The Next Scabby Chapter

June 4, 1975, I had finished a trip to Nashville, landing at SFO.  After 5 nights of being any man's satisfaction, I was disillusioned with love, men and the construct of my life. But, how was I to know, while suffering in that residual haze of poppers and pain, that the foot tapping under the stall that day belonged to the man I would be devoted to for the next 13 years.... the foot was that of Scabby Johnson.

photo by: free use rights off the internet

A Coming of Age Story

It was 1968.  The Summer of Love.  San Francisco was crowded, dirty, and all things were measured in the extremes.  I was packing up my dreams and striking out on my own when fate in the form of a flat tire stopped me.

It was stupid and wasteful to take a cab to the bus station as I was headed out of town with only $87 to their name.  It was an expense that could have been avoided if I had not had that last shot with that last friend in that last bar on that last night in town.  But not wanting to miss the 9:17 for Portland, I had to hurry.  Portland held no special interest to me, and why I could not have picked any other bus that day was simply based on the fact that I had been told all of my life that east of Berkeley was the Midwest and south of San Jose was the Confederacy.  Portland seemed the logical choice.

At Mission and 10th the driver swerved to miss the guy pissing in the street.  That is when he hit the curb and bent the wheel.  The curses did not fully escape the cabbie's lips for half a block. The air did not fully escape the tire for two blocks.  My hope did not fully escape my chest until I saw, as grandpa would have put it, the dog running out the yard [read: Greyhound bus driving out of the terminal and down the street].

photo by: free use rights off the internet

Hungover, unhappy, hungry, and undeterred I went to the bus station determined to wait it out for the next bus to Portland.  And, to get a sandwich and a cup of coffee.  I met him at the coffee shop, or, should I say, I saw him at the coffee shop.  We would not meet until three days and 15 cups of coffee later.  But that first day, that first glance, that first flash of his smile had me hooked.  It was the Summer of Love, and love is what I felt for the man working the counter at the Greyhound Cafe.  His name was Scabby Johnson.

A Previous Life

It was 1946, winter in San Francisco, which meant you only needed a 5 cent cup of coffee and a good attitude to stay warm.  The war was over. I was out of the service. I was finally free to run anywhere my imagination and fast talk could take me. I was staying in the Mission at a boarding house ran by a kindly old lady and her husband.  Well, kindly until you didn't pay your rent on Friday. I didn't consider going home.  I hadn't consider laying roots in The City by The Bay. But I did keep finding myself giving Mrs. Williams that 6 dollars on Friday afternoons.

My days consisted of roaming the streets looking for a good place to read and a diner with a good bowl of vegetable soup. I would tell people I was also looking for women who didn't get mad when you whistled at them. I always found the soup, but I never found my whistle.  Seems I had something else on my mind.

photo by: free use rights off the internet

Its hard when you come to realize things about yourself that your mama would not like.  Its hard when you know your daddy would be disappointed.  They might still love you, but they would keep secretes. There would be no boastfully talk about you when they went to Wendell Brothers on Saturdays or at the church meetings on Sundays.

What I had realized and what I had to keep from mama, daddy and Mrs Williams, was that I had spent my enlisted time fighting the enemy in the South Pacific and loving the captan I had fought under. He lived in San Francisco.  He was a line cook at The Tennessean.  They made a great vegetable soup there.  His name was Scabby Johnson.