ACROSS THE BEACH

   When we got back to San Francisco we ran into Derek, who we had met in Atlanta, and some other kids were there as well that Syd knew; Wano, Kirk and Nell. This is what I love about traveling. Out of the blue someone that you know will show up. It might be a couple weeks, or a couple years since you see this person, but when you run into them, it’s awesome. The shitty part though, is that sometimes you will meet someone you really get along with but you will never see them again. There are quite a few of us that travel around like this. 

  Instead of hanging out on Haight street we were hanging out down on Market and Sixth by the Tenderloin, a part of town where everyone has crack and guns. 

  Fuck man, one night I had got in a fight with Syd and passe dout right on Market by myself. At about three in the morning, this fuckin Mexican gangster kid waked me up and asked me if I know where to get any weed. So I roll over annoyed as fuck and tell him, “No, man,” and roll back over. A couple minutes later, I’m woken up with a punch to the head. So I get up and punch him in the fuckin face. “What the fuck!” he goes in his pants like he was going to pull a knife or a gun and I just picked up my stuff and found somewhere else to sleep. Man I’ve met people that have had their asses stomped while sleeping. That’s some pussy shit man, to attack you when you’re sleeping!

  Ha! One night Syd and I were drinking on the corner of Market and Castro when all of a sudden this fuckin car flies over the curb across the sidewalk and into a bus shelter, shattering the glass. We were like, “Holy fuck! What the fuck!” Then the driver, which happened to be a girl, gets out and starts running away but was falling everywhere - she was fuckin wasted! I’m glad we weren’t in that bus shelter when it happened, we would have been fucked up for sure. That girl was lucky she didn’t hurt anyone.

  We were all drinking whisky one day in the park and everyone was fighting each other. Syd got into it with this chick and whooped her ass, and I got into it with some dude - it was just another drunken mess. We ended up leaving the next day and we were back in Seattle in no time, where we ran into Lee again, so that was cool.

  Lee introduced us to this tranny that was a girl, trying to be a boy.She had her tits cut off and was going to get a dick in the near future, however that works. But we were hanging out at his house for a little bit, getting drunk and smoking weed. I also met the guy that had given Syd her dog, his name was Falex. It was funny years later when I ran into him in Montreal in the gay village with his flamer boyfriend, Yan. They’re cool as fuck though, so don’t judge!

  Off we went on a city bus, up to Everett with Why in the sleeping bag and a bag of pennies to pay for the bus. It was funny as fuck. The bus driver just let us go rather than putting like six dollars in pennies in the machine. We made a few bucks in Everett and called a cab to take us to Bellingham and we planned to hitch the rest of the way to the border in Blaine. The taxi driver ended up being really cool with us and gave us a ride all the way to the border. 

  We got dropped off right by the water and as soon as I opened the door, Why jumps out and starts chasing some fuckin birds with a border patrol car sitting not too far away. Fuckin bitch! I’m screaming her name, but she wouldn’t come back for a good ten minutes. We thought we were fucked right from the get-go. Luckily, the border patrol left so we went and found some bushes to hide out in until it got dark. We didn’t want to attract any more attention than we already had. 

  You can walk right across the shoreline clear into Canada at a certain time of night when the tide goes out. It’s a rush crossing the border illegally whether you’re on a freight train or simply just walking. I can just imagine the rush you must get crossing with forty pounds of weed. This was a hop spot for drug smuggling at the time. I knew people doing this and bringing weed down to Everett and they were making a killing. It only took about ten minutes to walk across the shoreline where we ended up in a park on the Canadian side. It’s fucked when you’re over on the american side, the border patrol are fuckin everywhere but are nowhere to be seen on the Canadian side.

  I was super happy to be back in Canada. I remember the first guy I seen smoking and I asked him for a smoke and he busted out a pack of Player’s. It was just weird to see a Player’s pack - it tasted like shit too. Just like an American cigarette would taste like shit if you were used to smoking Canadian smokes.