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Hotel Metropole
The Hotel Metropole, autumn
1971, $20 per week, Sixth & Harrison, in San Francisco's South
of Market neighborhood. Step around or over the sidewalk’s
sprawled out winos and scattered shards of glass to find the
place. The area has yet to undergo its later gentrification by
marketers and real estate developers who will rename it SoMa.
Perhaps the Hotel Metropole is no longer there. Perhaps it is
now remodeled and a four-star hotel for the tourist trade.
The rented room is just off the third floor walk-up, with a
simple cot and a few coat hangers. At 6 x 12 feet, it is
somewhat smaller than Kamo no Chomei’s famed Ten Foot Square
Hut, nor is South of Market the equivalent of Chomei’s rustic
mountain retreat at Toyama. Dull beige walls and a solitary,
miniature window which, if one bothers to open its dingy
curtain, looks out, eye-level, upon an off-ramp of I-80. Trucks
and cars rumble by and shake the room day and night.
the long night
face-to-face
with the wall
How did I arrive? And why did I
come? I'm 19, sick of the narrow confines of the Midwest and of
my hometown, eager to see the world. It does not occur to me to
join the Armed Forces to do so.
A friend drops me off at I-80, the Ohio Turnpike, and I hold up
a cardboard sign that says "S.F." Easy and unpremeditated. One
relatively straight road, a mere 2400 miles or so. I have $60. I
have a backpack. Nor am I new to the game. I've hitchhiked
north, south, east and west frequently before. Simplicity
itself.
Two nights later, at 2 a.m., in western Nebraska, I stand in
that proverbial "middle of nowhere" with no sign of a house or
of traffic and no prospect of a ride until morning. I decide to
make my bed right there, beside the road. No one, however, had
warned me that Nebraska can be cold on an early October night.
It’s difficult to sleep. I open my eyes and look up:
throughout the night
crossing the Great Plains
the Milky Way
I spend the hours between
wakefulness and sleep, constantly aware of the cold until, just
before dawn, the discomfort is too much. I get up and gather my
things:
a makeshift bed
of grass is left
to the white dew
I walk down the dark road in a
westerly direction, swinging my arms. The activity wakes me and
I warm up. Fortune is a mysterious thing. Fifteen minutes later,
the first car of the morning passes me. Another five minutes and
a van pulls up. I jump in and face two men not much older than
myself.
"How far are you going?" the driver asks.
"To the end of the road," I say.
"Really? San Francisco? So are we."
They're driving the entire route in shifts and invite me to take
my turn. I do so eagerly, the quicker to arrive on the coast. My
two benefactors, recently discharged from the Army, are on their
way home. We become friends.
And so I find myself at the Hotel Metropole. I attach no stigma
to this neighborhood of flophouses, pawnshops, decrepit
warehouses and winos. The area even has its own small place in
literary history. Just a few blocks over, Gary Snyder
used to buy his clothes at the Salvation Army. Other Beats
walked these streets and Jack London, in an earlier time, passed
through here.
I didn't choose San Francisco by chance. I have literary
correspondents who reside in the city or immediate Bay Area,
other poets and some editors, all of whom welcome me out. I
quickly contact each in turn and announce I am in town. People
are eager to meet me, finally, face-to-face. However, once I
make them aware of my location in down-and-out South of Market,
I find myself as a rule going to their neighborhood
or neutral ground for a get-together: North Beach, the Haight,
Russian Hill or even far Palo Alto or Berkeley. I have very
little money and eat once a day.... I can't afford bus fare and
so I walk.
no one comes to sit
in the cobblestone square
autumn afternoon
There are exceptions to every
rule, however. A.D. Winans, nearly twice my age, has been a
steady correspondent and even published poems from this
Midwestern teenager in his magazine, Second Coming. When
I phone A.D., he makes immediate plans for a meeting a few
nights down the road. By now, attuned to the wariness directed
toward my residence, I ask, out of habit, where we should meet.
He replies, warmly and without hesitation, that it is no
problem: he has a car and my address; he will pick me up.
Time passes as time will and
the evening of my meeting with A.D. arrives.
October lamplight
barely enough to fill
a tiny alcove
A.D. is punctual and as open
and friendly in person as he has been by letter or phone. We get
in his car. This is when I discover two things hitherto unknown
to me about A.D. First, he is that rarest of persons, perhaps
only slightly less rare than, say, the endangered condor: a true
native San Franciscan. Second, his amiable nature conceals a
possible talent as a tour guide, for A.D. immediately begins to
wheel me around town to show me the essential sights,
punctuating every one with colorful anecdotes about the city's
history and past. We tour, by car, Coit Tower, North Beach
(which I already knew), Nob Hill and even the Embarcadero. A.D.
appears intimately acquainted with every obscure dead-end
street, and alley and short-cut.
This tour guide aspect of A.D., which possesses its own unique
humor and character, is highlighted by his mock horror when I
answer negatively to his inquiry as to whether or not I've seen
famous Lombard Street, "the world's most crooked." It is
imperative that we go, of course, and A.D. maneuvers down its
insistent snake-like hairpin curves with one hand on the wheel,
while his free hand liberally punctuates an anecdote about the
glory days of the Haight-Asbury and its recent decline. When we
reach the bottom, A.D. asks me, as one might a child at a theme
park, if I want to do Lombard Street again. Perhaps he is
joking, perhaps not.
warming itself
at its own wishful fire
a shooting star
Instead, we end the evening in
a busy bar somewhere in the Mission District. Here, local San
Francisco poets mix with other patrons who don Western boots and
hats, foreshadowing, perhaps, the Urban Cowboys to come. I’m not
old enough to drink legally, but my age is a question that
neither the waitresses nor A.D. inquire about. Perhaps I’ve lost
some of my youthful appearance due to my many experiences on the
road. Perhaps it simply is of no import.
Back alone at the Hotel Metropole late that night, I reflect on
A.D.'s native and open courtesies, perhaps even a touch of Old
School charm so lacking in my other S.F. acquaintances. And I
remember the panache of my raconteur's one-handed tour of
Lombard Street and wish I'd taken him up on his offer to repeat
the ride "one more time."
a neighbor moves out
but no one moves in
and autumn deepens
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