this is turkeydinner.

I feel the burn in my knees and up my thighs as I pedal faster and faster, pulling up on the clips to make the light. I am tearing across town on my bike — aptly named Apocalypse Bike — towards North Beach for a party that at first I didn’t want to go to. However, as I’ve set myself up for leaving this wonderful city of San Francisco in as many months, I want to make en effort to explore her one last time.

Riding fast I make a move that angers the impatient out-of-towners in their Mustang behind me. We both spout off unintelligible swears and insults as I continue. With my hand ready on my U-lock, they pass me, but I think better of it. Instead I race up to the stop light they were so anxious to get to, whip around in front of them and zig-zag between cars and up the street at top speed hitting North Beach in a matter of seconds. A feat that will surely take them considerably longer. I smile.

About an hour and a half later, I’m back in the saddle, speeding through downtown on my way to the Potrero Hill dive call Thee Parkside. I’m going for a friend’s birthday party, but checked the ‘Net to see that it’s also “Bob’s Going Away Party.” No cover, nice.

Blasting past inattentive peds and whipping by a gaggle of girls, barely making out their “oohs and ahhs” at one of those “bike guys, I get a text message. Taking a breather (there was a red light anyway), I check it: commands to head to Space Gallery on Polk Street for a fashion show, she tells me. Sure why not.

Shooting up Polk St., I arrive, grab a drink and idle the time away as we wait for her next show. Pulsing dub fills the room. Kids rhyme and rhyme again as we didn’t hear it the first time. Then. I see her. (I’m always showing God, or myself, or the universe, the women that I encounter and how they might have that certain something I desire. Often they are already taken or in some other way unattainable, but I tell the universe anyway: “Like that, like her… something like her.”) She of course is with her boyfriend but that doesn’t diminish her impact.

My friend comes back from the restroom and I tell her about my dream girl. “Oh yeah? Show me.” she asks. Eventually I see her again. “Whoa,” she says, “that’s my friend and one of the designers!” “See? I told you I have expensive tastes.”

Guffaw, guffaw.

Ten minutes later and many yellowish-red lights passed, I’m at Thee Parkside. The usual suspects are still here, though about to leave. I chug a glass of water, and talk with the pretty girl I’ve been seeing around the past couple days. Of course, she’s got an itch to leave SF too, but hers is perhaps premature and has to do with school. I’m too old and jaded for that good of a reason. Bob takes the stage and halts our conversation.

I’d almost forgotten about Bob and his going away party. He’s a big guy, though not too tall, wearing a red tee-shirt and topped with a coif of hair never allowed to touch his temples. “I’m going to Iraq,” he tells us, quieting the remaining murmurs in the room. He tells us that we are his friends, his family, his comrades from the Bayshore base, his PD buddies and we’re all here to say goodbye to him.

Bob rattles off the names of his friends and family already there. At this, his wife, a bleach blonde rockabilly chick standing behind him, begins to weep while holding on to a slight smile. The drunks in the room chase away the sudden and unwelcome emotion with more drink. I’m rapt. His wife takes the mic and tells us how hard it is to be an army wife in San Francisco. I can only imagine.

My own desire to leave the City is now suddenly dwarfed. It’s selfish. It’s running away. It’s blaming the City for my circumstance in life. The pretty girl’s reasons are innocent, pure, necessary. But Bob has little or no choice. Maybe he’s convinced himself that he wants to, that he has to do this. Maybe he didn’t need convincing, I can only speak from where I’m standing and perspective is a bitch. All I know is that Bob’s journey is the most profound and that he’ll be back. I know because he told me.

“I will be back. I very much believe in victory… and peace.
Victory and peace.”