Fever dream that happened in real life
When an entire night doesn't make sense
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The Soul Collection
Nothing about this story is going to sound real. I’m linking in the story “Jeffs prayers” because it somehow feels related.
It will sound like I was in drugs or that my mental state should be in question. To be transparent, both may or many be true and yes my mental health is in question at all times. Blame capitalism. But on this night, it shouldn’t have been. I’ve tried to write and recall this story several times but the more I think about it, the stranger it gets.
*In my Sophia from Golden Girls voice* Picture it… San Francisco 2024.
The evening started with watching a very meta stoner movie for CAAM movie festival at the Roxie in SF. Afterwards, I wanted to take in a moment in the city because I wasn’t ready to go home yet. And then several strange things happened.
I walked into the aptly named bar, Delirum for a shot of whiskey.
There were no seats when I first arrived but then I turned around and as if meant for me, a seat opened up. I never did this anymore. Just sit in a bar alone.
The noise of the bar was saying everything, nothing and soothing all at the same time. A place to sit in anonymity and overhear two women dressed in SF Giants gear who ‘felt’ like tourists pretending to be locals.
To my left, a man holding his phone camera facing me. While I was accustomed to be a spectacle, this was too odd. I said to him “You're gripping that phone pretty tight.” He chuckled but said nothing, laid his phone down and took a sip from the beer he appeared to be nursing since I sat down.
And then a strange thing seemed to happened— the energy shifted the room and I don't know why I noticed as a man in a yellow shirt walked in with a man with in a motorcycle jacket. The yellow shirt man bumped into my back as he was exiting. Again, something had shifted and I NEEDED to finish my drink and leave this bar.
I stood outside briefly and watched the cars drive by.
A skater kid began heading in my direction as if I was the one he needed to weave his tale of woe and heartbreak to. I sighed as I gave an audible “Nope” as I began to walk away. He called after me “Aww I thought you would want to hear this. You seem like a cool person.” It was intentional but why this was meant for me to hear didn’t sit well with me.
He said he had been in a relationship for a year and half that he needed to end because she had been far too controlling. He couldn't be who he wanted to be and she didn't like his friends. She demanded he be something he couldn't be or rather he wasn't ready to be. So he needed to let her go no matter how much she didn't want it to end. Then a car pulled up in the middle of the street with another man yelling “We gotta go!” and skater kid hopped in.
The story was familiar, close to home but so inexact, out of place and out nowhere that I couldn’t connect it. But as familiar stories go it hit a heart center. I ducked into another bar— Gestalt. The word means “an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.”
Nothing was making sense. The movie I had just watched, that story I was just told by a complete strangers or the conversation that I had next.
I sat down at the back of Gestalt. A handwritten sign said “Cash only” and I didn’t have any. The bartender said behind the bar said it had been a strange, busy night. I looked around at the near empty bar for the busyness to which she was referring. It was oddly empty for a Saturday night in the Mission.
While a man ranted about turning California into two different states at the manager, the manager barely listening was texting until he looked up at me to ask for my order and let me know he took Venmo. I ordered a glass of Chardonnay.
Then a young man sat in the seat next to me. He had arrived in town a week prior from Madison, Wisconsin for a position in medical sales. “I’ve always wanted to work in medical sales.” I responded “Really?!” because… who has “always” wanted to work in medical sales. He wanted to know what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. Was I going to work in movies? What was my next move? Curious.
Here I was trying to figure out moment to moment just this one night. Hell I was still trying to figure out the first interaction and this man wanted to know essentially “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”
Over the past few months, nothing has had rhyme or reason. People were moving targets, information was all over the place and my internal bells were ringing but I couldn’t figure out what or who for. It felt like I was being pulled, pushed, prodded coaxed and coached but to what end? And for whose benefit?
I left the bar and walked up the block to my car but stopped to listen to a man playing a guitar. It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t want to hear a story from someone, I didn’t want to figure anything out. All I wanted was to sit down for a moment. The music and the musician was the last and only place that felt safe. When he stopped playing, it didn’t anymore. I thanked him for letting me sit and made my way home.