Don't Cry for Me, San Francisco
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"What is wrong with your English today?" she inquired. "Such twisted syntax from a brilliant writer." "It’s due to your arrival. I am undone by excitement." "Merci, merci beaucoup, but I don’t believe a word of it." "Now tell me the truth. Why did Smitty decide to run for Congress?" Easing myself out of the scene, as best I could, I said, "He didn’t. He was drafted by the Party. It seems that their stable of bright young studs were lacking in electable material. Smitty was a sure thing. In order to save the seat from a conservative Republican, he gave his all to the cause." "I don’t believe a word of it. No Republican will ever be elected to the House from San Francisco." "I don’t believe it either. All I know is that he didn’t want to do it. Maybe in two years, he will step down and throw his weight behind you, babe. As out town is becoming a nonwhite majority, there would be no contest with you on the ticket. Officially, neither sexism nor homophobia exists in out town. Glass ceilings are falling up and down Montgomery Street. It’s either remove them willingly or end up with shards in your teeth." "Perhaps I will run, if Smitty steps down." As we waited for the carousel to bring her luggage, she asked, "Wonder what Smitty does for sex. It’s public knowledge that he and his wife live separate lives in secret. Seeing the humor in her words, she giggled. A bit shaken, I responded thusly, "I have no idea." "One thing we know for sure. That horny and handsome piece of meat is pleasing someone somewhere. Don’t you agree?" "Oh, yes," I replied, fixing my eyes on incoming luggage. "I do agree." "But let’s talk about us. I am thrilled to be home. I assume that your second bedroom is still mine for the taking." "Indudable!" I responded. "Tres bien!" I love you, mon coeur. I could be in love with you, but I know better than to fall into that abyss. We shall be loving friends and I shall try and pry into your secret love life, which should make a good book. Probably a sexual dictionary. "But today," she began, looking me up and down with those mesmerizing slanted eyes, "There is a difference and I sense it keenly. A new herb has been added to the sauce. There is no doubt about it" she declared, nose twitching. "I am taking a lot of vitamins," I declared. Claire disregarded an attempt at insouciance. "If your calendar is overbooked, sexually speaking, then there is Mario and his Italian sausage in the next cottage." "Unfortunately, for the sexually deprived in San Francisco, Mario is on vacation in Italy. His presence there should raise the Italian birthrate a bit while many San Franciscans go unrequited." "Quelle domage," Claire declared, a prelude to her next question: "Have you ever had sex with Mario?" "No." "Then you have missed an unforgettable experience." Claire shivered from remembered ecstasy.
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About the Book
Don’t Cry for Me, San Francisco
Shock was not necessarily the goal of this writer in choosing an in-your-face attitude toward gays, lesbians, bi-’s, straights, and the sexually confused. The writer’s goal was to be authentic in the telling of what life is like in San Francisco where all the fortunate ones live and love and die.
With the pain and blood from police nightsticks now a memory, gays and lesbians have become a political power structure and one or the other will probably follow Willie Brown into the Mayor’s office. With historical precedence, we can say that the more Baghdad-by-the-Bay changes the more it remains the same. In the most integrated city in our country, cultures mix well. Most noticeably, the haute monde mixes well with the gay glitterati, while on a dark street in some crumbling neighborhood, sounds of violins blend with the haunting laments of the authentic tango that may be danced by a blue-collar type with bulging biceps who handles his black male lover with terpsichorean dexterity. So authentic is the place, the music and the dance that for awhile old timers forget that they are not in Buenos Aires. San Francisco is often spoken of as a collage of colors and sounds and nothing seen is quite what it suggests. Ambiguity reigns, in the City by the bay, and long may she wave.
About the Author
I see him lying on his stomach in front of a fireplace. He was three years of age and trying to copy words from an empty Nabisco cracker box. I often wonder if the words meant anything to him at that tender age. He was scribbling before he started to school; he wrote his first short story at the age of nine. Years later, he returned to the family home and made his way to the attic that was just off the room where he was born, hoping to read his first masterpiece. Fate is sometimes kind: the rats had chewed their way into the child’s trunk where his story had been hidden. All that remained was a load of confetti. Throughout his process of education, the more he wrote the more he ran from it. For a number of years, he thought that he was running from his talent, only to discover that he was running toward it. When asked if someone should take up writing, his standard response is this: "Don’t write if you can possibly avoid it, and if it becomes a compulsion, then do it. Otherwise, life won’t be worth a damn!" Emmett Shields