THE ROYAL RESIDENCE 3
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THE ROYAL RESIDENCE
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This is episode three. There is a new word you tasteless kiddies
can add to your vocabulary. The word is 'frequentflyer'. This
is the general term for people who repeatedly come to the
attention of San Francisco emergency or police services
personnel. The hotel block in front of the Royal Residence has
its designated frequent flyer. Many times he is on the upper end
quite near the RR making his presence felt. At other times he
stays at the bottom of the grade close to the Bear Pit as we call
the sunken plaza named Halladie in honor of the inventor of the
famous cable cars.
I imagine Mr Halladie would be scooting over his own sheaves at
nine miles per hour if he could see the amount and character of
riffraff who habitually besmirch his plaza with their presence
and their byproducts. Adding insult to this injury is the
pedestrian walk between the back of the hotel block and the cable
car turnaround. It is o'ershadowed by the healthiest, fullest,
greenest trees in all of the City.
The trees are inhabited by the healthiest, fullest, fattest
flying vermin -- pigeons and seagulls -- to be noted anywhere.
This walk is what is left of the 0-99 block of Eddy Street. It
is the mere remnant of the homosexual meatrack which flourished
downtown in the 60s and early 70s before it all moved to "Poke"
Street, fleeing the hideous reconstruction of Market Street when
the local and interurban train systems were built underground.
Mr Cheez can walk this block today and wax nostalgic over the
tricks he used to turn there. Miss Kooky can shudder in haute
horreur at the time when she passed through here on her way to
work in full Greyhound uniform, only to be blessed by a large and
extremely relieved gull. It can be assumed that gulls eat quite
a lot of fish and other marine proteins though they will eat
about anything which doesn't fight back. No matter what they got
into yesterday, today's offering of awful offal will be putrid in
an extreme and chemically vicious enough to eat automobile paint.
Perhaps it is this harmful chemical fallout which accounts for
the antics of our neighborhood space case whom I will here dub
Blue Foxx after Red Foxx whom he resembles. The way he hounds
people makes him a candidate for the nickname of Old Blue, so I
will combine them into a colorful monicker. I am not about to
ask him his name. I don't want to get involved. Mr Cheez and I
had the opportunity to observe Mr Foxx's antics quite closely the
other day. We were in the cafe on the bottom back of the hotel
block and Blue was entertaining the tourists.
There are quite a lot of tour buses, vans, and taxicabs coming
this way. In effect, two streets merge into one here on their
way to the hotels in this part of town. Mr Foxx is given to
jumping his crazy ass out into the street in front of oncoming
traffic. Then he shakes a finger or fist at the radiator grille
of the offending vehicle and talks to it. He probably gets a new
set of nine lives every week because he used up three of them
before we had finished our coffee and sticky buns. When there
was no traffic, he would knock on the plate glass of the cafe and
gesticulate at the customers. He seems to know better than to
come inside.
Mr Cheez gave me his famous Knotted Brow Look which so reminds me
of Snuffy Smith frowning at Maw. Mr Cheez made his Great
Pronoucement of the Morning: People like that ought to be SHOT!
Oh no, quoth I; People like that should be shot up with Thorazine
and Posey-belted into a wheelchair at The ERR for their first one
hundred days (of MediCare big bux) and then farmed out by Dragon
Lady to St Timmy's for long term state MedicAid storage after
that.
By this time, Blue zeroed in on a flock of German tourists and
was waving his paper drink begging cup at them, seeking to
intimidate them into giving him money. We had soaked up our
caffeine and devoured our calories and had things to do, so we
had to make a run for it while the tourists were there to act as
decoys. We weren't quick enough. When he saw me, he was on his
knees in front of me in a trice, crossing himself and once again
praying to the Holy Stump of Redemption. Mr Cheez scattered him
as one might the beggars of Calcutta and we made for the cheap-
ass shoe store in the next block.
Mr Cheez decided I needed a new shoe. The edema in my foot is
seemingly permanent now and so I require a shoe with straps to go
over the top because ordinary shoes will no longer fit. We found
a knockoff of the Birkenstock sandal made largely of old tire
rubber I suppose. It does the job nicely. Now I have some grip
unlike I do with the quilted slipper I've been using.
The eastern man behind the counter was not programmed for having
a customer refuse both the shoe box and the right shoe. Mr Cheez
advised him to keep it as a display sample. With a completely
straight face he said he could not do that because they only put
out left shoes for display. In the high season when this place
puts out displays on the sidewalk, I shall remember to visit
them... I really can't go to organ recitals at Grace Cathedral
in a sandal. Perhaps something in a pimp grey oxford will do.
Next we went to the drug store for more butt doilies. I use
small ones in place of underwear because they don't require me to
wriggle into them and because I cannot trust my farts to be dry,
ever. I use a larger size to protect the bed from noises in the
night. We left there and Mr Cheez said Oh damn! We forgot to
get some sox to wear with my new shoe. By this time we were
across the street and so he parked me on Market Street, just like
you would park any tard, and made a dash into Woolworths.
I had quite a shock. Directly across the wide brick sidewalk
from me was Mark, a now 40-something who'd had polio as a child
or youth. I know Mark because he used to live across the street
from me in Oakland. I worked at the Oakland Navy yard and he
worked at the Navy's air station on Alameda. We used to catch
the same buses a lot. I hadn't seen him in possibly ten years
and assumed he'd moved away.
Mark has arm crutches and formidable upper body strength. I
never saw him use the lifts with which the buses were eventually
fitted. He always took his time lifting and swinging himself up
the high steps of the city buses. Here he is half-standing on
his crutches and politely greeting passersby with Hello or Good
Morning. Then I noticed the ubiquitous paper drink cup in one
hand. Mark is passively spare-changing the populace.
Seeing him again and seeing him doing what he was doing suddenly
raised a lot of issues within me. First I felt embarrassed
because I know of his great strength and agility in handling his
body on only two limbs compared to my decided weakness handling
my body on three. Yes, I could do loads better if I lost weight.
But only those of you who are emaciated enough to fit the
desirable weight tables have the right to rag me. All you
beerbellies and worse can continue to hold it in because you know
how difficult it is to lose weight and keep it off, especially
when you can't make exercise an integral part of your life but
have to concentrate on it in some boring way -- bricks and a
trapeze, anyone...?
I thought about Mark and how long he has been In The System; that
is, how long he has had whatever public assistance he receives
and that he ought to be doing pretty well. Surely he has low-
income housing and possibly also has a place which is more gimp-
friendly than mine. And then I thought, what if he hasn't done
so well. What if he got summarily separated from federal civil
service when the Navy left San Francisco Bay in a huff and he got
left high and dry.
The government hires a lot of marginal people who, were it not
for civil service jobs, would likely have no job at all. As a
rule, the corporate world doesn't want you unless you have a
magazine or teevee commercial image. You can have that look even
when you are a gimp -- you can be as cute and cuddly as Chris
Reeves -- but you have to have a helluva lot of personal
assistance or determination or both to pull it off.
Maybe I was occultly fortunate to have got a leg infection which
led to amputation which led to an uncontested (but certainly not
hassle-free) medical retirement at somewhat better than SSI
rates. What if Mark has to hustle spare change just to make ends
meet. You know what? I froze. I hoped to Glub he wouldn't
recognize me.
For one thing, I didn't want to be asked AGAIN what happened to
my leg. I get tired of that. And I didn't want to know of his
predicament if it happens to be unfavorable. I think I am
basically a chickenshit. I don't like me a lot right now. I
found out I can hide from Truth and Reality just as much as
anyone I have ever piss-bombed for doing exactly this.
In other news -- and I am not finished with the Mark and Reality
Caper -- my in-home health services worker paid a call today and
met Mr Cheez whom I have made my designated IHHS provider. I did
this in lieu of having some third-worlder who may find the
contents of the silver chest (ha!) more interesting than wiping
the scum off my nooks and crannies.
They have everything specified in decimal hours. For example, my
service provider can bill four hours per month for domestic
chores such as cleaning and taking out the garbage. I get one
hour a week for laundry service, two and a half for shopping
errands, and two and a third hours for assistance dressing.
Moving me in and out of bed is specified separately at one and
three-quarters hours per week.
Bathing and grooming me is allowed to take three and a half
hours. I even get fifteen minutes a week for care of and
assistance with a prosthesis. Can't you just tell this was
worked out by a computer? I guess we can use that time
rearranging the flowers in the cup of my fakelaigthang. Why not?
There was this bar in Phoenix which had a non-functioning pink
urinal which was the dish for the peanuts.
I get slightly over an hour's time for bowel and bladder care. I
guess they don't include sitting around while I am ... sitting
around ... making the nether smile. I get half an hour of skin
rubbing. Mr Cheez wanted to know just what do they think I need
rubbed. Well, I have an idea if he's up for it -- and half an
hour a week ought to be quite, ah, satisfactory!
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