One time I was in Morocco. I was with two girlfriends. There had been five of us traveling, but two had already gone home to Spain.
The rest of us went on to Chefchouan. Chefchouan is up in the hills, and all of the buildings are painted white or blue. We stayed in a blue hostel that was also new, and so the owners were very accommodating.
There were only two other guests, two men, and they were both American.
One was big and tough and the other was small and bohemian. The big one had a ponytail and tattoos, and the small one wore knit hats and drank homemade kombucha.
At night when it was too dangerous to go out, we would all sit in the living room and pass around joints and drink wine and listen to stand-up comedy on the big man's stereo.
One evening the son and daughter of the hostel proprietors came to find us. They asked if we would like to use the downstairs living room to watch a movie. They had all kinds of movies, they said.
So four of us trundled downstairs, me and my two friends and the big man. The small one had decided to stay upstairs and finish the wine. But the big man was very excited for the slumber party. He had on patterned pajama pants and clutched an oversize pillow.
We put on The Pink Panther, and everybody was fast asleep before it was over.
I like characters, and I liked the big man. Sometimes he came out for a smoke while I was sitting up on the terrace and reading and looking out across the white and blue rooftops. Once we got to talking about San Francisco, and he said he had lived there once, and I asked where.
"You ever been to Golden Gate Park?" He asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"You know the building where they have the indoor carousel?"
"Sure," I said, even though I didn't.
"Well there's a big patch of bushes out back of the building."
"And that's," he said, "where I lived."
It was a lie, of course. I've never been to Golden Gate Park. I've never even seen the Golden Gate Bridge. I wanted to, once, and that's the story I'll tell you now.
It was my first time visiting San Francisco, and I was alone. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, because I'd always been fascinated by the city. I was shopping, and walking, and eating, and reading, and going to art museums and movies, and making temporary friendships with people I would never have to see again, and if that's not a grand vacation I don't know what is.
On the last morning of my trip I wandered over to Haight and Ashbury, and threaded in and out of the thrift and record stores for a good long while. By noon I had spent almost the last of my money, and I was hungry, and I had just one last thing waiting on my pilgrimage agenda.
So I bought a big bag of trail mix and chocolate covered espresso beans. And then I decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge.
It didn't seem that far on the map, although I really had no sense of scale, and anyway, I'm a good walker. I was a little confused about the exact route I should take, but I figured that the important part was to just head toward the ocean. So I set off, munching a handful of trail mix and humming a little tune.
I walked, and walked, and walked some more. I went up hills and down hills and flat for a stretch and up again. I walked through streets lined with apartment buildings, and mom and pop shops, and hardware stores, and I walked through patches of suburbia with houses set apart from one another. I came to the top of a hill in suburbia and then I was at a dead end. I went around a cul-de-sac and came back down the hill again.
You're not stupid, and you know where this is going. I was lost, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that I was not going to find the Golden Gate Bridge. I couldn't even see the ocean when I ascended the hills. But I refused to give up, because this was turning into an Adventure, and I needed to see it all the way through.
I was getting tired. My head was heavy, my feet were sore. But every time I started to lose morale, I dug into the bag for another hit of granola and espresso beans, and then I was good for at least another hill or two.
Now it was beginning to be evening, and shadows and color were drawing themselves across the sky. I still could not see the ocean. But I was beginning to see suburban sprawl. I was on a great long flat street with many buses going back and forth, and big warehouse stores on either end, and a little ahead of me I could see the orange sign of a Home Depot. I decided maybe my Adventure was coming to an end.
I was exhausted, and starting to feel a little loopy coming down from all the espresso beans. I told myself I would get on the next bus and take it to see if it ended up at Golden Gate Park. If not, I would turn around. But once I got on the bus, and my head almost fell asleep the second it hit the back of the seat, I thought I should probably head home as soon as possible. So I got off the bus, and on another going the other way.
I shopped once I got back near my hostel because I couldn't help myself, and I was so loopy. I didn't buy anything. I went back to the hostel and had some granola and chocolate. Then I put on pink pajamas and washed my face and put some ointment on my blemishes and went to bed.
I lay in the dark listening to my stomach growling. I hadn't heard it growling when there had been all that walking to drown it out. But with a day so jam-packed full of adventure, it needed more than granola and chocolate to be satisfied, and now I had no more money and nowhere to go to feed it.
"Shhh," I told it. "I'm sorry that I only have granola to feed you. Pretty soon we'll be home, and then you can have anything you want. But for now, you just have to stay calm."
In the darkness I fumbled around for the bag and pulled out a big handful of trail mix and granola. I put all the granola in my mouth at once and chewed and swallowed. Only once the swallow was already going down did I realize that there actually hadn't been much granola in there at all, but instead a lot of chocolate, and espresso.
"Uh oh," I said.
"Oh oh," I said, putting a hand to my chest.
"Oh NO," I said, sitting up in bed, panicked. A cold sweat was breaking out on my forehead. It was not the first time I'd been convinced I was going to have a heart attack, in fact there had been many times, but each time felt like the first time in that it was the only time that felt real.
"Shit," I said, throwing off the covers and scooting out of bed. Where could I go? Who could I see? I needed a distraction from the waves of anxiety that were beginning to ripple through me. I went into the bathroom and turned on the light and put on my glasses and pulled on my boots.
They were tall and wool and woven. My glasses were purple, my pajama pants were pink. My hair was sticking out at all angles. But I had no time to fix myself, and I put on my fleece jacket and hurried out to the street.
"Please pick up, please pick up," I murmured, as the phone dialed and rang Bonne's number. There was only the answering machine, and I left a frantic message that was probably incoherent save a few keywords: "Golden Gate bridge, "heart attack," and "chocolate covered espresso beans."
Leaving the message had calmed me down a little, and I thought myself ready to return to the hostel. But it was a sharp uphill slope and so within seconds my heart was pounding again.
"Oh Sweet Jesus," I murmured, sweat soaking my brow. "This is it!"
I had no doubt my body would be discovered in this very spot come morning, and it was with a pang of regret that I considered all of the things I had yet to do, the places I had yet to see. The Golden Gate bridge was one of them. I waited for a few moments for death to come take me, but when it refrained, I decided to head to the restaurant bar across the street. I might as well go out having a good time.
I made my way shakily to the bar, trying to keep the wild edge out of my voice as I asked for a tall glass of water, don't bother with the ice. I made a futile attempt to smooth my hair, but there was no hiding the bright pink pajama pants.
A middle aged man was sitting alone in the shadows at a nearby corner table. He eyed me over his newspaper with a bemused expression.
"Rough night?" He asked.
My water arrived with a tall straw and I guzzled it down. Then I told him the story of the Golden Gate bridge.
"I know what you need," he said when I was finished. He had set his newspaper aside. "You need a glass of wine."
"You could be right," I said. "The problem is, I don't have any money with me. It's back at the hostel, and the hostel is uphill."
"Lucky for you I own this place," he said. He whistled for the bartender. "Take care of this young lady, Ronaldo."
So I sat back and had a tall glass of Merlot, feeling better with every sip. My wise friend went back to his newspaper, but every so often our conversation would pick up.
"You know, there's not much caffeine in an espresso bean," he mused. "Each one is maybe a sixteenth of a cup of coffee."
"Huh," I said. I could feel my heartbeat slowing. "Better have some more wine just to be sure."
He motioned the bartender over.
"I probably should have checked your ID," he said, as the bartender filled up the glass.
"It's uphill," I said. "But I'm way past legal."
I was 19, and an avid liar.
"That's what I thought," he said. "Keep 'em coming, Ronaldo."
At one am they closed down the kitchen, and there was some hot pizza leftover in the oven.
"Want some slices to take home?" Ronaldo asked.
"Sure!" I said. I was on my third glass of wine now, and feeling rather jolly. My heartbeat had slowed to a steady saunter.
And so at 2 am Bonne got another message from me, this time about wine and friends and free pizza. She also might have heard the word "mailbox," since that was what I was using as a table for my open pizza box as I happily finished off its remains.
Later I crawled, joyful and warm and satiated, back into bed, where it wasn't long before I had drifted into a world of rich espresso dreams.
And that was my first trip to San Francisco.
