I learned that night I left early. The road home takes me in unexpected directions. I walk for many hours through the fog in the San Francisco evening. I give my shawl to a homeless woman with no teeth. She cannot cry because she is so cold. I empty my pocket of change down into the line of hands stretched out at the end of the block. I begin to cry because the nice man who sells me a street sheet for a dollar points towards my bus waiting ten blocks southward. I walk back and forth on Market searching for a stop for the 800 I’m sure is there. A young man named david runs across the street wearing an Oakland Athletics cap, calling his friends dumbasses and shouting about the ride he will provide for. I tell a serious joke about needing a ride to the east bay. That is where he is going, and we go there. After I use David’s phone to call a cab, he drops me off at the North Berkeley bart station which is closed for the strike. I think that my cab arrives, sees me eating the last of my falafel and in a beanie wearing a tall tee printed with the virgin mary holding a figure of the crucified christ in her hands. The cabbie escapes. I wait on Sacramento and flag down another cabbie who asks where I am going. I tell him I need to go to the little hill, but the cabbie says that this is a berkeley and san francisco only car. He eases off without another word as I shout pleas at his pack windshield. I walk to the seven eleven on the corner of sacramento and university. The counter lady tells me there is no free phone inside. I will have to use the payphone outside, but I have already given away my quarters. the old man who I had waited behind in the store line gets into his prius. the side of the car is printed with the information for a company offering courses to student drivers. I ask the man if he can call me a cab. Pulling out his flip phone, the man asks me what is the number. I cannot remember, so I tell him what I think and that is the wrong number. I remain silent, standing in the parking lot wondering if I will make it the fourty blocks and several hundred feet rising in elevation to my home on the little hill. In my periphery I notice the man is clearing papers off of his passenger seat. He offers me a ride, and I am astonished so I ask the man where he lives.
Furious at my question, the man growls “none of your buisness do you want the ride or not?!” I stammer a yes I do and get in the passenger side of his car. I try to explain to the man that I just don’t want to inconvenience him, and he asks me whether I am going to rob him. I say no, and he tells me to remove my foot from the extra passenger-side brake pedal.
“have i offended you in some way sir?” I ask
“maybe you just shouldn’t talk anymore” says the man, whose name has now come out but which I now forget. When we start to move along, I tell the man that my name is Elijah.
the man signs “what do you do Elijah” wishing I had listened to his advice. I tell the man I am a singer, and he lies that he is a singer too. He demands that I sing a song to pay for the ride, so I start singing, improvising both melody and lyrics. we have reached the Arlington and I run out of lines. The man is satisfied anyway, and we begin to discuss the very matter that has confused me now for so long.
I began this trip of mine with a simple goal in mind. I wanted to travel at night from the San Francisco civic center, to my home in El Cerrito. Sitting in this man’s car, I realize that even on a simple trip like this one, I may arrive at point B from point A, but the journey between the two points may not be the easy, convenient, warm, and relaxing trip I imagine. I may take every wrong turn, but I will make it home thanks the goodwill of assholes like this driving teacher.
He drops me at the intersection of Moeser and Arlington and we share a fistbump before I disembark and The man glides into the dark fog. I am still impressed. The man was generous and charitable, but this did not make him vulnerable. He would not take any of my shit, only the load he had chosen to carry for me. I think the choice he demanded brought inspiration into his life too. No matter his demeanor, he still did something for another person.
is emitting positive emotion always so important? exasperation and anger did not change the physical reality of my journey, and even scared me into coaxing up inspiration and a performance.
when I am afraid to be anything but nice, I will remember the hard nosed, hard soled gentleman, and the power of opening a single door.
