THE ROYAL RESIDENCE 9
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THE ROYAL RESIDENCE
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This is episode nine. I got a call from Christine at the medical
supply company wanting to know whether I would be home in the
afternoon. After assuring her I would be, she made arrangements
for delivery of the Royal Carriage. It's an Invacare Ranger II
with Action/Simply Smart electronics for control. A Gen Xer
named Jeff delivered it. He had on these plastic wraparound
semi-oval mirrored sunglasses which are so In and kewl now. With
his short-cropped red hair and goatee, he's quite fetching. I
had to smack Mr Cheez for drooling on the carpet. Jeff told me
the basics of driving the new chariot. Bonnie the occupational
therapist said she would be around the next day to give me
driving lessons.
What? Me wait til tomorrow to get to steppin'? Ah doan thank
so... After a move into the new chair and a final fold-up of the
old one (it now lives in the bathroom until the owners come for
it), I turned on the power, saw a prophetic green pilot light,
and gingerly advanced the joystick. I felt a slight rumble from
beneath the seat. Then the chair began to crawl forward. It
wasn't any time before I had it out of the room, into the
elevator, and out on the street. Three trips around the block
later I decided not to push my luck trying to cross a street yet.
Oh, what the hell...
By the time Bonnie came the next day to formally transfer the
chair to my ownership and for me to acknowledge that I had been
instructed in proper operation and safety matters (sign sign
sign), I'd more than been around the block. We went down the
hill along Ellis to its intersection at Virgin Megastore with
Stockton and Market Streets. The real test of my driving skill
came with a side trip up Stockton to FAO Schwarz, the toy store.
We found the elevator and we completely circumnavigated all three
floors. Not once did I touch anything untoward let alone knock
anything or anybody down. I have taken to this chariot, well,
like it was my legs.
Miss Kooky and Demon came over later in the day, so I had to show
them how well it worked. We went around this block and then over
to Powell Street along O'Farrell, uphill from the Royal
Residence. I wanted to try operating on Powell Street in that
block because it is fairly steep there and I had been a bit
frightened of being there with someone pushing me in the manual
chair. Half the curb cuts in this 'hood are pretty good. The
older ones are scary but most of them are workable provided I
don't get rattled or try to take them too quickly. It is
difficult for me to get used to the torque this chair has. The
tires and the transmission really bite into cement and curb lips.
For some pretty rough ramp edges, all I have to to is pull to a
stop at the lip and let the chair crawl up and onto the ramp.
There is no spinning or banging or skidding. The only danger I
have to watch for is that a tipped sidewalk will invite the chair
to coast toward the gutter. The steering is not self-correcting.
Yesterday I about wore Mr Cheez out. I really don't like bumping
over the MUNI tracks in Market Street. I told him to meet me in
San Francisco Centre. I would roar up Market Street to the
elevator between street and train station, pass through the
station and come into SFC's basement. When I got out of the
elevator in the station, I looked at the wide and lengthy expanse
of shiny terrazo and became overcummed with Indy 500 Disease --
the temptation to turn the power dial up on this thing and floor
the sucker. The part of the station to the east is largely
vacant. I turned left and went for it. This chair is supposed
to do a top speed of 12 MPH. I went fast enough to feel the wind
in my face, so go finger. I ran the east half of the station
three or four times and then remembered Cheezy would be wondering
where I was.
I need not have worried. He was ass-parked at the elevator bank
in SFC where he could watch the traffic in and out of the
toilets. Mr Cheez decided what I really need is a fag flag
waving in the breeze over my head. On the metal panel of the
left armrest I have my fish magnet. The Christian fish symbol
has run its course. Possibly it was helped along by the
sarcastic response to it of the Darwin fish. I have one that's
better. This one is a fish with Semitic-styled letters spelling
'gefilte'. On the other panel I have temporarily a San Francisco
souvenir room thermometer. Mr Cheez contributed another magnetic
sign from a trip into Headlines which says, That's Queen Bitch to
You! If things work out well, these items will move to join my
gefilte fish and a 100-channel scanning receiver will go on the
right panel. Its whip antenna will wave the fag flag. I plan to
add a tail when I find one. I want to traverse Union Square and
upset the anti-fur protesters who picket Macy*s.
Mr Cheez took me over to North Beach to see the beginning of a
Chinese funeral procession with picture car and band.
Unfortunately for us, the expected spectacular did not present
itself. The mortuary is a rambling three-storey Spanish-styled
structure which could be mistaken for an apartment house. It has
a tile roof and somewhat Victorian bay windows. It is boring to
look at as are the majority of San Francisco's piled side-by-side
high-density residential streets. What could have been a
beautiful exterior of red tiles, teal trim and white stucco, is
reduced to an eyesore by being completely covered in babyshit
brown.
The interior is something else again. The entrance is a
hexagonal atrium with a decorated beam ceiling and grand
staircase rising to the main floor a few feet above ground.
There are wall sconces here and there filled with floral artistry
and greenery. The place is so tastefully done it is almost a
caricature of itself. The wheelchair lift is discreetly tucked
into a corner of the atrium and rises to a small anteroom off the
main corridor. The lower section of the lift is used to store
highway pylons.
The last funeral of the day had departed. All the people we saw
were undertakers. They all affected the same charcoal grey suits
and patterned maroon ties with implausibly white shirts and shiny
black shoes. Mr Cheez said the suits we saw are rented from a
uniform supply company. How regimented. I gather that when you
see a charcoal suit and a marroon patterned tie, you had better
look for the six-foot yellow tape measure... Prior to this
revelation, it had not been lost on me that when you see a man on
the street in a dark blue suit, white shirt and a striped tie, he
is a security guard.
The upper landing of the lift is camouflaged with a giant corn
plant. Silly me, I asked Mr Cheez when they were expecting the
ears to form. Little peasantish Chinese ladies began bringing
floral wreaths up the stairs and parking them in one of the
chapels. Mr Cheez remarked that the business to be in is
Flowers, and the place to be in it is next to a funeral home.
We probably saw over a thousand dollars in posies go into one of
the back chapels. A little bird tells us that a full-on funeral
from this place with band, picture car and the works runs over
twenty thousand US dollars.
The place has a half dozen chapels. The main chapel can be
transformed from Buddhist-centrist to Christian by removing some
banners and hauling in a crucifix. The Chinese community is
multi-religionist and so it wouldn't do to refer to Chapel No 1
as the Gethsemane Room or to No 4 as the Mount of Olives Room.
Nor would it work to call No 3 the Room of Six Happinesses or to
No 2 as the Five Spice Room. We saw two stiffs all laid out.
I'm sorry, this place just doesn't do good cosmetology. Both
examples of the place's output looked not asleep but quite dead.
I happened to notice that to the right of the guest of honor in
No 4 there was an Asian-style pierced screen and a small hooded
metal fireplace. Before the fireplace and behind the screen was
an altar table of sorts upon which had been placed various items
of food. We wouldn't want the decedent to get hungry, would we?
At some point in the proceedings, the members of the family will
burn small personal items belonging to the decedent. This is the
BTB -- Buddhist Transporter Beam -- which assures the one in
whose honor these festivities are held [thank you, Mark Twain]
has sufficient material goods in the next world so not to feel
deprived.
Mr Cheez doesn't look particularly bikerish in his funeral drag.
He looks completely Cop and the soul of efficiency. I cannot say
this for certain of his colleagues to whom I was introduced. Mr
Cheez's professional demeanor is another thing that just makes me
love him. If he wanted to have a hot session, I think I would
have to support my local cop by saving his time and beating
myself up. Mr Cheez is not satisfied that his bike is gold
instead of cop-style black and white. This is no big thing to me
because his 800-pound crotchpiece looks so much more stylish than
the motorized putt-putt one of them had.
We waited for the grand procession to begin by having brunch in
the Irish pub across the street. The meal started out with soda
bread and went down from there. The scrambled eggs had an off
flavor, possibly from having been fried in olive oil. The A-sign
on the street carries on about their award-winning Irish chef.
The fact that a fry cook is called a chef argues for weird
cooking oil, not spoilage. Irish bacon is similar to greasy pink
shoe soles. The alternative meats were apple sausage, which
isn't too bad, and blood pudding which I can do without and was
glad I did. Mr Cheez gave birth to its remains in my house this
morning and I thought it would set off a stink alarm. So much
for the next great oxymoron, Irish kwizzeen.
Getting there was more than half the fun. The sidewalks in North
Beach are old and narrow. Columbus Avenue, the main drag, is a
conduit for tourists shuttling between downtown and Fisherman's
Wharf tourist traps. They are all so busy gawking they get in
the way of motorized vehicles. They won't get out of the curb
cuts and they won't move over so we can pass each other. They
bring us all to a dead stop about twice in a block and then look
at me like it is my fault. All I am trying to do is oversteer on
the tilted sidewalks (sometimes as much as a foot of elevation in
six feet of width) so I do not go over a foot-high curb. I also
found myself going round the block to avoid a curb cut only a
deliveryman could love. It went up a whole foot in the space of
two feet. I felt in danger of leaving the back half of my
gearboxes on the sidewalk had I tried to go down on that thing.
Going back to "town" was the major afternoon's entertainment.
Some half-drunk leftover beatnik wouldn't move away from the bus
so the lift could move out over the sidewalk. He was going to
get on that bus the first thing no matter what, and the driver
was going to intimidate him into standing back. Yeah, sure. The
driver finally could do nothing more than tell the full-footed
customers to come in the back door while she continued to argue
with this loon.
[ Note to Alt.Tasteless readers of this continuing journal: If
you want to keep receiving this kind of material, send me email
at my new ISP, Sirius.Com addressed as follows:
I intend to abandon Alt.Tasteless and put out through a private list.
I'm sick and tired of the cross-posting and the juvenile bullshit. The
only readable post I've seen in two weeks is Pierre's thing about his
major shit and the venereal views at his favorite strip club -- which
description cured me of wanting pastrami for lunch. Bravo, Pierre! ]
I put my chair into granny-low and crept onto the
lift. The driver took me up and I moved to my gimp station. When it was
time to put the flattened, extended lift down so it could retreat
under the bus, Loony wouldn't let go of it. He was out to get
his feet mashed, I guess. When the lift got back to ground,
Loony was about to scramble on board against the demand of the
driver that he settle down and take the next bus. Mr Cheez had
enough of this and pushed him out the door so that he fell on the
sidewalk. We had just enough time to get the doors closed and
leave him banging on the side of the bus and calling us all
children of Glub.
Mr Cheez wanted for us to wait where we got off on Market Street
for the next bus. I think Mr Cheez wanted to have more social
intercourse with Mr Loony. I didn't. I was feeling pressure.
We hadn't thought to bring Mouth along and I needed to pee. Mr
Cheez said we should stop at this handy sidewalk cafe and order a
coffee so I would have something to pee into. Considerate soul
that I am, I asked what we would do with the soiled glass. Steal
it, he said. I countered this suggestion with the one that he
take a streetcar back to the Royal Residence while I revved up
the Royal Chariot to its rated 12 MPH to race him back to my own
precincts. We made it back in time to greet Mouth most
generously.
Today as I write this is the day I peed on my pants. Mouth
drooled.
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