Just another night in the Bay

Escaping a crime, gin and cannabis cocktails, and Alison Bechdel

I just got home. The light was fading in the city as we—my Lyft driver and I, that is—climbed the onramp to the Bay Bridge. The fog was coming in, wrapping around the Ferry Building spire. Coit Tower was free and clear. Some parts of the sky were peachy from the recently-set sun. It was almost 9 p.m., and I’d just gotten out of the City Arts and Lectures series Alison Bechdel event.

I bought the tickets months ago, two of them, for me and my daughter. We both love Alison Bechdel, or, I still do. I’m not sure about her. I’m not sure about lots of things about her these days. But, she used to love Alison Bechdel, and one of my favorite (among many, many) memories of her is of she and I driving down to L.A. singing along with the musical based on Alison Bechdel’s incredible book Fun Home.

It’s a special memory, and I’ve listened to Fun Home dozens of times, and I’m a huge fan. I also read Are You My Mother? also by the great Alison Bechdel, in fact, I read that first. I didn’t even know about Fun Home and certainly didn’t know it was a musical until my daughter turned me onto it.

And we had so much fun singing along with it.

And I cried to it too, as my daughter slept in the car beside me, on the long journey from Oakland to L.A., and I cried to it on journeys alone to L.A., including, probably, the one where my daughter refused to see me, in what was the beginning of, and indeed portended our current reality, where she simply doesn’t really want anything to do with me, and has blocked me yet again, and relatively recently.

I assume she still thinks I’m going to Tonga with the Peace Corps, but who knows. Maybe she’s learned through some sort of grapevine that my plans have been rudely altered.

It doesn’t matter.

Anyway, even though I shouldn’t have, I texted her from San Francisco to say, the show was starting soon, and I had her seat beside me, and we were in the second row, and it was so great, and the crowd was electric.

I shouldn’t have done that of course. I also shouldn’t have emailed her shortly before leaving Oakland to say something similar, like, Hey, I’m going… I didn’t invite anyone in your place because I couldn’t imagine seeing Alison Bechdel with anyone other than you. But, yeah, I did that too. Even though my therapist, my son, and all of my friends say, and keep saying, Leave her alone.

Even though it’s going on five years now, this dysfunction between us, I still can’t really believe it. I’m still in denial.

Anyway, it’s been quite a night.

I took a Lyft to MacArthur BART because I wanted to have plenty of time in the city. I wanted to check out a secret bar called The Linden Room before the show, and maybe walk around and be a tourist-type.

I caught the BART using my Clipper transit card. At 19th Street station, which was the very next stop, a cadre of five young men entered the train and headed my direction. I was at the back, alone in the entire back half of the car. In other words, there were many available seats and rows.

The young men chose to sit in the following manner: one in front of me, one behind, one beside, and two in the rows alongside me so I was completely surrounded. They were raucous and smoking backwoods. They began talking about money. They scanned my figure, and the three bags I had with me. Then they began passing things back and forth to each other right in front of my face. They were quite clearly intimidating me, and my body knew the score. My palms were soaked.

There was nothing my mind could do to talk myself into believing I was not in danger, but I stayed as calm as possible and even made eye contact with one of the fellows, who then said, “We pimps. Positively Inspirational…” He couldn’t think of words for the letters M, P, and S after that and laughed.

I stood up and moved forward. They made noises. I said, “I’m gonna move. I don’t want to break your connection.”

They let me.

I left my leather jacket from Buenos Aires on the seat.

I got off the train at the next stop.

I was shaking for an hour.

The Linden Room was lovely. I had not one but two gin drinks. The drink was called Pink Jesus, and it had a cannabis, what, oil? vibe? scent? It did have a little “hemp” cube on the swizzle stick with a nice thick lemon curl. It sounds gimmicky, but the cocktail was superb, and I had two, even though I’m “not drinking” these days.

They calmed me.

The secret alley-side bar with the red door had only a handful of seats. The lighting was low and lovely, some candles flickered on the bar, and it didn’t mattered that the sun shown gaily and determinedly outside. Once that red door was shut, it was just Calgon-Take-Me-Away time in that bar, and I tell you I needed it after that harrowing BART ride. The ceiling was painted a lovely cerulean blue with clouds, which also sounds hokey, but they were somehow subtle, almost just suggestions of cloud, and in such a special blue-green, almost lacquer-type paint, I felt I was in a chapel, and it was a kind of chapel. Or like being in the center of one of those magical sugar Easter eggs.

Toward the end of my time there, my son called me. I told him what happened. He seemed a little… annoyed, I must say, and that hurt me.

I guess maybe I’m scaring him.

I guess I need to be more independent.

I guess he’s afraid I’m already aging precipitously, that I’m already showing signs of cognitive decline. I think it scares him that I’m a little shaky, uncertain, unstable, and maybe it annoys him too.

But the truth is that — while yes, in some ways that’s true — it’s also true that I always, or at least always have — land/ed on my feet. And this time, I wager, will be no different.

What do I want to say? Alison Bechdel. I’m a big fan. There was a Q&A afterwards. I just wanted to raise my hand and gush at her talent, her humor, her graciousness, sensitivity, pathos, intelligence, and exquisite attention to detail.

But the people who stood up to ask their questions all seemed to be focused on politics and queer… stuff. Gender stuff, I guess. ?

This confused me.

I think of this artist as, well, an artist, with her exceptional work front and center. I don’t think of her as politics-oriented or queer-oriented, not at all. I think of her as human-oriented. Pain-oriented. Love-oriented. People-oriented.

It threw me off somehow, and made me sad, somehow, that the audience, and even, to be honest, Alison herself, seemed to think or feel that her value, and the summation of her work, was about fighting fascism or elevating queerness.

I personally think that diminishes what makes Alison Bechdel great.

I left feeling unsettled.

I didn’t feel like taking BART home, as you might imagine. I figured it would be $20 to take BART home and $40 to get a Lyft all the way home, and it was, and I opted for the latter. On the way home, I added up in my mind what the night had cost. The first Lyft to BART, the BART ride (atrocious as it was), the (admittedly wonderful) cocktails (2!), the slice of pizza I had at the corner joint after, and the Lyft home, not to mention the original two tickets for me and my daughter, one of which was wasted of course… well it’s expensive.

And there’s no need for it, actually. It was wonderful to hear Alison Bechdel speak in person. But, I can read her books and watch YouTube videos. I don’t need to spend this kind of money on these kinds of things and not even feel safe trying to get to the city. But I also felt sad at how a tight budget can diminish one’s experience in the world.

I forgot to mention, after telling my son on the phone what had happened, the bartendress (if that’s a word) said, I’m sorry that happened to you. I just had my gold necklaces torn off my neck a week ago in the Mission. They left a mark on my neck. The pieces had been handed down in my family. It’s a real loss…

I was shocked. I said, My God, that happened to me in Buenos Aires, with my gold necklace, and that’s where it’s expected to happen. I was warned, and I shouldn’t have been wearing it. But, HERE? I don’t think of that sort of thing happening here.

She said, Yes. It’s total lawlessness.

And that, my friends, is why I’m going to Mexico City, and then maybe Madrid if I can figure it out.

It does feel worse here. It wasn’t like this on BART in days past. Something is happening, something is shifting.

At the end of the Alison Bechdel event, the runners with the microphones found one last questioner. She was in the first row, right in front of me and slightly to the left, a young, round Asian girl. She looked like the eskimo child in one of my kid’s picture books.

She began to speak, and then she broke down, and stifled a sob. She was trying to hold it together, but she was overcome. The whole audience took an audible breath of support for her. Amid her emotion, she managed to eke out, I just love you, I love your work, I think you’re great.

Alison, clearly very moved, as was the entire room, said, I think you’re great too.