When I lived in San Francisco there were too things I just had to get used to: Public Transportation, and Crazy Ass motha fuckas. Anyone who has ever been to the city of sodomy knows that the streets are home to thousands of residents young and old, short and tall, lovers and fighters, and all equally fucking crazy and reeking of their own piss. It was something that wasn’t easy for a Maui girl to get used to, but it’s amazing what an ipod, some tupac and loud earphones can do. Crazy was just part of everyday life in San Francisco and the longer I lived there, the more jaded to Crazy I became. I frequently was engaged in outrageous and irrelevant conversation on the bus and in the streets. I’ve sat on the bus next to a woman with a grocery bag full of her own piss, to another woman yelling profanities at the Chinese woman sitting in the seat across from her wearing a Dentist mouth cap like she was roaming around an Anthrax attacked city in China. While the white woman blamed those dirty Chinese for all the nasty diseases they brought to Americans, I sat there getting more and more annoyed with the woman’s voice. Sitting through 15 minutes of that kind of lunacy drove me insane. Finally at my stop, I lowered my tupac, empowered and a little bit gangster, I stood up and yelled in the woman’s face “Shut the fuck up already you crazy bitch!” And then darted as fast as I could off the bus like a little bitch, less she throw a bag of piss on me, or worse, spit in my face.
With a daily dose of that level of crazy, still by far, the craziest thing I encountered in that city was undoubtedly a crack head lying lifelessly on a side street near the place where I volunteered.
The last year of my college career, I did my practicum work at a Blind Institute, teaching Art Classes.
And Yes. No need to re-read that statement over and over again. You read it correctly the first time. I taught ART CLASSES to the BLIND. Tons of people can’t get passed this point in the story, and wondering how and why I would do such a thing. And let me tell you, it was pretty easy. I mean, there were little expectations. I mean shit, they were blind, and secondly, I used a lot of detailed verbal direction. Plus, the the idea that I could direct a student all the while recreating some of the most famous paintings with penis’ for bodies without anyone knowing was too hard to pass up. Not that I ever did- but the idea alone was freeing.
By the second semester, the primary Art teacher, Phoebe, who was exactly the kind of character you’d imagine to be teaching art classes in San Francisco to a bunch of blind people, had entrusted me to teach the class alone on Wednesdays. The instructor, Phoebe, was really not much different from the infamous character Phoebe on the hit-show Friends. In fact, she dressed exactly like her and said the same sort of stinging random comments to the students that resulted in the perfection of my silent laugh. This lady was classic and I loved her for it. One day she had told one of our students Mira, who was infamous for talking 3 inches from your face with her offensive bad breath, in a kindsi sedated voice “Mira, if you don’t mind me asking are you having trouble finding your toothbrush?” This lady was wild.
Mid-way through the semester a new young volunteer we’ll call Jada had started volunteering in the class as well. When Jada volunteered, I was stoked. She was young and hip and we got along famously. She and I both loved art, dancing and making our own jewelry- and did all of the above during the classes. Most of the 2 hour class Jada and I spent sitting at opposite ends of the class facing each other, making our own art projects and rudely talking to each other over the class.
One of those days, she and I couldn’t help but notice a woman lying out on the street below us. The art class was located on the second floor of a building and had large windows for walls that perfectly over looked the side street.
Jada, amidst making her own earrings yelled to me, “OMG!!!!! Can you SEE that? Is it dead?”
Now, it’s sort of frowned upon to say a statement like “Can you see that” in a room full of blind people, and then watch as all their heads tilt upward like a sick game of heads up seven up, but this was serious. I mean- I never saw a dead body before and I started to think differently of that statement, there is a first time for everything.
Jada and I were frantic and both stared down at the lifeless body below us wondering if we should call the cops. The body was in a split like position with her entire torso lying on the ground with her arms sprawled out. Either this was a dead man or a homeless yogi, but Jada and I were pretty sure it was the former.
“Maybe we should call the cops.” Jada yelled again.
The class began to stir. People were getting worried. Usually it’s polite for the “visually capable” to describe to the blind folk what’s going on, to make them feel comfortable and included. So I began my attempt to diffuse the situation and include the visually disabled,
“Just to let you all know, there’s a crack head outside the window and it might be dead.”
Damn. I’ve never been good at sugar coating, or worrying about what others thought but crap this was socially conscious San Francisco, practically everything was taken in offense. Was there was a crack head sitting in our class offended? Probably, but this was no time to be worried about the logistics. Oh hell- this was panic mode. Short and to the point is sort of my thing anyway.
Jada and I watched as a man walking down the street approached the lifeless body and started kicking it to wake it. He kicked the body a few times and I knew we were looking at a dead man. Oh fuck. Did I just discover a dead body? Now what? Years and years of watching unsolved mysteries flooded my mind and I started hearing the dreary tone of the jingle.
Then suddenly…. the beast awoke. “AHHHHHHHHHHH” Jada and I yelled in unison. The class was blind- sided (Sorry…. I couldn’t help myself). They all jolted in fear. It was obvious that the class was worried and wanted to be filled in as to what we were screaming about. For all they knew it could’ve been a crack head terrorist attack.
“Holy Crap. What is that? Is it a…” Jada was searching for descriptive options for the beast “a… a…” she found it, “a man or a woman?”
“It’s a crack head!” I yelled as if I were Tokyo town Asian extra seeing Godzilla.
“Yikes!” Jada responded in disgust.
The illusion of breasts signaled that this beast was in fact a woman, but that was the only signaling we’d get. I mean this woman had the body of OJ Simpson, and a face like Charley Murphy. She had scabs up and down her arms, was sporting navy sweat pants, mis-matched socks with hotel house slippers. Girl had better days.
Jada and I watched as the man kicking the street hooker gave her a lil som’t som’t. The street hooker took that som’t som’t put it in a glass pipe and started smoking it right there on the street.
“OMG. Is this really happening?” Jada yelled. Jada was obviously new at this blind thing, so I decided keep the rest of the class informed as well.
“Yeah looks like it. She’s smoking crack.” I said jaded. I wasn’t all that impressed, I mean it was after all a crack head, and this was crack she was smoking- this was her SOUL FOOD.
While we were a little relieved that we didn’t have to report a dead body to the cops, and a little jolted by the witnessing of crack smoking, we were nowhere ready for what was to follow.
The street hooker in all her crack glory got up off the ground and started her very own crack influenced performance. It looked like a crack head Charley Murphy had eaten Beyonce. Crack head Beyonce started shimming and kicking down the alleyway. SHIMMY KICK AND SHIMMY, DROP IT LOW, AND BOUNCE DAT ASS. AND SHIMMY AND KICK AND SHIMMY AGAIN.
What the hell was going on?
Jada and I started laughing hysterically watching the Crack Head Beyonce shimmy her way up to the window of a parked car, look at her reflection and sexily shake her goodies like she was in the Single Ladies video. Crack Head Beyonce shimmy, kicked and shimmied her crack head ass for a good 45 minutes, with her crowd of 2 laughing hysterically from the upper balcony seats surrounded by a room full of paint covered and annoyed blind students.
“Oh my god. LOOK!” Jada yelled. Realizing the word she had just yelled in the room full of blind people she shamefully caught herself, sighed and covered her mouth, adding, “Whoops. Sorry.”
Jada was awful at being conscious of the “visually impaired.” This was exactly the kind of situation they brought up in the introductory class about working with the blind. Blind people just want to be treated like everybody else and saying something like “Look” and then taking it back with regret is more embarrassing than saying it in the first place. I mean- did she even take that class or what? I was starting to question her professionalism and whether or not this was gonna be a good fit for her. I mean I was a pro at treating the disabled equally. In all my games of solitaire and poker, ask me how many I lost to a blind person? That’s right- ZERO! Just cause you’re blind or a 12-year-old boy with the mental capacity of a 4 year old doesn’t mean the rules of the game change. No Freebies. Equality, remember.
But still, I liked Jada, a lot, so I was willing to over look the mishaps. Plus I got too distracted to even think about being conscientious.
“There’s a guy walking down the street” she chuckled.
Jada and I watched as a tall black man in a baby blue matching velour sweat suit and a head full of cornrows walked down the street. When crack head Beyonce noticed him walking down the street she shimmied and kicked her way over to the man with an intense look of seduction in her eyes. I thought I was gonna vomit a Van Gogh. The man continued walking in her direction but looked around to see if there was anyone else seeing this. Little did he know, there was. When he thought there wasn’t he smiled for a second as the disgusting crack head started rubbing up on him.
At this point I couldn’t control myself. I was laughing hysterically watching this man enjoy a little daytime booty shake from a disgusting crack whore. I tried filling in the class, “The Crack head is dancing up on an unknown bystander.”
Again I watched as the man looked to his left, then to his right, pull out a $5 dollar bill and give it to Beyonce. Beyonce, a true professional, grabbed the $5 dollar bill, sexily stoked it over her body and her mouth licking it seductively and tucked it into her stained white wife-beater. I swallowed the hot pocket coming up into my throat before it became projectile vomit. But it was just getting better and better.
Suddenly the man in the velour suit pulled down his sweat pants and whipped out his dick.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I shrieked. “ARE YOU SEEING THIS? ARE YOU EFFING SEEING THIS RIGHT NOW? HE JUST WHIPPED OUT HIS DICK.”
Jada yelled back to me in true female form louder and louder with every word, “OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD. YES YES YES. IM SEEING THIS. IM SEEING THIS. IM SEEING THIS.” Further validating my soccer coach’s theory that women in moments of extreme emotions must yell everything in 3s.
Crack head Beyonce wasted no time. Bent down and started giving the most grotesque crack head blowjob in the history of crack head blowjobs. Now, I wasn’t very familiar with crack heads, or their way of blowing a job- but the sheer physics of this technique was debatable. Crack Head Beyonce, with the Cornrows shaft in hand, opened her disgusting mouth, stuck out her tongue like a kid tasting the rain, and swiveled her head back and forth at an unnatural pace. She did this repeatedly for about 45 seconds.
When I saw this I just about lost it. I jumped up on the table and started yelling and simultaneously jumping on the table. Looking at the scene in front of me, then at Jada, then at the scene again, and then at Jada again all the while yelling in disbelief and in 3s,
“ARE YOU SEEING THIS? ARE YOU SEEING THIS? (Occasionally including a curse word) ARE YOU FUCKING SEEING THIS? AHHHHHH. AHHHH. AHHHHH.”
Jada and I were now having a yelling competition. Looking at each other yelling “AHHHHHHHHH”
Then looking at the crack head blow job in front of us, “AHHHHHHHHHHH”
Then looking at the classroom full of blind people who couldn’t see this madness and yelling, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
I couldn’t believe how this had all panned out. I mean first dead crack head, then a crack head smoking crack with a room full of blind people. Then the crack head Beyonce performance, and now a crack head Beyonce performance of a blowjob. My body and my vocal cords couldn’t take anymore. I was exhausted with disbelief.
Finally, Cornrows pulled up his velour pants and started walking down the street like nothing had happened. The Crack Head Beyonce Shimmied on back to her starting point, pulling out the $5 dollar bill she had just made, waving it around like it was a thousand dollar bill, rubbing it all over her body and giggling like a disgusting Charley Murphy look alike. Minutes later the crack started wearing off and Crack Head Beyonce sat her ass back down in dead man’s pose.
Upstairs Jada and I were finally settling down and lowering our voices, trying to bring the class to an end. I couldn’t help but be endlessly grateful for Jada’s presence I thanked her catching my breath, “thank” breath “you so much” breath “for” breath “being her today” BIG breath. “No one” breath, “would’ve believed me” breath. Breath breath breath.
Till this day, I’m in shock at the events that took place that faithful day and grateful beyond belief that there was someone “visually capable” there to witness it with me. Oh San Francisco!
