San Fran 1998(?)

It was on a Tuesday, and about two-thirty when I decided to hike down twenty-fifth street to Baker Beach (far away in time, no wait, that’s Echo Beach – my bad!), as the low flying antics of the Blue Angels in their modified F-18’s were starting to rattle my teeth as well as the windows of MacGreggor’s flat. Strolling down the streets, I passed a small Korean convenience store and in the window a newspaper headline proclaimed in bold 80point type: “MAN SHOOTS CAT AFTER ARGUMENT.” I chuckled at this trying to picture in my unbelieving mind what the man and the cat could have been arguing about that could have led to the cat paying the ultimate price. I arrived at the beach and sat down at the top of a small dune, to my right, sand, people, and a little in the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge. In front of me there’s more sand, and the bay, and a freighter was making its way through the inlet towards the bridge. All around me people were peeling off layers of clothing to reveal taut, sun-tanned skin. I rolled up my sleeves, but that’s as far as I was willing to go. I didn’t think any of these humans had the least desire to see my overly hairy, pasty, beer gut glistening in the afternoon sunshine. The sun shone intensely in this land of money, and beaches, and ocean, and beauty. I pulled a bottle of Sobe Black Tea from my battered green rucksack and took a long draught, quenching my craving as the fair oceanic breeze from the bay cooled my sweating body.
I got a different feeling in San Fran; it’s unlike any big American city I’ve ever visited. It lacks that crazy feeling of anxiousness, the breakneck pace, the feeling that at any moment the whole kit and caboodle could go up in an insane conflagration of crime and hate, and vomit, and bile, and ferroconcrete. It’s a big city that feels like a small city. What I mean is, at no point when I was walking the streets, day or night, did I feel that some drug addled crack head was going to shoot me in the face for the five bucks in my pocket. Not like L.A., no, these two cities are polar opposites, black and white, yin and yang.
The waves crashed against the shore and I felt a happiness wash over me, a pleasure and contentedness hithertofore unknown to me. I looked up again and the freighter is gone, swallowed up by the bay, preparing to dock and unload, or perhaps load up. I removed my shoes and let the warm sand slip over my feet and betwixt my toes. I closed my eyes and tried to capture the moment, to etch it on my mind for eternity; it was a feeling I never want to forget, the sun shining, warming me to the core, the sand, the sounds, the sea. I opened my eyes and looked up and down the beach; four or five people were frolicking in the surf, one of them, a lovely young devotchka had on a blue bikini bottom and a white lace bra. She jumped over the waves as they crashed, deafeningly to shore, breasts bouncing like the Gainax Bunny Girl. Further out, a bleach blond chiselled surfer dude was swimming in the cool water, his sleek, hairless, tanned body glistening in the sunshine. Directly in front of me a fat hairy turista wearing nothing but a Speedo was walking with his similarly clad wife. The horror… the horror. Sand started to collect in the crease of my notebook, tiny grains, a thousand colours and shapes. To my left, people lounged under colourful Chinese parasols, unwrapping chicken salad sandwiches. The Gainax girl, tired of jumping the waves, headed back to her towel, across the sand, her bra soaked through and completely translucent dark, rock hard nipples poked through the material for all to see. She made her way up the dunes and lay down on her towel next to her huge, tanned, chest hair waxed, boyfriend whose name just must be Chad. Just down the beach from me a pair of Nihonjin girls in orange and green neon swimsuits strolled past an artist and his easel as he paints his exquisite surroundings. I gazed silently and appreciatively at their gentle curves, their tanned faces, one with short bleached hair, the other with a luxurious raven mane partially obscured by a large orange straw hat. I lay there on the beach and thought that if I had the money, the resources, the choice to live anywhere in the world it would be here, one of the last areas of true beauty on the planet. I gazed again, down the beach and saw another lovely devotchka wearing a black tank top and black bikini bottom, the tank top pulled up above her waist to her chest, a reddish brown pony tail was hanging playfully down the back of her head, tickling her neck. She was sitting on a blanket by herself, her mountain bike on its side in the sand behind her. She too was scribbling away in a notebook, and maybe, just maybe she’s writing about how she feels the same way about this place that I do.
I can see how easy it would be to take this place for granted in this world we live in, with the acrimonious, nasty, discordant reality of the daily grind intruding on our everyday lives. I cannot, however imagine anyone in the states not wanting to live here, work here, and play here. Then for an instant, I see the beauty swept away before my eyes as I catch a glimpse of a cigarette butt, half buried in the ivory sand and realise once again that even the most lovely of places on earth can be uglified by the humans who live there.