 | Can I Get a Bullet with that Pretzel?
Current mood:  jubilant The evening starts when I invite Nick, my 17 (almost 18) year old step brother to join Cella, Julian, Charles and I for Halloween in the city. Jordan Harbind meets us as we're getting ready. Nick hasn't partied up there before, and Castro seems like an excellent introduction. I stop by the club on my way to King street and get introduced to what the guys there call racing the cheetah.
I've been high in my life. But racing the cheetah? Yea, don't try it unless you want to be stuck in the clouds for a few hours. It's a bong load that has some weed on the bottom (they used ATF), bubble hash on top of that, topped off with Trainwreck keefe. Now multiply that by two monster rips, and you see how my evening kicked off.
We get to 255 King and get into several heated games of Beirut. Believe it or not, Charles and I spend 4 or 5 games mopping the floor with various competitors, which ends up turning Julian into a rageaholic.
Once our liquid blankets are in place, and our costumes fitted (imagine 5 backpack wearing, bible toting Mormons), we head out, grabbing a cab and getting dropped off outside one of the pedestrian zones at the Castro. We walk in and no one is impressed. I tell them to wait for it. "Dude, there's no one here" Hello, we're not even on Market yet! And then it hits, the throngs.
On a quick sidenote...I haven't seen a costume draw as much attention as the Mormon costume. Now, if you had one or even two, it's easy to lose the costume in a crowd. But with 5 of us, we stand out to everyone walking past and get some of the following comments:
"Mormons!!!! Yaaaaay Mormons!!!!" - hot chick ..1
"Oh wow, what an awesome costume. Go Mormons!!!" - hot chick ..2
"Fucking Mormons suck!" - meathead ..1
"I'm gonna kick your religious ass" - meathead ..2
"If you guys aren't Mormon, that costume is soooo wrong." - girl in the street
and finally, my favorite, from about 1 out of every 4 people we ran into.....
"Are you guys really Mormons?"
The throng hits us and we start walking, looking for a little space, but mainly just sinking into the masses. I happen to love it. In any street carnival, fair, public mass of people, the feeling of anonymity that comes with the masses is always welcomed and embraced by me.
At this point, Charles decides he needs to piss. I see a pretzel/churro stand. Excellent, a pretzel and a churro for 5 dollars. One combo, please. She hands me the pretzel, and as she does so, and I survey the scene for my fellow Mormons and revelers, and then the shots ring out. 4 or 5 of them, rapid, which I'm torn between thinking are real gun shots and perhaps fireworks? But they're loud, and about twenty feet from the pretzel stand I'm at, people scatter from what's obviously the epicenter of the shots. One girl comes out with blood on her face, to which Nick states, "shit, she's got blood on her face!" and one guy ends up on the ground with what appears to be a bullet in his leg.
Meanwhile, as everyone is running around and I'm watching this, I think, "this is really stupid people. There's not gonna be MORE gunshots, and it's not like once you've heard them you can get out of the way. You're not faster than a speeding bullet, so stay where you are and don't get swept up in the pandemonium. People look at me like I'm nuts for standing and watching.
I realize at this point that I've got the pretzel, which I've taken a few bites of and is rather bland, but there's no churro. And there's no pretzel lady to be seen. Literally, the gunshots rang out and she disappeared. I look around some more, generally upset that I don't get some cinnamon goodness to go with my bland ass pretzel and see her cowering behind the cart. At this point, me, caring man of the people that I am, looks down at her shaking behind her cart..."um, could I get that churro now?"
The look of fear, bewilderment and downright astonishment on her face that I could even think of eating, let alone asking her to serve me at a time like this makes me feel a little funny for not being as scared as she is. But like I said, once you've heard the shots, you're not gonna dodge the bullets, so might as well stay in one place (that's what my mom told me to do when I got lost as a child).
She shakily gets up and hands me the churro, looking at me with disgust for my selfish "feed me" attitude. Then, I figure, why not. "Excuse me, could I get some salt on this pretzel?" (honestly, when I ordered the pretzel, I didn't think I'd have to order salt extra.) She shakes her head at me, looks at me once more like I've fallen out of a tree and goes, "you already took a bite, I can't put salt on it now" and gives me two or three more shakes of the head.
At this point, the place has started swarming with cops trying to contain the scene and figure out who shot who. It's probably a good time to leave, but Nick is with us, so where does one take an underage high school senior in the city?
We decide that if ever there's a time to test our mettle and love at City Tavern, this here is the night. We cab it over to the Marina, thinking of ways to get Jordan's ID out to Nick. All of this becomes a moot issue when we find out that no one at City is carding and he walks in the front door. Of course, with all of us dressed as Mormons, he blends right in, and with Julian and I ordering the drinks, no one even thinks to look at him like he's too young.
Nick, my stepbrother, let me introduce you to the Mind Eraser. Kahlua, Vodka, club soda, chugged through a straw.
Well, apparently, after all this, Julian, who didn't join us in the Castro, and Mike have wandered outside and unbeknownst to any of us, almost gotten into a fight with some juiced up adrenaline freak wearing a shirt that says, "fuck you, pay me." And he's ready. Julian's ready. Mike's trying to avoid everything and I get to walk right into the middle and this guy starts screaming at me. Finally, his friends and our muted response get him to calm down a little. He says one more thing, and Nick, who has no idea what a street fight is really like with 20 something boozed up meatheads, starts talking back. This of course gets dumbass all riled up again and he starts really jawing with Nick. After yelling at him to shut the fuck up and get back, I finally get Nick to listen and we diffuse the situation. This guy probably would have mauled Nick and not thought twice about it, but for the rest of the evening I get to hear how Nick "would've kicked that fucker's ass," no matter how many times I explain to him that he would have been in a hospital.
And then, that's that. Cab back to 255 King, I throw Charles and Nick in my car as Jordan is throwing up in Julian's bathroom (he also spent almost the entire time we were at City Tavern in the bathroom, alternating between standing up against the wall of the stall and throwing up), Jack in the Box after being turned away from In-N-Out, and home.
Halloween. Castro. San Francisco. These are words that will live in infamy. Check back for pictures of the Mormon crew. |
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