Wet patches of sweat were spreading out along his old gray shirt t-shirt, a t-shirt that hadn’t been changed in five days, a face he hadn’t shaved in nine, he hadn’t showered in- it was hard to say, he had lost track. He passed his reflection in the window of a restaurant and it revealed a red eyed hobo, wrinkled clothes and hair that stuck matted and stiff to his skull.
Henry had left the apartment in a manic dash after admitting to himself that he was depressed. He had stepped out to the street that morning and the sun struck him blind, sending him stumbling like a pasty mole that had emerged from it’s hole after a long winter. He knew most of his depression could be traced to his ongoing confusion about his place in the world and what the future held, the rest to being broke and unemployed.
He had spent the last month sleeping on Conner’s couch and helping with the rent by clipping large amounts of marijuana. There was a deep indent on his pointer finger where the small metal scissors had dug into the skin for countless hours. Conner was the only person Henry saw day after day. Conner’s was the only voice he had heard in weeks. He heard it there on the street still, echoes of it in his head as he walked the sidewalk:
“Don’t cut the nug down to just nug fool!” and “Leave a little purple hair on it!” and “This is our lively hood homie! Leave ‘em flufffy.” Henry picked up his pace and the voice began to fade.
That morning people were working and eating at restaurants and drinking coffee with friends; things that were distant memories to Henry. Women with clear skin and leather boots walked by him and he could smell them, then he could smell himself, realizing his own stench made him unfit to be among normal members of society.
He took a side street just a few blocks from Delores Park, deciding he would take refuge there, rest on the grass and hope no one would go down wind of him to smell what he had become. He was stopped by a large crowd of people milling about in the street with coffees and cigarettes in their hands, all corralled together by a series of wooden barricades and yellow tape, and Henry thought he had fallen upon another war protest.
A bald man, shiny bald, emerged from the crowd, approaching Henry fast, shadowed by a woman with blond tinted dreadlocks.
“You. Be still!”
The bald man gestured towards Henry. Henry did as he was told and the bald man circled him, nodding as he went.
“Put him next to the one with the ponytail,” he said to the woman, who scribbled on a clipboard and said: “Are you sure about that?”
“God damn it! They can’t all be that old. We need young ones or it won’t seem realistic. Now show him the mark!”
The bald man bounded off and the woman took Henry by the arm, leading him passed the barricades, through the crowd to where a piece of neon tape had been placed onto the pavement.
“Stand here,” she said, then turned and cried: “Wardrobe!”
Another woman charged up and threw an old tattered raincoat over Henry. Everyone in the crowd quieted down, becoming very still. Henry noticed he was amongst other men of various ages, all greasy and unshaven like himself.
“Action!” a voice cried.
The crowd looked east and Henry did too, noticing a large hydraulic lift holding a man with a film camera. Both man and camera were rising higher and higher into the air, above the crowd. A handsome man dressed in a police uniform ran up, crying out: “Did anyone see what happened?” A woman with skinny stick arms replied: “I did officer!” Then a voice cried “Cut!” The crowd stopped looking east and more cigarettes were lit.
“Okay, homeless people? Can you look at me?”
The greasy and unshaven men surrounding Henry all looked in the direction of the voice, Henry did too.
“So, you all are just a little too happy looking, you know what I mean? You can’t be grinning at the cop. You're homeless for Christ’s sake! You don’t like cops. They oppress you, right? You're just trying to drink your wine or whatever and these cops come along and break up the party. So when the cop says ‘Did anyone see what happened?’ I want you all to sort of stare back with a look that says: ‘Hey man. We’re not hurting anybody. We’re just here.’ Does that make sense?”
There were five more takes of the same scene and then the girl from wardrobe took the raincoat off of Henry and the girl with the blond tinted dreadlocks gave him a check for one hundred dollars.
“Rene thought you were fantastic,” she said. “He said it was a very natural performance. He said it about all the homeless guys but I think he was pointing at you. Do you have a reel?”
Henry shook his head.
"It might be worth looking into, it could help with your....situation. Bring some of your friends to the night shoot tomorrow. We’re doing the murder scene and we’ll need a lot of homeless.”
She sailed off and Henry was corralled down the street along with the other background players. In a little over an hour he had worked, made money, and could feel some of his self worth as a human being quickly returning.
Meanwhile, 26 Blocks Away On Powell Street:
It was a little late to make a New Years resolution but Conner was doing it all the same. Never again, and he meant never ever again, would he give drugs away as a favor or on loan. If someone wanted anything, even weed, they would have to pay up front, no matter if they were his best friend or his mother. Chris Checkavitz would be the last to play him for a sucker.
Conner went into the Macy’s building and then stuffed himself into the elevator with the rest of the people going up to Cheesecake Factory. The elevator opened and Conner bypassed the enormous crowd waiting for tables. He spotted a busboy and asked where Chris was.
“Oh man, the waiter? I don’t know man. I haven’t seen him in hella super long. I think he got fired bro. It’s a super bummer man.”
Conner concluded the busboy may have been mentally disabled and started scoping the place, finally spotting a waiter that had come to Blue Bar with Chris before, a friend of his named Jeff, or Gary, or Keith- some generic white name.
Conner said: “Where’s Chris at? I need to talk to him.”
The waiter looked surprised, then puzzled, then slightly scared, then relieved.
“Aren’t you the guy with all the shit?” the waiter said. “ From Blue Bar?”
“Where’s Chris?”
“I thought so! Phil right? Filipino Phil! Chris had some blow and I said ‘Where did you get this shit? This is some good shit.’ And he said: ‘From my buddy Filipino Phil. He’s always got the good shit.”
Conner had never been referred to as Filipino Phil in his life but he was too focused on the matter at hand to be offended and while the waiter was an idiot, he did have Checkavitz’s address in his phone. Back on the elevator Conner fantasized of hanging Checkavitz off of the Bay Bridge like the scene at the beginning of the movie where Wesley Snipes plays a drug kingpin and Ice T played an undercover cop. Ice T had a line where he said: “I want to shoot you so bad right now, my dick is hard.” Conner wasn’t sure if he hated or loved that line.
A short time later, on Bush Street:
Liz was concerned that she may have hit a wall. She was twenty six years old and there was nothing happening in her work that was engaging, nothing in her personal life of any interest, and everything else was fast becoming repetitive and dull. She would have jumped on some sort of cause and made it her own but Iraq was the only thing happening that anyone cared about. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon and making it their thing. She desperately needed her own thing.
When she spotted Henry in the hall of their building, all greasy and homeless looking, she jumped at the opportunity to make his well being her short term personal project. She took him by the arm and demanded that she buy him lunch. He protested, mumbling something about just getting paid, and being an actor and- “Save it,” she said. She knew it was simply a ploy to hide the fact that he was depressed and out of work.
They caught the N-Judah and got off right in front of Touch of Taste, where her roommate Ana waited tables. Ana’s section was full and they were placed against the wall by the other waiter Frank, with the bone piercing through his nose.
“I wish you would have let me shower,” Henry said.
“We would have missed Ana’s shift and not gotten the employee discount. Why didn’t you shower this morning?”
“I didn’t get around to it.”
“You had a lot to do?”
Henry gave her a look and Liz realized she was being condescending. The waiter came to take their order and Henry said he wanted the pesto chicken.
“Oh dude, no you don’t,” Frank gave a wary glance around and adjusted the bone in his nose. “I know for a fact that they use basil in the pesto that was grown using Multiorg nutrients. You know Multiorg right?”
Liz and Henry looked up at him dumbly.
“Oh my God you guys! They’re the fucking assholes that force the little farmers to buy their seeds and nutrients or else they force them out of business by blowing the seeds on to the farmer’s land and proving that the farmer stole their seed, even though the little farmer didn’t even know about the stupid seeds getting blown over there.”
Liz wasn’t sure if she was totally following what Frank was saying but she got the gist. A large corporation was abusing the little guy. She smacked her palm on the table and said: “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Multiorg’s corporate offices are right here in the city. There’s supposed to be a protest tomorrow downtown. Multiorg is in Latin America pumping weird toxins into the soil so they can grow the coffee beans faster or something. People are super duper pissed about it.”
“It’s going to be a big protest?” asked Liz.
“Probably not. They were trying to get the word out but then Paul Wolfawitz is coming to town to speak at some fundraiser, so everyone’s going there to protest the Bush Administration.”
It was almost too good to be true. A protest for a cause that Liz could believe in that would be sparsely attended and already organized on a Saturday. She felt elated and ordered the crab cake sliders for both herself and Henry, who gave her another dark look.
Henry said: “Who Paul Wolfawitz?”
Frank wrote down the order, then said: “Don’t look now guys but Daniel Day-Lewis is sitting right over there.”
They both looked. Sure enough, there was the actor Daniel Day-Lewis, sitting a little off to the side by himself in the corner, sipping gingerly at his soup.
“What’s he doing here?” Liz whispered.
“He’s playing Monk in the movie version of the TV show. He’s been coming in every day. I think they’re shooting some of it in the park.
“I was in a movie today,” said Henry.
Both Liz and Frank ignored him. Liz said: “That’s the show where the detective is a hypochondriac?”
“He’s in character all the time,” Frank explained. “We have to be super careful when we serve him. I have to hand him his glass with a stupid towel and everything. But he seems like a nice enough guy though.”
Daniel Day-Lewis looked up from his table like he could sense they were talking about him. He quickly pushed out from his chair and fled through the front of the restaurant.
The crab cakes came quickly, then Ana made it to their table, flustered, upset, black hair spread and pasted to her forehead.
“I think I’m going to quit,” she said.
“Oh honey,” Liz sensed that she might have come across another crisis that she could possibly make her own
“We’re busy and the dishwasher never showed up,” Ana explained. “We’re running out of dishes and there’s stacks up to the ceiling back there.”
Liz was struck with inspiration. She pointed across the table at her companion.
“Henry can do it! He needs work.”
“I’m sort of an actor now,” Henry said.
“Oh come on sweetie. How long is that going to last? You need a real job and Ana needs help. This is perfect!
Henry’s face tightened a bit before he shrugged his shoulders and said: “I'll do what I can. Show me where to go.”
Ana led Henry to the back and Liz finished her crab cakes by herself, content that she had accomplished her short term goal of contributing to a friend’s well being.
That evening, across the water in the East Bay:
The address Conner had gotten off the waiter was in North Berkeley, nearly ten blocks from the BART station on Sacramento Street. Conner hadn’t walked that much in years. The muscles in his legs had started to tighten up but the anger kept him going. It wasn’t money, it was principle God damn it, and he would be freaking God damned if he was going to go home empty handed.
He didn’t want to appear like he was tripping at first so he had spent two weeks casually tracking down Checkawitz. The search consisted of calling Chris’s phone multiple times a day and popping into the Blue Bar every few nights in hopes of catching him at his regular stool. Despite the effort, Conner had come up empty. Irritation had sharpened itself into a concentrated anger, not just for Chris, the conniving little busta ass mark, but anger with himself as well.
He would have never loaned anyone ten hits of E but it was New Years and everyone was having a good time. Plus, Chris had three girls with him and Conner wanted to make out with at least one of them. Plus, Conner was high on E himself, along with a couple of other pills and too much alcohol. Plus, he sort of considered Chris Checkavitz a friend.
Not that he knew him well, they were just buddies from hanging out at the Blue Bar on a regular basis, drinking buddies, which should have meant something in a cold unforgiving world full of fast food, war, house music, etc. Unfortunately, they weren’t close enough to where Conner knew where Checkavitz lived, which only started to matter once the rat bastard punk owed him money.
He got to an old house next to a gas station on San Pablo Avenue, double checked the address, then knocked on the door. A chubby college kid with a receding hairline answered.
“Where’s Chris at?” Conner growled.
“In his room I guess.”
The chub led the way down the hall and knocked on the door to Chris’s room, no answer.
“I guess he’s out,” the kid said. “You got any weed?”
Conner had a little over an eighth for his own use but could part with it if the fatty agreed to smoke him out, which he did. They smoked two blunts and then another roommate came home and they smoked a third with him. Then they began playing video games and Conner was at peace; stoned in a pixelated world of first person shooters.
“Hey, when is Chris supposed to be home?” the fat kid asked the other room mate.
The roommate was a white boy with long curly hair, and he ran his hand through it, trying to get his mind to work again after the blunt.
“He’s gone for a minute. He has that whole thing with his bowels.”
“His bowels?” Conner asked, breaking from the television.
“He has a problem,” the roommate explained. “He’s been in the Oakland Kaiser for like a week.”
“Yeah, I forgot,” the chubby one said. “We were supposed to visit him yesterday but we missed visiting hours. They’re only five to seven. Fucking assholes.”
The three of them smoked one more blunt and then Conner left, embarking on the long walk back to the BART station. The exercise was killing his high but he was satisfied. He had tracked Chris Chekavitz down, he was closing in, like Tommy Lee Jones in that Harrison Ford movie about the man with the one arm.
The Next Morning, in the San Francisco Financial District:
Liz couldn’t have imagined a more perfect day to protest a multinational corporation; the sun was blazing down onto the glass and steel of downtown, the sky clear and blue, it was perfect. She had made a series of calls the night before and rallied a few friends to join the cause. Bristol and Amy from work had shown up as had Schutzer, who was overjoyed to be a part of something American and political. Other protesters had turned out in force, but not too much force, just about thirty five people in all really, and regardless, there was a television crew posted near the Multiorg Plaza taking it all in.
Liz was in the middle of trying to explain to Schutzer her limited understanding of Multiorg’s policies when the naked men showed up. Some were on bikes, others on foot, but whatever their mode of transportation they were naked, except for shoes and socks and the occasional pair of sandals. They marched into the Multiorg plaza, stopping short when they found another group of people already gathered.
A round, sunburnt man stepped forward, wearing only a thick beard and a pair of New Balances.
“Who is in charge here?” he demanded.
“I organized this protest,” said a tiny gray haired woman with a fanny pack. Liz could tell the woman was desperately trying to avoid glancing at the man’s penis.
“Well, can you move this whole thing over to the Embarcadero or something? We’re kind of here to do our thing.”
“And what would that be?” the woman with the fanny pack shot back. The naked men began to mutter amongst themselves. The bearded man pointed up at the thirty story Multiorg building, striking what he probably imagined was a gallant pose.
“The people in that building do not allow you to enter the premises unclothed. We are exercising our right to demand that we can exercise our right to remove the false skin that society pressures us to wear. We’ve been planning this for like, three weeks!”
“We’ve been planning our’s for four,” the woman said. She put a bullhorn to her lips and addressed the crowd: “Five, six, seven, eight, Multiorg is who we hate!”
The bearded man turned red under his sunburn, took a step forward, and ripped the bullhorn from the woman’s hands, throwing it twenty five feet out into the parking lot where it smashed to pieces.
“How dare you!” the woman cried and slapped him across the beard.
Chaos erupted as clothed protester took arms against unclothed protester. Bodies fell left and right, fists sank into full bellies, in some especially vicious pockets, blood flew.
Liz found herself against a man as naked and hairless as a newborn. His eyes bulged with rage as he leapt forward, a crazed ape, shoving her backwards. With eight years of catching softball from middle to high school, Liz kept her footing.
The hairless man threw a punch that went wild and Liz became desperate, moving in close and clutching him by the arms. Unfortunately, a sweat had broken out all over the man’s soft pink body, and Liz’s grip slipped down his wrists and then off completely. The man cocked back and threw another punch, this time catching her just above the left eye.
Liz was on her back, lights flashing in front of her, the battle raging about her. She stared up into blue sky and could see wisps of fog floating in from the bay high above them. Then the sky was gone and Liz was staring into the face of a man, a beautiful man, blond bangs hanging over one of his eyes like a perfect angel.
“Dude, that naked asshole totally punched you,” the angel said.
Meanwhile, at Touch of Taste:
They were out of glasses again and to make matters worse, Toby the manager had shown up and was giving Ana the eye. The eye was ugly, enlarged and probing, entrenched in a dry purple bag of skin below the socket.
“He’s your friend little girl. You recommended him.”
Toby pointed towards the kitchen and Ana went, passed the ovens and cooks and smells, all the way to the dungeon of steam, where they kept the dishwasher.
“We really need some glasses out here Henry. What’s the hold up?”
Henry appeared around a tower of food stained plates that leaned precariously in the entrance.
“What about plates?” he said.
“Those can wait. We need glasses right now.”
A bus boy that Toby referred to as ‘Dipshit’ stormed up behind Ana and said: “We need plates. Where are they?”
“Okay, I guess we need plates too Henry.”
“And silverware!”
“And silverware.”
Toby came up behind the busboy, the eye probing through the steam.
“Mr. Day-Lewis is here,” he announced. “He needs a water glass immediately.”
Henry swung around and handed a wine glass to the busboy who was clotheslined by Toby on his way to the kitchen.
“Little girl! I want you waiting on Mr. Day-Lewis, not Dipshit.”
Ana rushed the glass to the bar on her tray, sloshed water into it, then headed onto the floor. She was only a few steps from Daniel Day Lewis’s table when she noticed the lipstick residue plastered along the rim of the glass. She stopped short, ready to backpedal, when the shiny bald man sitting at the actor’s table noticed her and said: “Here’s your water Monk. It’s finally arrived.”
Ana tried to retreat but the man’s long pale fingers were already wrapped around the glass, bringing it down to the actor. Daniel Day-Lewis took it lightly and raised it to his lips, only to freeze when his eyes caught the lipstick close up.
“It’s, it’s, oh no. The lips, oh god. It’s, it’s......”
Ana finally realized that she did know who Daniel Day-Lewis was, he had been in the movie about the guy who was disabled and had to paint using his left foot. She had liked that one.
“What is it Monk?” the bald man said. “What’s the problem?”
“I can’t, I can’t. It’s just all over it. I can’t just, I can’t just-”
The actor pushed back from his seat, breathing hard, sweating, then both he and the bald man were headed out the door. Toby rushed out from the kitchen and picked the glass up off of the table, turning it under the lights.
“Tell your friend to pack his shit and leave,” he said before dropping the glass to the floor where it shattered to pieces. Ana went to the bar to get a broom.
A few hours later, on the fourth floor of the Kaiser in Oakland:
Conner signed in with the nurse and made his way down the hallway towards Room R4, where Chris Checkavitz was listed. The situation reminded Conner of the scene from the Al Pacino movie where the old Italian played a Puerto Rican and had to go into a hospital to wack Sean Penn for betraying him.
Chris Checkavitz was in the bed closest to the door, looking thin and a faded pale green. Conner glanced over at the two other beds, taking in the man in the full body cast and the old drunk snoring loudly. He would have to watch his words, he didn’t want witnesses repeating threats he made when he unloaded on Checkavitz.
“Chris,” he said and then the backstabbing, payducking, little rat looked over from where he had been staring dully at the wall. Conner was about to say: “Didn’t think you’d see me here did you?” or “What made you think you could duck me you little ass bitch?” but before he could get to any of his carefully prepared remarks both of Chris Checkavitz’s eyes filled with tears that began to gush out in long salty streaks along the greenish skin of his face.
Chris was trying to speak but the tears and the mucus were getting in the way, causing him to make horribly wet slurping sounds that sort of resembled words. The tears were falling all over the sheets and the blanket and the hospital gown. It quickly became too much for Conner and he snatched a dry towel from where it sat by the bed, handing it over to the tear stained man.
“Th, th, thank you,” Chris said.
“Jesus, get a hold of yourself homie, damn.”
Chris blew his nose and let the towel drop limply into his lap as he lay back against the pillows. The tears were still coming but weaker now, the rivers slowed to creeks. Conner was forced to speak first.
“What’s going on with you? Your room-mates said it was your bowels or something?”
Chris nodded weakly and said: “You're the only one that’s come down here, you know that?”
Conner wasn’t sure what to say to that and just stood there awkwardly.
“My mom lives ten minutes away,” Chris said, blinking the tears away. “But she doesn’t like hospitals. ‘I don’t like sick people,” she says. ‘But Mom, I’m a sick person. Come down here.” No sign of her. There’s no one. My room-mates were supposed to come but never showed up. No one from work came or even checked in on me.”
“I think you might’a got fired,” Conner said and Chris became even more pale.
“They had to cut six feet of my lower intestine out,” he said. “If they hadn’t I would have died maybe. I’ve been sitting here thinking about what it all means and what really matters. My life has been empty up till now and I don’t have nothing to show for it.”
Conner was worried the tears were going to come again. He said: “You’ve gotten with some fine chicks in your time. That’s got to mean something. We’ve partied hella hard a few nights. We’ve gotten super high a bunch of times. Nothing can take that away from you homie.”
Chris Checkawitz looked up from the bed and gave a weak smile.
“Youre a true friend Conner. The only one I got. You're the only one who showed up here and that means a lot to me.”
Conner nodded his head solemnly. He sat down in the chair next to Chris’s bed and they watched Law and Order together until visiting time was over and Conner had to leave. He wanted to leave something for the sick man, reaching into his pocket and only coming up with one solitary E pill that must have gotten loose randomly. He placed it on the Chris’s food tray and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder, then he left.
Later that night, on Cumberland Street in San Francisco:
Trying to to keep at least one of his careers intact, Henry had gone door to door and gathered everyone from the building on Bush Street that he knew, asking that they dress in their oldest and most ragged clothes. With Conner missing, Henry only knew four of the residents well enough to ask for help: Phil and Karl from 5C, old Miss Baldwin the communist, and of course Liz, who had gotten herself a black eye earlier that day, which only made her homeless look more credible.
They had all took a cab together, stuffed in, with Miss Baldwin warning about her bad hip, and had arrived at the film shoot right around 9:30 where they found people gathered but nothing happening. The wooden barriers were being removed, the tape taken down. Various union workers were sitting idle along the sidewalk with coffee and cigarettes. Henry spotted the girl with the tinted dreadlocks and got her attention.
"Bad news brother, Daniel Day Lewis quit. We're shutting down," she said.
"But I brought more homeless."
Henry pointed at his friends for the woman to see, spending an extra moment motioning towards Liz's black eye. The dreadlocked woman shrugged sadly.
"I'm really sorry everybody," she said. "I'm sorry about your situation and I'm sorry about the situation with the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis had some sort of freak out and flew to Ireland to be a cobbler. Rumor has it that the OCD became too much for him and Nick Cage is taking over the role of Monk. It’s also become apparent that it’s just too expensive to shoot here in San Francisco. We’re going to complete the film on a lot down south. If you can hitch a ride down there you can join the production when we pick up, but to be honest.....we already have plenty of our own homeless in LA."
With nothing to do, the crew from the building on Bush street walked a few blocks to the Lone Tree Bar and began ordering each other drinks they couldn't really afford. Henry bought Liz a martini and she bought him a whiskey and then Conner showed up from the BART station and they bought him two shots of tequila. Ana came over from work and Conner bought her a Captain and Coke.
They all raised their glasses, and while Henry was disappointed, he didn't necessarily feel depressed, which was a relief. Tomorrow he would wake up on Conner's couch, and sure, that was depressing, but he was positive that if he at least went out into the world and engaged it, something would change. He was positive.
“Tony said you can come back to the restaurant if you want,” Ana told him after her third drink. “Frank got fired for bad mouthing the food so Dipshit moved up to waiter and now we need a busboy. All you do is bring people water, no dish washing."
Henry used the rest of his money to buy Ana a fourth drink. After that, he was truly broke, so Conner bought Henry a drink saying he was flush after collecting on a debt
"Punk tried to duck me but I finally caught up with his ass you know what I mean," Conner explained. "It was just like a Mafia movie, you know what I mean. I came up on him and was like: 'Yo, how much money you got? You got any money? Give it up you little rat, you little rat you!' Then he did and it was all good. Ain't anybody gonna take me for no shit, f’real."
"I met a man today," Liz said. "He’s out there fighting for the common good, trying to make the world a better place to live for the next generation. We have so much in common.”
“God, you sound like you're in love,” Ana said. “That’s gross.”
They left at closing and since there were too many people for a cab, they decided to walk home. They were a few blocks from the bar when they found someone projecting an old black and white film onto the wall of the building opposite their apartment. Flapper girls ten feet tall danced around silently among the brick. Old Miss Baldwin was drunk and danced in front of the projection. It was like watching one of the flappers reappear in old age, and everyone laughed uncomfortably.
