By Walton Jordan, a Finalist of NewsPortalSite’s Writing Contest
ONE BLOCK!
What if I told you there was every kind of person living on one block? Punk rockers, gang bangers, hipsters, Upper, middle and lower class folks, millionaires, hippies and homeless people. Now what if I told you that all these people interact with one other and refer to each other by name. There is such a place right here in San Francisco on Haight Street between Fillmore and Steiner. I’ve never seen anything like it before; people who accept you for the content of your character and not by the way you look. Its like Martin Luther King’s dream came true on this one block, where you can be judged for who you are and not for what you look like.
As soon as you get to the corner of Fillmore and Haight Steeets, coming down the hill to your right is a wino named Cornell. He is also 77 years old! Where most people would just see an old wino, here is a man who speaks 12 different languages, reads and writes music and plays the piano so good that it will make you feel like you are in a different time and place. Cornell is half black and half everything else; white, Chinese, Mexican, then the rest I don’t know. You name it and he’s got it in him. That’s what he told me and I believe him. Cornell sits on the corner and tries to sell old books, but nobody really buys them from him. They just give him the money so he can drink cheap wine, smoke cigarettes, or give the money to someone else who might really need the dough. It’s weird because at one time in my life all I would have seen was a wino and would have assumed he was a loser and nothing more. After talking to Cornell I felt like a loser, but he reassured me that I wasn’t and encouraged me to keep moving forward. Now I see why everyone on the block loves and respects Cornell.
After you pass Cornell is Cafe International, a family owned cafe by a Latin lady and her daughter. I thought they were black until they started speaking in Spanish. I think they are from Panama, Cuba or one of those places I forget. The mother has been running that place for over 30 years. Her and her husband who died ten years ago started the company from a push cart they got when they first came to America. Eventually that cart became a Cafe on the corner of Haight and Fillmore with a big beautiful mural on the back wall. It shows the people of the world singing, dancing and coming together as one. I’ve met so many interesting people inside of Cafe International. There is Tyler, a musician who hosts an open mic for other musicians. Some would go there to sing a song, or play the guitar, or some like to come and recite poetry. This is where bands go to practice and where groupies prove their allegiances to their bands.
I go and do stand up comedy. I’m the only comedian that goes there, but I feel right at home. The people there are responsive to my comedy and I’m responsive to their music. What more could you ask for? Tyler, a white guy with short brown hair with blonde streaks and green eyes stands about 5′ 9″ and loves music with all his heart and soul. He gave up everything and devoted himself to his music by living in homeless shelters, sleeping on people’s couches, but never missing a gig and never asking his parents for nothing because Tyler understood it was his dream and not his parent’s. Tyler had been living like that for years before I ever met him. Tyler came from Massachusetts from a really well to do family. His parents died four months after I met Tyler and he had to go home for the funeral and the will reading. Tyler asked me to host the event while he was gone and made it so I could get free beer and food to eat. When Tyler left he had nothing, no places to live, no car, all he had was an old guitar that he loved. I hosted Cafe International ‘s open mic every Friday for three weeks from 7:00 p.m., to 12:00 a.m. and it was great. When Tyler came back to the Cafe he had bought a new BMW and a new guitar. His parents had left him a substantial amount of money and Tyler didn’t understand why. He fell into some old bad habits and started smoking crack and meth again. When I met Tyler he was clean and sober and now he wasn’t. He started to question life and wonder why his parents left him so much money and not his sister and brother who both had spent their lives doing the right thing by being responsible. He couldn’t see that his parent respected the fact that he put his love of music before being responsible. He didn’t understand that people admire people who put it all on the line for love, because most people don’t. They settle and envy people like Tyler for having the guts to chase his dreams.
I also met two college kids at the Cafe name Chris and Peter. Peter had just graduated from USF and Chris was a junior at USF when I met them. They liked coming down to the Cafe and playing their style of music. Peter is a fan of folk music, plays a guitar and sings songs about not even getting a kiss from the girl of his dreams. Chris played some of kind of electronic music where he screamed at the crowd with his back turn to them. They both went to school for journalism, but their real passion
is music. Peter is a white guy with dark brown hair and brown eyes who stands about 5′ 8″ and is really cheap with money. Chris is black with a black and gray Mohawk. He is only 20 years old and already has a full head of gray hair. He stands about 5′ 9″ and is rail thin and likes to read for fun. Peter is an old soul and speaks softly and tries his best to be liked by everyone. Chris wears all black all of the time and does not care what anyone thinks about him. They couldn’t be more different. Where Chris likes to spend his money on good whiskey and old books, Peter doesn’t like spending money, but will spend it on good food and old records. The thing that brings them together is music, but neither one has the guts to make it their full time thing. Unlike Tyler who gave up everything for music, it’s just a hobby for Chris and Peter. They see them selves in work places instead of making music like they would rather be doing.
Down the street on Haight and Steiner is Molotov’s, a punk rock dive bar where there is more than just punk rock characters. If you don’t know what a Molotov is it has something to do with explosives. I like to go there every sunday where they have free food and the drinks are cheap, but I would go there even if I don’t have any money to buy drinks. They don’t mind if I come in there and eat for free without buying a drink. I’m pretty good at letting everyone know up front how broke I am. I don’t know if the bartender felt sorry for me or admired how I sat at the back table and wrote short stories. But the bartender I called Spokane because she is from Spokane, Washington would give me free
drinks whenever I didn’t have the money to buy them. Spokane was a beautiful woman with long dark hair and big brown eyes and told me one time that after moving to San Francisco and finding lower Height St. that she could never live any where else; she loved it that much. There are so many interesting people that go to that bar. There is Michael, a millionaire who stands about 6′ 0″ with blonde hair, blue eyes and thin as cardboard. He likes to come in and get drunk before he has to go home to his girlfriend and cook dinner. Then there is Steve the littlest guy in the bar standing at 5′ 3″ with dark hair and brown eyes, but he has the personality of a man 10′ tall. He likes to go to the bar and hang out with his best friend, a lesbian named Monica. She is about 5′ 6″ with her hair pulled back and green eyes, a mix of black and white and a pair of the biggest breasts on the whole block. I like finding any reason to hug her. She don’t seem to mind and Monica was the first one in the bar to read my stories and got everybody else in the bar to read them too.
I never found people who encouraged you and didn’t judge you for being you and all they ask for in return is that
you accept them for who they are. The place is called “the lower Haight” and it is the only place where you don’t have to pretend to be something you are not.
THE END: BY WALTON JORDAN
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