October 2008 Archives
I cannot recall the last time I headed west on the Bay Bridge, from Oakland to San Francisco. Certainly, years have passed. This is something of an achievement, living in this region as I do. But I have avoided driving to such a degree, relying heavily on trains, that I simply haven't done it.
And at night, there's nothing quite like the bridge hanging off its cables, the office towers of San Francisco advancing, the whole thing looking like downtown Oz. Until the bridge inclines downward, and you and the traffic roll off the heights and you land among the drunks and the crazies and the people without homes who wander portions of American cities. And then invariably, you look for parking.
Some of us believe parking looks for us. If continents can drift, so can parking spaces -- the corollary seems obvious. Explorers have wasted everything from sailcloth to propellers in search of continents. Invariably, they stumbled upon them for one obvious reason: the continents were moving. Which makes maps rather useless and receptivity essential. This is why, descending Mason Street on a Saturday night, at an hour of parking hopelessness, luck found us. Just down from the Curran Theatre, a patch of blue curb, a disabled sign and, within seconds, we were parked. For the night. Marlou and I were headed for the Hilton. Why? Well, why not? We had visited Marlou's cousins in Oakland, had an opera matinee the next day, and driving home did not look attractive.
I complain regularly of piloting my enormous white Ford van about the area roads. For all its aerial lights and urban splendor, coming off the Bay Bridge had been something of a white knuckle experience. Some sort of construction was under way along the offramp. And in this era of impoverished governments, California's once vaunted highway department now does things on the cheap. Cars leave the bridge down a narrow chute of temporary concrete barriers, slightly askew, far too close to the left lane for comfort. But never mind. Comfort appeared soon enough, and I was enjoying it now, descending in my wheelchair lift onto Mason Street.
I stared at the red parking regulations sign, turned my head just enough to look at the text out of the corner of one eye. Street cleaning occurred between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on four days of the week. It occurred this day, for example, Saturday. But this was Saturday night, the evening, followed by Sunday, and 2 a.m. on Sunday was substantially different from Saturday. Wasn't it? I sat there in my wheelchair, talking this through with Marlou.
Honey, I told her, you have no idea. Parking rules and violations and tickets and towing are to San Francisco what spray is to Niagara Falls. In this town, I have been ticketed for having my van protrude one centimeter beyond a painted parking space line. I repeatedly have run afoul of street cleaner rules. The latter roll and spray their way through some neighborhoods of San Francisco on alternative Tuesdays, only when the moon is full and if the residents are Sagittarians, a policy explained on rusting signs in dim streetlight to drivers who think their labors are over and let down their guard. Not me. At least, not now. My guard was up, and I was eyeing this sign on Mason Street, alert to nuance, ambiguity and downright deception. In the end, there was nothing to do but get down and roll off. But not before Marlou herself climbed into the van and backed it three centimeters uphill, fitting the Ford right into its allotment of blue curb. Still, I was uneasy.
Which was why, the following morning, when I sped downstairs in search of two Starbucks lattes in the Hilton lobby, I secretly headed outside into the sunny October day. I rolled down to Mason Street and glanced up the hill. There it was, white and massive and Ford. My van. Untowed and unticketed. I was buoyed by this knowledge, but not entirely. We still had a few hours left at the hotel. Anything could happen. A parade, for example. Or a new law, effective at midnight, banning vans without hubcaps.
I rolled my wheelchair back toward the Hilton, sampling the usual street conversations. People either ignore passing wheelchairs or discount their occupants' hearing. One man leaning against a streetlight told his mobile phone that he was disgusted, just disgusted and was heading back to Jack London Square, a tourist district in Oakland across the bay. Bill sold us out, said another man, mobile clamped to his ear, standing foursquare in the middle of the sidewalk. I talked to Bill just the other night, he said, and things were fine, and then Bill just sold us down the river.
Things are not fine in America. Things are so unfine that I'm quite amazed that this hotel is full. Revelers from the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons dominate the Starbucks line snaking through the Hilton lobby. The economic news on the front page of the New York Times makes me wonder if I really need to invest my shrinking supply of dollars in two frothy coffees. But everyone else is, and even lemmings need caffeine.
I head back to the hotel room, a cardboard holder bracing the coffees on my lap. I'm afraid that the van will be towed, the dollar will become worthless and Godzilla will pop out of a Mason Street manhole cover. Marlou's cancer has come at us this way, arbitrarily, disobeying all rules and defying us to carry on as usual. Which is what we are doing. My belief that I can do this ebbs several times a day and occasionally disappears. But for this moment, the van is in its space, the lattes are on my lap, and Marlou is in our room waiting.
And at night, there's nothing quite like the bridge hanging off its cables, the office towers of San Francisco advancing, the whole thing looking like downtown Oz. Until the bridge inclines downward, and you and the traffic roll off the heights and you land among the drunks and the crazies and the people without homes who wander portions of American cities. And then invariably, you look for parking.
Some of us believe parking looks for us. If continents can drift, so can parking spaces -- the corollary seems obvious. Explorers have wasted everything from sailcloth to propellers in search of continents. Invariably, they stumbled upon them for one obvious reason: the continents were moving. Which makes maps rather useless and receptivity essential. This is why, descending Mason Street on a Saturday night, at an hour of parking hopelessness, luck found us. Just down from the Curran Theatre, a patch of blue curb, a disabled sign and, within seconds, we were parked. For the night. Marlou and I were headed for the Hilton. Why? Well, why not? We had visited Marlou's cousins in Oakland, had an opera matinee the next day, and driving home did not look attractive.
I complain regularly of piloting my enormous white Ford van about the area roads. For all its aerial lights and urban splendor, coming off the Bay Bridge had been something of a white knuckle experience. Some sort of construction was under way along the offramp. And in this era of impoverished governments, California's once vaunted highway department now does things on the cheap. Cars leave the bridge down a narrow chute of temporary concrete barriers, slightly askew, far too close to the left lane for comfort. But never mind. Comfort appeared soon enough, and I was enjoying it now, descending in my wheelchair lift onto Mason Street.
I stared at the red parking regulations sign, turned my head just enough to look at the text out of the corner of one eye. Street cleaning occurred between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on four days of the week. It occurred this day, for example, Saturday. But this was Saturday night, the evening, followed by Sunday, and 2 a.m. on Sunday was substantially different from Saturday. Wasn't it? I sat there in my wheelchair, talking this through with Marlou.
Honey, I told her, you have no idea. Parking rules and violations and tickets and towing are to San Francisco what spray is to Niagara Falls. In this town, I have been ticketed for having my van protrude one centimeter beyond a painted parking space line. I repeatedly have run afoul of street cleaner rules. The latter roll and spray their way through some neighborhoods of San Francisco on alternative Tuesdays, only when the moon is full and if the residents are Sagittarians, a policy explained on rusting signs in dim streetlight to drivers who think their labors are over and let down their guard. Not me. At least, not now. My guard was up, and I was eyeing this sign on Mason Street, alert to nuance, ambiguity and downright deception. In the end, there was nothing to do but get down and roll off. But not before Marlou herself climbed into the van and backed it three centimeters uphill, fitting the Ford right into its allotment of blue curb. Still, I was uneasy.
Which was why, the following morning, when I sped downstairs in search of two Starbucks lattes in the Hilton lobby, I secretly headed outside into the sunny October day. I rolled down to Mason Street and glanced up the hill. There it was, white and massive and Ford. My van. Untowed and unticketed. I was buoyed by this knowledge, but not entirely. We still had a few hours left at the hotel. Anything could happen. A parade, for example. Or a new law, effective at midnight, banning vans without hubcaps.
I rolled my wheelchair back toward the Hilton, sampling the usual street conversations. People either ignore passing wheelchairs or discount their occupants' hearing. One man leaning against a streetlight told his mobile phone that he was disgusted, just disgusted and was heading back to Jack London Square, a tourist district in Oakland across the bay. Bill sold us out, said another man, mobile clamped to his ear, standing foursquare in the middle of the sidewalk. I talked to Bill just the other night, he said, and things were fine, and then Bill just sold us down the river.
Things are not fine in America. Things are so unfine that I'm quite amazed that this hotel is full. Revelers from the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons dominate the Starbucks line snaking through the Hilton lobby. The economic news on the front page of the New York Times makes me wonder if I really need to invest my shrinking supply of dollars in two frothy coffees. But everyone else is, and even lemmings need caffeine.
I head back to the hotel room, a cardboard holder bracing the coffees on my lap. I'm afraid that the van will be towed, the dollar will become worthless and Godzilla will pop out of a Mason Street manhole cover. Marlou's cancer has come at us this way, arbitrarily, disobeying all rules and defying us to carry on as usual. Which is what we are doing. My belief that I can do this ebbs several times a day and occasionally disappears. But for this moment, the van is in its space, the lattes are on my lap, and Marlou is in our room waiting.
