* * *
Tales Too Shocking To Be True...
How Not To Use A Fake ID Missed Connection Armed & Dangerous Ouch Why I Need My Own Washer & Dryer
It was a normal morning and I was sitting at the front desk of the little
residential hotel I manage. A guy I had seen leaving the building earlier came
back up the stairs and just sort of headed on his way. I stopped him, having
looked quickly at the visitor sign-in sheet, and asked him for his ID, thinking
that he had gotten in under our late-night security system, which consists of
tired old men that don’t really give a rat’s ass.
I was being cool. "Just show me your ID real quick so I can have it on file."
So the guy says "I’ll be right back," and he goes back down the stairs. I was
doing paperwork and thought nothing of it. Some of these kids leave their
wallets or what ever in their cars, and I figured he was going back to get it.
He comes back some 3 to 5 minutes later flashing me a badge, and again trying
to fly past me.
"Wait a second," I said, and that stopped him. He came back and quickly showed
me a leather wallet looking thing with a bronze star and a crude looking ID
that said "Special Sheriff’s Deputy".
I don’t know much, but I know when I’m being fucked with, and I said so. "That
ain’t no ID, pal. That don’t tell me who you are or what you’re doing here."
He got all sort of indignant with me, saying "Do you know who I am? Huh?" And I
said, "No, who are you?" This flustered him a bit, so he went on with the next
part of his plan.
"Do you know what happened last night? Do you?" and his voice was climbing in
volume, yelling. "No," I said, "Tell me."
"There was a murder," he said, wanting me to be shocked and buy into his game.
"Not here there wasn’t," I said, "And that play badge still won’t get you in
here."
"Why are you fucking with me," he yelled.
"You really want me to call SFPD to come find out what the fuck this is about?"
I asked him. "Yeah, you shit, go ahead. I could use the help. They’ll back me
up." So I dialed the non-emergency number for the San Francisco Police
Department, and they answered right away.
"I got this guy here claiming to be a Special Sheriff’s Deputy, even though his
badge is fake. Can you guys come and straighten this out?"
The guy was on his way down the stairs saying "I’ll be right out front waiting
for them"
By the time I hung up the phone, having given dispatch the particulars, the kid
was gone.
by Patrick Daly
top
MISSED CONNECTION
I couldn’t believe what I was reading:
Jesus! I don’t even read these things. But for some reason I picked up this
week’s SF Weekly Reporter and looked in the personals. I don’t know why, just
on a whim, I guess.
But I remember that day, that bus ride, and that girl. Wholly Cow!
I didn’t think much of the exchange then, though. I have these one sided
encounters in my mind a lot. On some days I can imagine most every beautiful
woman on the street, and believe me, there are a lot of them in San Francisco,
I imagine them as having just shot me a "come hither" look. So I fill myself
with an imagined pride, smile to myself and just walk on.
But that girl on that bus was different, in a way, I guess.
I was just having a normal day. Nothing was going too terribly right, but
nothing was going too terribly wrong, either, know what I mean? It was just,
normal.
And there was nothing extraordinary about that bus ride, either. You get on the
30 Stockton there at Broadway, fight the little old Chinese woman just to get
on (they seem to think that they’re going to be left behind, so they fight to
the front of the line, and most of us let them). I knew from experience that
the almost crowded bus would fill to the brim in the next three stops, and that
none of the people would make any effort to move toward the back.
It’s crazy to see from the street, but this bus will be packed with people
elbow to eyeball in the front half, so that folks have to stand in the
step-well when the door is closed, and the back half has room enough for
popular dance moves. Knowing this, I make my move early. I say in a firm voice:
"Excuse me. Excuse me." And I just move myself, and keep moving, toward that
back door. That’s the dividing line, somehow. Past that back door is wide open
MUNI acreage, the first half is the MUNI stockyards.
That’s when I saw this girl. I got settled at my standing post, looked around,
and saw her looking at me. I remember thinking "Wow! A pretty redhead in a
black leather jacket with a plant. Huh."
Now it is no secret that I have a thing for redheads. This takes some
explaining, and it gets sorry and sad quickly, so I won’t go into it here. But
on this "normal" day I was having, even this sight, black leather and red hair,
my favorite color scheme, was flatline. I wasn’t going to go into any self
indulged fantasy, not on this bus ride. So I just looked at her. I think I
smiled and rolled my eyes a bit, then smiled back at her. And she smiled back
at me.
Now, looking back on it, I should have known that it was SOMETHING. I don’t
even get that far with most of my public dreams. The eye contact passes
immediately, and that’s that. Or, if for some reason the look continues, I have
a habit of quickly looking away, don’t ask why. But this time I didn’t look
away. I didn’t want to, so I just didn’t. I just smiled at her, an she just
smiled at me.
So I guess I was "looking into her soul" if I am to believe what I read in
that ad.
I’ve read that ad about seven hundred times now, if you’re wondering. I know
what the thing says forward and back. I even cut it out of the damned paper,
had it blown up and I stuck it on the wall by my computer. That’s where I am
now.
The short ride up Stockton and through the tunnel can take 3 minutes or an
hour, depending on traffic. I recall this one being somewhere in the middle.
There are three stops before the tunnel and, like I said, the bus gets full.
The little old Chinese will clamor in the back door, given half a chance, and
they did. So you get jostled around, things get packed and crazy, Canton and
Mandarin fill the air so as to flush out any other thought, and you sort of
just hold on for sanity. That’s just what I did. I remember having had to turn
my back on the back of the bus, some old woman with a pink plastic bag filled
with fish heads was standing on my foot, and I got off at the Sutter street
stop, the first one after the tunnel.
To be continued...
by Patrick Daly
top
Here’s one I heard recently. I was sitting in Rick’s Tavern on route 30,
finishing a veggie sandwich and a mug of ale. Paul, a wrecker, turned his
attention towards me and regaled me with his story about one of Newfane’s more
famous residents:
I was driving back from Harmonyville - Old Ed’s place - after pulling his
truck from the mud, when I saw someone off the side of the road. He was
walking, with his hat pulled tight over his ears. It was raining pretty good,
so I stopped to ask him if he wanted a lift. He jumped in and thanked me for
stopping. I looked at him and god damn, if it wasn’t Ron Howard! At least it
looked like him, so I asked him. "Aren’t you ‘feel-good’ director Ron Howard?"
He said he was. I asked him what he was doing out in the rain and he said that
his wife had the car and he needed to get some stuff from the store. We talked
a bit about the weather. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun.
He pointed it right at me. "Give me your wallet, old man," he yelled at me. I
didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to get shot. I handed him my wallet and
he told me to stop the car. I did and he jumped out. I turned around and got
out of there as quick as I could. I didn’t want to stick around for him to
realize that I handed him an empty wallet. There are some nights when I’m
plowing or something, when I’ll see a dark figure off the side of the road. I
never stop, though. I learned my lesson.”
by A. Dibbs
top
Ouch
I had just changed razors, after slicing off the top of my mole. I was fumbling
around with a nub of a styptic pencil - trying to get the blood to stop. It
didn’t work very well, but it sure burned like hell. I wasn’t finished shaving
or I would have used the tried and true piece of toilet paper. Amazing how a
small piece of toilet paper can stop such a flow of blood. I figured I would
finish shaving and then worry about the blood. But the blood. Little drops
changed quickly into larger drops, mixing with the shaving foam in the bottom
of the sink. "Where was all this blood coming from?" I thought. I may even have
said it out loud.
By the time I finished shaving around my mustache, the sink was filled with
foam, water and blood. The sink was backed up again.
After about 10 minutes of bleeding and waiting, the sink was still backed up. I
placed a small bucket under the trap and pulled. With the trap in my hand, it
became painfully obvious that the amount of blood and water in the sink
exceeded the storage capabilities of the bucket. Cascading over the rim of the
bucket was a pinkish froth, onto the tile floor. I reached for a towel, but
miscalculated the angle that I needed to reach. With one hand clutching the
towel, the other hand was in position to stop my fall. My hand landed on the
edge of the bucket, spilling what little amount the bucket held. With the
bucket no longer a viable hold, my arm bent back and I landed on my shoulder.
Well, my shoulder and my head. The back of my head caught the edge of the
toilet.
I must have passed out, because when I looked in the mirror, all the blood on
my face had coagulated, and there was a mean bump on the back of my head. A
bump and a little blood.
My arm was numb from being bent an unnatural way, and my clothes were soaked
from absorbing the blood/water froth from the floor.
by A. Dibbs
top
Why I Need My Own Washer & Dryer
I watched them walk in out of the rain. One was carrying a garbage bag filled
with dirty clothes and the other had a duffel bag. I watched them walk towards
the washing machines where I was sitting.
They emptied out their bags on the folding table, then the shorter one turned
and looked at me.
"I need your cart," he said, "And I’m going to take it."
"Um, I’m using this one, but there are plenty more over there," I said pointing
to the far end of the room.
"That’s great. You know where to go to get another one for yourself. I’m taking
this one," he said as he grabbed the cart from me.
The few clothes I had in the cart he threw down on the ground.
"Looks like these are dirty," he laughed to his buddy.
They were clean, until they were thrown into a puddle of snowmelt, mud and salt.
As I bent down to pick up my clothes, the taller one said, "Hey - you trying to
look at my ass?"
"What ?!? I’m just...no! Jesus, no!"
The shorter one walked closer to me, standing about 6 inches from me. I could
smell chewing tobacco, stale beer, and sweat.
"I think you got a problem. I don’t like you, and that’s your problem," he said.
Then he pulled his arm back and held it, cocked. He looked at my nose.
As I stood there about to get pummeled, I wondered why nobody was coming over
to help me. There were plenty of people doing their laundry, but none of them
offered to ‘break it up.’
I was thinking about all of the innocent bystanders when he hit me. I don’t
know how hard, but it sure hurt. I haven’t been hit since high school, some 10
years ago.
In one grand motion, I lunged at my assailant, hitting him in the chest which
knocked him off his feet. I grabbed my clothes and ran for the door. I could
hear them coming as I ran out in the rain.
by A. Dibbs
top
Back to the main page
Request a copy or submit material