in Russian Language, she'd spent some time in Russia, and she was
more than a little enthralled with all things Russian. It's no surprise, then,
that she was double-darn delighted to walk among all the Russian shops and
churches, smell Russian food, and overhear people speaking Russian on the
sidewalk. We stopped at a couple of Russianesque shops, and she bought some blini
and pirozhki and ptichie moloko, all of which became our lunch.
Then, while we were waiting for the avtobus back to my place, she said,
"I have to move here. Madison is a great place to live, but San Francisco
is better."
With
the benefit of hindsight, I'd say that's wrong. I've now lived in Madison
longer than I lived in San Francisco, and Madison is better, for myriad reasons
I won't list here. But right or wrong, the decision had been made that day, so
we started planning Stephanie's move to California.
Two
weeks after she'd flown to Frisco for a one-week vacation, she flew back to
Wisconsin. We cried and kissed goodbye at the airport, and then we resumed
writing to each other, letters long and frequent. We made weekly long-distance
calls — all the budget could afford, back when long distance was expensive —
and she started packing, and making the arrangements for our re-connection. The
logistics would take a few months, but then we'd have forever.