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  “Ten points for number thirteen. Lucky roll, thirteen” The barker continues his soft monotonous droning of praise. “The first to 500 wins the game.”

  I roll the ball, which drops down a three-point hole. This is going to take a while. I sigh with boredom, and the craggy faced blonde shushes me without looking away from her game. I roll the ball again, and this time it spins past the giant three-point holes towards the smaller holes for higher points. It drops down the twenty-point hole.”

  “Twenty points for number seven. Luck is with number seven.” I can see how a compliment from this dry, unloving old man on the microphone could be a source of motivation for lonesome people like myself. The game drifts along, and I grow numb from the endless repetition of rolling the ball. It prefers the three-point holes; I can see my score is not advancing. Then, just by chance, I make it past all the holes in the way and it falls into the one-hundred hole.”

  “One hundred points for number seven. Luck is with number seven.” And he rings the bell. Other than the bell, it’s the same basic praise as I got for twenty. Hmmm, this is pretty boring. I try to repeat the move, but the ball overshoots the hundred and lands in the three-point holes behind it. This is pinball without any flippers or bonus features. It’s skee ball with no rewards. It is a grim, ghastly emporium of boring repetition for the isolated city dwellers seeking comfort from an otherwise random world. Then the bell rings.

  “Congratulations number eight. You have reached five-hundred.” All the rubber balls stop as they are caught and held by the game board.

  “Shit.” The craggy faced blonde on six was at 488 points when my tweedy-bearded neighbor won. He beams; she scowls at him in hatred. I hope they don’t fight.

  “Game 118 will start in four minutes. Restrooms are next door at the Starlight Room. No one leaves, glued to their stools. Bathrooms are for suckers. I notice I was only at 230 points at the point they stopped the game. It’s a game of skill, and my hand-eye coordination, which was pretty bad most of my life, is dreadful while I am on these meds. Elliott strolls over to chat.

  “Two-hundred thirty? Come on Ethan, you can do better than that"!

  “Why? What’s the point"?

  My question stumps Elliott. In truth, there must not be an answer, but he makes an eloquent sidestep. “It’s not about a point, Ethan, it’s about the thrill of victory, and the satisfaction of knowing you did your very best.”

  I am reminded of the time I joined the junior varsity tennis team at boarding school. No one would play with me, because I didn’t care if I hit the ball or not. I was certain I would miss, so I didn’t even try unless it came right to me. Coach Stott asked me to leave the team; I took ballet instead. The driving force of competitiveness is anathema to my constitution. Perhaps it is a symptom of schizophrenia. I like to do well in academic subjects, because I know I can. Sports is pointless. I am afraid of the ball, I get winded running the quarter mile, and I can’t aim. I throw like a girl, and I run like a pregnant woman. Combined with my poor hand-eye coordination and my aforementioned lack of desire to succeed, and there you have it. A loser.

  Fascination is about hand-eye coordination and nothing else. Combined with a desire to win, it must produce some kind of high for the people playing. For me, it creates low-level anxiety and crushing boredom. With no reward at the end, it promises to be an existential nightmare of a game. Huis Clos. It’s a treadmill. At least I would be improving myself on a treadmill.

  The barker signals the 60 second mark; the players turn their cranks and the rubber balls drop like a bushel of upset apples. I hesitate to play again. There is no meaning or satisfaction to be derived from such a pointless exercise. Still unsure, I place my quarter in the slot and turn the crank. The rubber ball dutifully rolls down the ramp and comes to a stop in the trough at my lap.

  I offer it to the craggy faced blonde sitting in number six. She looks at me startled, and the ashes from her dangling cigarette drop into her bosom. The bell rings signaling the beginning of game 118, but number eight is screaming bloody murder. “Cheat! Cheat! He’s giving her an extra ball"!

  “Fuck you, Erwin, I ain’t taking the ball.”

  I vacate my seat to let the two rivals face one another on their swivel stools. I don’t want to get scratched or punched.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, stop game 118, it has been disqualified.”

  Someone in seat number two says “I just rolled a fucking hundred, what do you mean this is disqualified! Keep playing"!

  Sensing the rising tempers in the room, I back away from my seat towards the open doorway onto Market Street.

  “It was him! It was number seven"! The body snatchers are after me.

  Fuck this, I gotta get out of here. I scramble through the glass double doors, run along Market Street to Ninth and walk the four long blocks to Northeast Lodge. I am winded (of course) but I got away from awful Fascination. I ring the doorbell. Connie’s reassuring voice says, “come on in” and she buzzes the door.

  Connie is manning the pharmacy. “Connie, I need a PRN of Ativan.” In a few minutes, the pill kicks in, and the Fascination panic attack subsides. What an evil place.

  *

  Next morning, my counselor David calls me into his office. “This is it,” I think, “I’m busted.” My truancy is catching up with me. David smokes Capri lights. He puffs away at the thin white stick while he talks to me.

  “You got accepted to Conard House.”

  “Where"?

  “Conard House. It’s a halfway house in Pacific Heights. The Country Club of the San Francisco Mental Health System.”

  “I don’t remember applying.”

  “It’s not quite like college. Your counselor applies for you. And you got in.”

  “What if I’m not ready"?

  “You’re ready.”

  I let the news sink in. “Where is it again"?

  “Fillmore and Jackson, in Pacific Heights. It’s a gorgeous mansion; you will love it.”

  I can’t picture myself being ready to leave Northeast Lodge. I still have trouble remembering to tie my shoes. No one here helps me with shoes. It is a safe place to go around feeling disheveled and unkempt. Conard House won’t stand for slovenliness.

  “Is there a dress code"?

  David laughs and draws another long puff from his Capri. “It is not clothing optional, if that’s what you mean. No, there is not a dress code. It’s a house full of people recovering from grave mental disorders. If you have on flip flops, zipped-up shorts and a tank top, you’re meeting the minimum requirement.”

  “So there’s no interview"?

  “No. I took care of getting you in there. We’re just waiting for a bed to open up.”

  A deep panic sets in. I can’t. I am not ready. A thousand negative thoughts pass through me. David opens his drawer and hands me a pill.

  “PRN of Ativan. I figured you might want it.”

  He is right, of course. He fills a dixie cup from his water cooler and hands it to me. I swallow the Ativan and wait for the panic to subside.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something else, Ethan. It’s a topic we covered in the past. This is about your mother.”

  “What about her"?

  “She was here at the lodge trying to reach you, and I told her she was not allowed to see you.”

  “I don’t understand. It’s my mom.”

  “Ethan, this won’t be easy to hear, and it may make you very angry at me, but you are my client. As my client, I have an obligation to protect you for as long as I am able. Your mother is an extremely dangerous person.”

  “What, is she a bank robber"?

  “An emotional bank robber. I made it part of your treatment plan as an adult, which you are now and without your mother as conservator, which she isn’t, she has no right to see you.”

  “It won’t work. She will go ape shit on you.”

  “It has worked so far. She is not permitted to contact you for as long as you are in my care at
Northeast Lodge.”

  “It isn’t fair. I need my mother"!

  “Ethan, you need the love and affection of a mother, which is very different. Your mother is both a narcissist and a borderline personality. She is not safe for you to be around.”

  “How can she be dangerous? I grew up with her! I’m still alive." I am the kind of angry you get when someone talks shit about your mom.

  “And where are you alive right now, Ethan? You are living in the mental health system, a basket case, for lack of a more polite term. You had a complete psychotic break, and your life is fucked up right now. That’s just happens when you grow up with your mom.”

  I look at David through the slits of my eyes. Why is he talking shit about Mom?

  “Ethan, I told you I had to risk you being angry with me, and I can see you are.” He stubs out his Capri and lights another. “I have protected you from her for over two months now.” He blows out the first puff of smoke from the second cigarette in the chain.

  “She loves me.”

  “She loves who she can pretend to be when she is with you. Very, very different from actual love.”

  “I want to go home.” I stand up.

  “Ethan, you are home. There is nowhere to go right now except to your room. I would prefer if you stay up here with me so we can finish this conversation.”

  “FUCK YOU FAGGOT"! Tears overflow. I see the look of surprise replaced by acceptance and forgiveness on David’s face before I turn and run out of the room. I expect David to call security or come chasing after me, but there are no consequences for my outburst like there might have been in the hospital. I go to my room and let the rage suffocate in the soporific effect of the Ativan. In a few minutes, I hear a knock at my door. It’s David.

  “Come in.”

  “I don’t need to, I just came to see how you are doing.”

  “I’m a lot better now.”

  “I thought you might be. We can finish this conversation at our next meeting.”

  I’m a dick. “David, I’m sorry I called you the F word.”

  “Ethan, it was the best thing you did for yourself since you got out of the hospital. Expressing rage is healthy. I am not made of tissue paper - you can yell at me, and I won’t fall apart.”

  This is different. If he was Mom, I would have been slapped silly and grounded for a month. I expect there’s repercussions waiting in the wings. “What’s my punishment, then"?

  David smiles and his little eyes, made smaller by his big glasses, give off a shine.

  “Would you like one”? He displays two Capri cigarettes.

  “Aren’t those women’s cigarettes”?

  David laughs again. “They provide the illusion that I’m somehow cutting down on my smoking. They taste just like men’s cigarettes, I assure you.” He proffers the cigarette, and I accept a light from him. We tap our ashes into the wastebasket like firebugs.

  “Ethan, you are only just beginning to understand what it means to be an adult. Adults can tell each other to fuck off. There is no punishment, just varying consequences depending on who you said it to. If I was your boss, you might lose your job. As your counselor, I am delighted you tapped into your rage. I prefer we stay civil while we talk, but if you are angry, let it out with me. It’s safe.”

  This sinks in. I smile and say “Go fuck yourself. Just testing it out.”

  David chuckles and I can’t help but join in the laughter. This is what adults do.

  CHAPTER SIX - TO THE UNDERGROUND

  Today a letter arrives from the Social Security Administration, advising me I have been rejected for SSI a second time.

  I run to Connie with the letter to ask her what to do. She tells me to relax. I just have to go to GA tomorrow and apply. I will get GA and my rent at Northeast Lodge will drop to about 15 dollars less than the monthly amount. I won’t be eligible for food stamps. It’s not ideal, but it is reasonable.

  “You should appeal your SSI rejection a second time, too.”

  “It’s too complicated,” I reply.

  “It’s a lot of paperwork, but you will get through it if you’re persistent.”

  Facing off against the Social Security Administration feels too exhausting. I don’t tell Connie this, I just file away the guilt of not doing what I should do in order to take care of myself.

  Midnight came and went and I am still sitting in bed watching the streetlights flicker. The eerie green glow reminds me of my trip on the spaceship. The earthquakes are back. I can’t sleep even if I wanted to. The Underground will be open for another hour. I need to go there to reconnect with my former self. I have nothing to wear but a furry green two-tone cardigan and some grey jeans.They will have to do.

  No one in Northeast Lodge is awake at this hour. I know I am breaking curfew, but the freestyle rhythms vibrating out of the club draw me like jungle drums in a voodoo ceremony. Sneaking out is easy. Yeah there's a camera but no one would review the footage unless I were to vanish or commit a murder. The club is just a block north on 9th. The doorman is new. He looks me up and down and says "eleven dollars.” I don't have eleven dollars.

  "Do you have a handicapped discount"?

  "Huh. You ain't handicapped." The song ‘Don't Stop the Rock’ elicits a mass whoop of joy from inside.

  “I'm handicapped, Sir.”

  “Prove it.”

  I show my disabled bus pass to the doorman

  “What's wrong with you"?

  See how I turned the negotiation from one about money to one about my disabled status?

  “I have mental problems, “ I say. He scrutinizes the bus pass for a second or two then just waves me in.

  On the stairs leading to the firetrap dance floor, I bump into Gallon Fairchild. Gallon has to be ten feet tall all swaddled from head to toe in red fun fur with a checkerboard scarf around his giraffe-like neck.

  “Ethan, I adore your look! Your monkey fur sweater is hateful"!

  “Thanks, Gallon.”

  I don't know if he was being facetious but he is a pretty straightforward dude from Bakersfield, so I think he means it for real. He grabs my hand.

  “Come with me.” He leads me back upstairs and introduces me to the new doorman.

  “Dimebag, this is Ethan. Ethan shake his hand.”

  Dimebag smiles. “We met. He's crazy.”

  “Oh I know! Totally crazy.”

  Sweet, earnest Gallon Fairchild mistakes the cruel jab for a compliment. “Come on Ethan I want to show you the weirdest fucking thing.”

  He leads me back out of the club toward Northeast Lodge. I debate whether or not to point out where I live. He passes the Lodge and rounds the corner to Dore Alley. This is where the staff park their cars but it is also something else, the mating dance I saw the other night when I had diarrhea.

  Leather and Levi clones are cruising back here. It's scary. I remember Al Pacino in Cruising and my panic button goes off. I don’t want to appear scared. I straighten my shoulders; deep breaths.

  “Woah, Gallon. You are so right. I can’t believe this. It is super cool, très chouette.”

  He drifts away on the prowl for a man who loves tall young men. I want to crumple into a ball and blow away in the wind; a bedraggled husk of a crustacean.

  An older gentleman with an unfortunate pockmarked face approaches me and squeezes my testicles so hard I cry out in pain. “Hot for Jack"! he shouts. Is he Jack? Or does he want to jack off with me? Either way, he’s not the man I want to be with today or ever. His leather hat makes him an octogenarian George Michael. Wham, Bam, I am a man. Job or no job…shit! I have to wake early for welfare tomorrow.

  I gaze at the crowd of men who spent the 1970’s doing things that brought them pleasure, only to learn that they were condemned to death for their hedonism when the 1980’s started. I want to feel compassion for these men, but they scare me. They still want to do deadly things. I can’t get involved. I don’t want to die. There isn’t a condom in sight, but there’s a lot of condom-wo
rthy activity. This is why so many people keep dying. People my age are getting sick. The drive to have dangerous sex is so powerful, people are willing to throw their lives away. Like a fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine...where have I heard that? We all know there is no cure. They know how you get it; they know how you give it to others. Yet they want it so bad, they choose to die from fucking.

  Standing in this parking lot, I am a swimmer surrounded by black leather sharks. The sharks won’t kill each other, but they can easily kill me.

  A man with a stinky cigar blows smoke in my face.

  “Hey, kid, get on your knees or get lost.”

  He is a seventies clone. His mustache and his jacket date him. He’s old. He must be thirty-five. There’s no way he made it through the 1970s without getting AIDS. I look for the tell-tale signs - facial wasting, red face, lesions - no, he’s pristine. He reads my mind.

  “I’m 100% top; I don’t have HIV.”

  “I’m nineteen, and I don’t want to get sick.”

  “Get lost, then.”

  He stands, hands on hips, staring me down. I back away and trip over a pair of jacketed clones copulating on the blacktop. My head hits the ground hard. I feel for blood or fractured skull. I’m okay, just a bit dizzy. Nobody comes to help. They are all so wrapped up in their own trip, they don't want to hassle with a fallen toddler.

  I give them all the finger and walk away. Nobody notices; nobody cares.

  CHAPTER SEVEN - GENERAL ASSISTANCE

  I hit the snooze button so hard, it breaks the alarm. Connie had advised me to go early, but GA opens at 9am, so I figure I’ll avoid the rush and head over there at 9:30 am. While this strategy works with banks and the post office, it doesn’t work at GA. The line stretches along Bryant Street and turns the corner, heading North on Eleventh Street. I stand in line, trying to avoid making eye contact with thieves and crackheads. About 60% of the line appears to consist of recent releases from San Bruno. There’s a presence of imminent danger and intimidation.

  There are no cute guys. And there are no cool girls. There’s just a sea of bedraggled people whose lives are reduced to waiting in an endless line beside mental patients like me. There is one woman dressed in a white fake fur jacket, with a white dress, white stockings, white nurse shoes, a white macrame hat, and her face is painted white like a clown. She isn’t in line - she is walking the line, handing out blessings. Most of the nasty jailhouse dudes shout at her and ask her what the fuck she is doing. The women are just as hostile and unkind. When she reaches me I smile and say, “Hi.”