The union hall sits near the corner of Fremont and Harrison Streets on the down slope of the hill running toward the Financial District. One of those neighborhoods on the fulcrum of urban development, teetering between the upscale and derelict. A walk inside the massive hall reveals a space the size of a small basketball arena. Only this one is populated not with a throng of spectators but with hollow-eyed merchant mariners, scattered in seats along the walls biding their time until the next ship is theirs to claim. It could be just a matter of minutes until the next hourly job call or as long as many weeks until they find work. It was into this setting that I popped the cherry on my San Francisco sailing career. But first I would have to survive the ‘Loin.

The Tenderloin District, or “Loin” as it’s comfortably known, has been called “the worst neighborhood in San Francisco.” It blasts you with so many left hooks to the senses: Dodging past the aggressive pushers leaning on parked cars along O’Farrell. The homeless thrusting the “Street Sheet” in your face. Transvestites who wouldn’t resemble the opposite sex even after you’ve drained an entire fifth with the lights turned off. Nostrils being filled by the stench of piss mixed with stale rainwater in the gutter.

There are two differing, yet equally valid ways of fully describing the district. Through the sobriety of a tea-totaler, looking upon the urban decay via objective eyes clear of the film of life’s worn lens. Or, inhaled through the red-veined, bulbous nose of the lush who can feel the neighborhood’s rhythm, much like only the heroin- racked personas of Bird or Coltrane could truly feel jazz’s “harmonic dissonance.” It’s like favoring the City shrouded in the Pacific Fog or preferring the clarity of its Golden Gate gleaming in the sunlight.

Sometimes I would walk the darkened blocks of the Tenderloin, to escape the solitude of my dingy hotel room. Despite the potential dangers lurking behind the dark shadows or the distant gunshots, the thought of harm never entered my mind. Can’t explain the reason. There isn’t a good reason. No man in his right mind should do that. There’s cause to dislike the place. It’s a vile place. But there’s so much energy in the neighborhood that its flavor stays with you like the taste of long-lasting chewing gum. Or like a hangover. Bad experience or no, it is an experience. Experience imprints. Why do we like prison movies and car wrecks? Why do we identify with our captors? Because. They’ve bombarded our psyches. For better or worse.

Though I was new to the union game, without any clue how long it might take to land a ship, a couple of seafarers in the hall made it clear that a man of little seniority might have to wait it out for days or weeks. All of these strangers were potential competition for jobs, and they were not turning over the cards on the table. Poker, it was. I would just have to learn for myself how this game was played.

I registered with the grouchy union official behind the counter; the look in his eyes was that of a man whose father I had murdered. This even though I was a member in good standing with dues up to date. Didn’t the official work for us, the membership? New guys like me were apparently not to be trusted. Maybe one day, when my seniority had climbed high enough, I would earn the right to greet the union man behind the counter with the words “fuck you!” At least the old-time members milling around seemed to be that brave.

First on the agenda was grabbing a hotel. Looking through the glass doors across the street revealed the Apostleship of the Sea, a Catholic mission, but that seemed to be a possibility only if the alternative was the sidewalk. Six bunk beds to a room sleeping with your possessions at your side? Not a chance. I needed something cheap in case my stay would run a few weeks. I didn’t need something approximating a homeless shelter.

“Could you tell me where to find some inexpensive lodging in the area?”

Silence. The grouch behind the counter gave me a scowl and pointed his thumb toward a sheet tacked upon the bulletin board in the southwest corner. On it was a list of the names of half a dozen hotels indicating discounts to seafarers. Classy standards like the St. Francis or Argent Hotels did not appear on the sheet, you can be sure of that. Instead, the names brought images of neon lights blinking through ancient blinds onto the face of a movie gumshoe in black and white. You know, ugly couch full of cigarette burns, empty whiskey bottle on the table, aluminum foil snaking from the rabbit ear antennas. One of the names, however, brought a neutral reaction. Sometimes, neutral is good as gold, as illustrious as the aforementioned St. Francis. What could be read into the name “Iroquois Hotel?” Actually sounded kind of respectable.

“Where’s O’Farrell Street?” I asked.

“It’s in the Tenderloin,” grunted Popeye, an eighty-something year-old pensioner seated in the corner near the exit I was headed for. His conversation with the invisible parrot on his shoulder indicated a nutcase. The white flattop, weathered face, and neck scar indicated a man to be weary of. But the deep blue eyes showed kindness. Anyone who’s made a 50-year career on ships and is still not buried at sea is a survivor, and a man of character. For sea years are like dog years, not as bad, maybe only three years to one instead of seven to one.

At the Transbay Bus Terminal – or unofficially – ‘The Homeless Hostel’. I took the 38 Geary Line into the ‘Loin. A 20-minute ride drove me along Market Street, turned right diagonally onto Geary, and took me about eight blocks into the 800 block of the street. Jumping off, I looked at my city map and followed the path I had drawn in pencil. Walking north one block to O’Farrell, I turned in the direction of downtown until reaching the steps of the building with the big Iroquois Hotel sign. If indeed the name conveyed respectable lodging, the fire escapes hanging on the worn structure then had to be a façade, literally and figuratively. But once inside the lobby, it was clear that this establishment had long passed by its glory days. Now, it seemed like any other old city hotel with secrets to tell.

“I’d like a single.” Since the entire lobby reeked of cigarette smoke long imbedded into the wallpaper, it was pointless asking for a non-smoking room.

“Sorry. Don’t got no vacancies.” The manager could have doubled for the grouchy union official behind the counter at the hall. I did a double take. Filled? No way. Only if there was a drunk convention in the neighborhood. Was I not “respectable” enough looking to be deemed worthy of staying in his hardly respectable establishment?

“But they told me down at the union hall that you catered to seafarers.”

“Oh, well why didn’t you just say you ship out in the first place? Yeah, we can take care of you.” Apparently I had broken the code of entry.

“What’s the rate?”

“One forty-five a week.”

“I’ll take it.”

The first week inf was strictly business. Get up. Bathe in the nasty tub after first removing the occasional dead cockroach. Breakfast at the diner inside the Transbay Terminal. Hang around the hall on Fremont from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. in the hopes of landing a ship. Losing out on jobs to members with greater seniority. Walking the 20 minutes back to the Iroquois, grabbing a sandwich from a corner deli on the way. Attempting to watch TV on the black-and-white set in the room with a broken vertical hold. Going to bed. And doing it all over again the next day. After hearing gunshots the first night, I decided exploring the ‘Loin wasn’t the sanest idea in the world.

On the first weekend, the self-imposed restraint on exploring the neighborhood changed. As the hall was closed, and the prospect of spending Saturday and Sunday inside the dingy hotel was not very alluring, it was time to see what the ‘Loin had to offer.

‘The Nitecap’ was about three blocks toward downtown from the hotel and it offered a semi-normal refuge from the bizarre elements. The scattered numbers of extreme personalities seemed to balance each other out, though there was the occasional man in a dress or escapee from an institution. True, one writer had given the Nitecap a less than flattering description (“that famous dive bar.”) But the eclectic mix seemed to offer the proper ingredients to create an intriguing evening without a menacing atmosphere. There, the crazies could cancel each other out. Still, in it’s own way the place was as wacky as The Gangway.

I was asked if I knew the fellow seaman on the end stool. “That’s Stig. He’s one of those boat people like you,” said the bargirl.

Boat people. Surely she didn’t mean that we were refugees from Vietnam. I didn’t know Stig and didn’t get the chance to, either. A few minutes later, Stig was evicted for punching out the cigarette machine.

At least I now had “Sweet Pea” to talk to. That’s what she called herself. Going about five-foot-five and well built, she could’ve been a real looker but for the peroxide butch haircut, multiple facial piercings, and S.S. boots.

“So where are the handcuffs?” I jokingly asked.

Pulling open her black leather coat, she revealed a set of cuffs that made up her belt buckles.

“All you’re missing is a knife.”

Reaching down to her left ankle, she pulled up the leather pant leg to show a six-inch serrated-edge hunting knife.

But the girl was charming enough to allow me, a person in the wrong dating pool, to ask the most interesting, personal questions I can remember.

“Do you ever sleep with guys?”

“Never.”

“Have you ever slept with a guy?”

“Once.”

“Bad experience, huh?”

“No, wouldn’t say that. Lame was more like it.”

“Would you ever consider sleeping with a guy in the future?”

She paused, which was surprising. “Well, maybe…”

This was fun ‘cause it wasn’t serious. “Would you ever consider sleeping with me?”

An even longer pause. “Maybe…but no time soon.”

The evening’s next character was a young Mexican sitting in the stool to my left. When I asked him for the time, he became hostile and defensive, threatening to pull out his knife and stab me, though he never made a move. Then, a nice older gentleman sat to my right. Richard was his name and he spoke with an Irish brogue. He told me how he emigrated from Ireland 35 years previous and of his career with the railroad that brought him to town. It was a nice conversation, and he seemed genuinely interested in my sea stories. But he turned.
“You know, I’d love to set you up with my niece. She’s only 24 and a real head-turner. She’s been livin’ with me for about a year now,” he said.
I was convinced that this was nothing more that just a veiled come-on. His next words spoke volumes.

“Come on, man, stay at my place. I’ll even let you have the bed.”

Then, scribbling some words on a napkin, he handed it to me. It was a poem and I only made it as far as the opening line:

To Michael

Tis so fair…

I wanted to vomit. On one side of me was a paranoid Mexican and on the other was an old Irish queer. Even the place that I thought was reasonably normal turned out to be like any other dive in the ‘Loin. Moving toward the door, two lesbians seated at the bar hissed at me, crossing their fingers like a couple of vampires. Definitely time to go.

On the way back to the hotel, the sound of running water echoed from an alley nearby. A fire hydrant perhaps? I took a step in the direction of the noise. Big mistake. A pair of eyes shined ten feet away in the edge of the alley, about two feet above the ground. Out of the shadow and into the light rose a very scary black prostitute. She had been squatting, thus the source of the running water.

“What the hell you lookin’ at, you white mutha’-f—–…I’m gonna stick yo’ ass wit’ dis’ needle…what you doing watchin’ me doin’ my business, huh?”

She charged at me, enraged, syringe in hand and pants below the knees. I sprinted the remaining block to the hotel, up to my room, and to the comfort of my own thoughts.