Jumper
We first saw him around five o’clock, when a delicate brunette was being rung up at the counter for a pair of black jeans that, we assured her, fit her deliciously. Two of us were standing by the door, making notes on the window displays, and saw him. Then the rest saw that we saw [...]

43 Masonic | Lombard and Lyon Streets

When people ask me how I spent my teenage years, I tell them a lot of different things.  Sometimes I try to describe the political and social climate of San Francisco during the late 1970s and early 1980s, or talk about spending evenings at Baker Beach, the Palace [...]

Off of Washington Street near Grant, you’ll find an unassuming little byway cutting you a path toward Jackson Street. You’ll see tourists clustered in front of the fortune cookie factory, locals toting pink bags of groceries, laundry hung out to dry on the fire escapes high above the storefronts. You’ll see signs for acupuncture, the [...]

barely afternoon black sky arms and legs scent creaking against broad ridden dirt perfectly safe blue had spent a life repairing mangled bones crushed maxillas collapsed cheekbones torn lips hamburger meat bits of cement and asphalt embedded skin rumbling idle of steam age combined weight on one foot accelerated clacked into turns leaned all she [...]

From the Poverty Hero Series
January 1, 2001
Ibaro Ago Juba (Song for Elegua)
Eshu Eshu. His body felt wet. Wet and yet covered—wet and cold in a new way, in a dead way. Was he awake? The Orisha Elegua was waking him up… Eshu Eshu Layiki. He heard the first words, the praise name for Elegua—a road [...]

On Labor Day 2007 I escaped from Alcatraz, braving the September waters of San Francisco Bay.
Only three times did I make the mistake of looking back at the Rock and thought to myself, “Doesn’t that damn island ever get any smaller?” as rollers broke in my face and toxic salt water went up my nose.
“The [...]

Chick Perkins’ cherry ’59 Chevy roars up the Great Highway. In the darkness, headlamps reveal only the moment of road before him, and if he didn’t know this stretch like his face in a mirror it might seem a mystery. But a road doesn’t change. Once you know it, you know it, and following it’ll [...]

An Interview with Shari Mueller
It was Christmas Eve, 1974, and a girlfriend of mine was supposed to visit from L.A. but she canceled at the last minute. I felt a little upset, so I decided to go for a walk. Everything was closed for the holiday. I lived right off Union Street and I was [...]

“Let’s move to the Mission,” Maggie says. We’re lying diagonally across the bed, my prick turning soft beneath the covers.
It’s hard to hear her over my post-coital breathing. “You could use a change in scenery, and there’s so much going on.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunt. She knows how much I hate that neighborhood.
On the sidewalk, bums sell [...]

What do we remember about this place?
Those of us who can remember being children here remember the feeling of cold, the smell of eucalyptus, and hunger. Not serious African hunger; hunger from never being home, having no pocket money, no one telling us to eat, no packed lunches.
We would go to the Chinese restaurant and [...]