I felt I should post something serious for a change.  Molly, my collie alter ego will be back soon. This is a story I wrote a few years back.

San Francisco Story

            Call it sibling rivalry, but I had always considered myself smarter, and, by inference, better than my sister Alex.  I was especially haughty when she was in the last stages of alcoholism, and her whole body, including her thinking were showing the results of having been pickled in booze. 

In her teens and twenties, Alex had been oh-my-gosh gorgeous. Imagine a girl five – ten with long, long legs, blue eyes, glowing cheeks, gently waving chestnut hair, and a dresses and accessories that all looked like she was wearing them for the first time. She’d modeled for The Emporium and Macys, and everyone thought she was beautiful.  And she had a matching, laughing, happy personality that made you want to talk to her and, if you were a guy, to flirt with her. 

Now fast forward twenty years.  Imagine sallow, wrinkled skin, stained clothing, and the smell of tobacco, liquor, and, often, something much worse.  And according to her, everyone was a bitch or bastards unless she needed something from them.

As Alex’s life spiraled downward, I often got roped into helping her, and it was hard to tell where helping left off and co-dependency began. 

            Anyway, one day I drove her to her bank on Market Street in San Francisco, feeling used, self-righteous and huffy the whole way.    You should never drive to Market Street in San Francisco, if you can at all help it.  Side streets join Market at weird angles; cars and buses creep along like three-legged possums; and the area is a mine field of one-way streets and no-left-turn intersections.  And, oh, the pot holes!  They’re just lying there waiting to attack your tires.  So many pot holes!!!  

I also got huffy at the idea of paying to park the car.  Downtown SF parking is outrageously expensive.  And, yes, I was going to be the one paying for the parking.   The nearest parking garage was several blocks from the bank, and Alex was pretty sick and a very slow walker.  I decided to just let Alex off by the bank and drive around while she withdrew her money.

            I let her off at a bus stop about a half a block from the bank on one of the side streets.  “But where will we meet?” she asked, hoping that I’d come with her.  That wasn’t going to happen. 

            “Right here at the bus stop.”  I was mildly irritated that she had been the one ask such an obvious question, since, as I said, I was the smart one.  I dropped her off, turned onto Market Street and drove around aimlessly for a few minutes, avoiding pot holes and other motorists.  There were a few metered parking spaces here and there, and I pulled into one of them and sat in the car until I got totally bored.  I decided to drive by the bus stop and see if Alex was there yet.   

It was the weirdest thing - I couldn’t find the bus stop.  I couldn’t find the street that the bus stop was on.  (Sense of direction was never my strong suit.)   Cars magically appeared daring me to hit them, and between avoiding collisions and watching for one-way streets and no-left-turn signs, I got very confused.  In a nutshell, I couldn’t find the bus stop. 

I thought maybe I’d have better luck on foot.  I found a fifteen-minute metered spot, pulled into it, and set out to find my sister.

            It was cold, and the sky was threatening rain.  I hugged my jacket tight around myself, but I was still cold.  And I felt the first pang of guilt.  Alex’s body didn’t regulate temperature.  She’d be cold inside a room with the heater going full blast.  Out on the street without a warm jacket like mine, she must have been freezing. 

            I walked along Market looking up and down the side streets trying to identify the one with the bus stop, threading my way through the crowds. 

The people on Market Street break up into two groups – the suits and the street guys.  The suits are the ones with business downtown.   The men wear suits and ties, and have good haircuts and leather shoes.  They carry briefcases.  Watches peep from under the cuffs.  Their stride is long and with purpose.  The women wear either suits or high-fashion dresses.  And you hear the chink, chink of their high heels on the sidewalk, and the soft swish of their nylon stockings.  Here and there you catch the flash of accessories – dangling hoops, and chunky necklaces.  And, of course, there’s the occasional Starbucks, safely contained inside its cardboard sleeve.

 The street guys wear anything and everything - dusty jackets with clumps of newspapers stuffed inside for insulation, fatigues, serapes, jeans and Dockers. Their clothing can be decorated with studs, and brads, frayed edges with torn knees, raspberry jam stains and cigarette burns.  They protect their feet with everything from combat boots to running sneakers,to knee-high moccasins tied with green string.

            A minute or two later, I entered Hallidie Plaza.  It was originally designed as a sort of town square, but most of the trees had been cut down, and the benches had been ripped out. The suits passed through Hallidie Plaza as quickly as possible, while the street guys and pigeons lingered.

A couple of artists had set up folding tables, peddling jewelry displayed over a bright purple cloth.  Another group was beating on drums and while a guitarist strummed a tune I couldn’t recognize.  An upside down tambourine invited the passersby to throw in some coins or – even better – paper money.  I can’t tell you what their faces were like.  I didn’t look.  I didn’t want to make eye contact.

            I’ve always been a little scared and put off by street guys.  It’s not that I was afraid they’d hurt me or anything.  It was more that I’d be embarrassed, that I wouldn’t know how to say “no”, or that I’d be talked into doing something I didn’t want to do, or giving something I didn’t want to give.

I’ve always considered myself better than the street people, and, as a Christian, I’ve always felt guilty for thinking that way.  But – but – but – I liked that better-than feeling.  Whenever I’d feel small and guilty and dumb, it was nice to be able to point to someone smaller and guiltier and dumber than me.   I think advertisers and politicians manipulate us by our love of gossip and put downs.

In one corner of the plaza, a man, a portly guy, with a balding head and skin like weathered lumber was selling something.  Street person.  He’d typed a religious quote next to a clip-art picture of a dove, and he’d copied these over and over on a sheet of typing paper.   Then he’d cut them apart to make bookmarks.  Very enterprising!  I avoided his stare.  I think the quote was, “God loves you.”  I walked along the streets.  Still no sister.  Still no bus stop. 

I hugged my jacket tighter.  I peered up and down the side streets.  A street guy, hunkering down inside a doorway, was lining his jacket with newspaper.  I kept on looking.  It really shouldn’t be this hard to find a bus stop. 

I had to go back to my car and move it.  But it was almost four o’clock.  After four, commute traffic regulations would be enforced, - no parking between four and six p.m. - and any cars parked by the meters would be towed.  So I had to find Alex soon.   I walked along Market Street searching the cross streets for something familiar.  I hugged my jacket harder.  I was running out of time.  It was getting really cold.  And I was scared for Alex.  I asked God, “What do you want me to do?” 

            I had entered Hallidie Plaza again, and I was walking past the man selling bookmarks.  His jacket was worn at the edges, and dirty shirt sleeves poked out at the cuffs.  His shoe had a hole.  But he was handling the cold better than I was, and he seemed happier than me – even though I’d eventually get away from Market Street, but he’d probably be back tomorrow. 

And, as I searched for Alex without success, reality slapped me in the face – I was no better than the man with the bookmarks. I really looked at him.  And I had to acknowledge him as a human being, a member of my family of human kind.  How much for a bookmark?” I asked. 

“25 cents.” 

How many should I get?  I bought one, and I gave him his quarter.  “God bless you,” he said.  “Thank you,” I answered and I meant it.  For that moment, I understood that we were the same.  I was no better; he was no worse.  We were people.  Capable of great good, capable of stupidity and baseness.  And while I was hugging my jacket and feeling like shit for losing Alex and leaving her freezing in the streets in the cold, he was smiling and clearly God was pleased with him.   

It was a moment only, a window into God’s love.  I understood that he and I were both pilgrims walking on the downtown streets, no more and no less - he selling his bookmarks, I searching for Alex. 

He said, “God bless you,” and I took in the words trying to hold onto them, trying to absorb the blessing down to my bones.  Because I needed it badly.

“God bless you, too,” I said, wishing that I could give him as much as he’d given me.  Maybe I should have bought more bookmarks. 

            I decided to go inside Alex’s bank.  Inside, the tellers were wearing suits and coordinating jewelry.  And I was aware of my jacket, not filthy, but demonstrating less fashion sense than the bank tellers’ outfits.  But I was still better dressed than the street people.  I waited to talk to one of the tellers.  And I wondered if the street people would get to talk to a teller as I was going to do, or if they would be told to move on because of their shabby clothes.   But, of course, I was projecting my own judgments on the tellers.  I told the teller I was looking for Alex, and she said that she’d helped my sister, and that she had noticed Alex turning right when she left the bank.  I had been looking in the other direction.  I ran back to my car.  I had about two minutes till they’d begin towing parked cars.  And I drove past the bank, where I immediately found the street and the bus stop and Alex. 

            I had the heater running full blast.  I pulled up to the bus stop where Alex was waiting, shivering badly.  I handed her my jacket as she climbed into the car. 

            It wasn't the end of the story.   Alex pulled on my patience many times after that.  I never knew quite how to handle the situation.  I did my best.  I tried to remember the person underneath the alcohol, the kid who’d run to do the dishes after a family meal, the one who’d give up Saturdays to take Mom shopping.  I remembered the sister who’d played paper dolls with me, and who’d been my maid of honor, and the special sister-to-sister moment which had been far too few.

            In the end, one day, she stepped off of the curb on Market Street, fell and hit her head, and was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital.  At the hospital, she went into a coma, and never recovered.  She was forty-eight years old when she died.