Sex Says(6)

Rather, I loved seeing people’s most prominent personality traits on display and happened to have a natural talent for bringing them about. I’d leave her as I found her when the time came, with nothing more than an interesting tale of a chance encounter with a no-good stranger. We hadn’t exchanged names or vows, and when all was said and done, I doubted if she’d even remember the color of my eyes—even as memorable as I’d heard they were.

“What…” she stuttered. “What did you do?”

I glanced to the sign on the street as the trolley scooted past and recognized it instantly—almost home. At least, close enough to hoof it.

With one last look into her wide, expectant eyes, I reached out for her hand and waited for her to slip it into mine. “Nice to meet you.”

She startled at the abrupt end to our conversation but put her faith in me and hand in mine nonetheless. “Nice…uh…to meet you too.”

With one last smile, I rose from my seat and descended to the bottom step at the back of the car, leaning out over the rapidly changing pavement and waiting for the right opening. Clear of obvious danger, I let go of the brass bar in my hands and jumped down just as the trolley slowed at the bottom of the hill. Several trolley riders, including my temporary companion, looked on with varying reactions, but I didn’t play into their interest with anything more than a smile and a flick of my hand.

Anyone who’s lived in San Fran knows that your location can really be pinpointed in terms of fog, and I lived in the Fillmore District, right on the edge of the fogbelt. In other words, we get our share, but it burns off quickly and isn’t as bad as it is north and west. As far as entertainment, I’m within walking distance of just about everything, including some great food and a pretty nice art scene, down in the Mission District. But the true gem of my location is proximity to one of my favorite hangouts in the whole of San Francisco: Dolores Park. To me, someone as obsessed with human behavior as I am, Dolores Park is like an actual dream.

But I was too tired for the park now, fresh off an extended night shift down at Pier 45 near Fisherman’s Wharf on a new gig, unloading fresh catch and delivering to several of the restaurants. It wasn’t the most glamorous job, but it was better than some of the others I’d had over the years, and I loved the stories I got to hear from some of the fishermen. These guys weren’t playing at some hobby, and they weren’t doing it out of convenience. They were born fisherman, you could smell it in their blood, and that kind of truthful existence called to me—kind of like that smell.

An aroma I knew well drifted up from down the block and into my nostrils and changed my planned course from home to heaven.

No, really, the name of the coffee shop was Hallowed Grounds, and in T-minus fourteen seconds, I was going to be in it.

The street buzzed with young professionals as I weaved my way through them, fish stains tingeing the fabric of my shirt. Luckily, the darkness of its color camouflaged their obviousness, but I wasn’t sure I could say the same for the pungent smell.

Nonetheless, I met their eyes and studied their thoughts as much as they would let me before they moved on, rushing through their lunch hour in hopes of not being the last one back to the office. Some of them seemed at peace, but others wore their misery higher than their hair. And for those, I mourned; the life they could have led, the things they could have accomplished, and the confidence they lacked. I wished for them that one day they would find the things they were missing and let go of the things they thought they had to be—and when released, wouldn’t miss at all.

The bell over the door jingled as I walked in, and a man behind the counter I knew well, Tony, started fixing my cup of coffee without direction. I wasn’t a man of habit, not with much of anything, but when it came to coffee, it wasn’t hard to know what I liked.

“New job, Reed?” he called out with a smile, and I shrugged. He shook his head in amusement but not surprise as I took a seat at a table directly across from a woman sitting by herself. It was crowded and it was the only seat in the place, but that didn’t stop her from glancing up at me with surprise—and a little bit of disgust.

I bit my lip but said nothing as she picked her paper back up in front of her face and continued to read. She was a different kind of woman from the one I’d met on the trolley, the blind trust of my previous acquaintance replaced by the blatant distrust of this one. She peeked over the paper once more as Tony dropped off my coffee, and her eyes narrowed at the way I sat there without preoccupation. I had no paper. I had no phone. I had nothing to distract me from my loneliness or the people around me, and I found, most of the time, people had a hard time relating to my approach.