The San Francisco Chronicles: My First Time (double entendre intended)

San Francisco.  I left my heart there two weeks ago and so many frickin' times before that.

The first time I was 16 years old and in trouble. 

You see, back in the day the most common activity for teens in my neighborhood was to cruise up and down the main drag.  It was called Summit Street.  If you were old enough to have a license, you cruised in a Camaro. For those less fortunate, a Dodge Dart or Ford Maverick.  

Bad Company would have been playing on the radio. 

If you weren’t old enough to drive, you simply walked up and down the street with your best friend named Mary until someone in a one of the above cars asked if you wanted to party.  They’d roll down the window and say, “Do you want to party?”

You would have been wearing hip huggers.  You would have said, yes.

I was a 15-year old who said yes.

He was 21. 

 

He had a Camaro.

 

A worker at the local Jeep plant, Bob had already gotten a girl pregnant, married her and a few months later divorced her.

We were together for over a year.  In that time he hit on two of my friends, did all types of drugs including heroin, and was jailed for fist fighting. He still owes me $100.00 for bail.  

Yes, he was indeed Bad Company.  

So why did I stay?  Was it a Florence Nightingale complex? Did I hope to save him?  No, I was smarter than that.  I think it's the fact that once I become involved with someone, it’s hard for me to detach.

Anyway, at the time only his family and my friends knew.  Their advice: terminate.  "You're an honor student," his mom said.  "You have a bright future ahead of you." Still, I was determined to follow through.  

Since I knew my life would be changing, I needed one last exploit.  Yes, I was that smart. I wrote to my aunt and uncle, who were in Hawaii on a vacation, asking if I could fly to San Francisco where their car was, meet them upon their return and drive back across the country with them.

At 16, I was no stranger to travel.  They had already taken me to London, Mexico, Yellowstone Park and Jamestown. 

 

Travel was my heroin.

 

I flew to San Francisco with my secret, soon to be discovered as I was puking my guts out in every public restroom.  Yet even in the midst of my misery, I patted my stomach and promised I would follow through. I would not terminate. 

It was a rough journey driving back home.  And worse, my aunt threatened to break the news to my parents by her birthday if I did not.  A week later, when my mom came into my bedroom and told me to get ready for my aunt's gathering, I refused.  I couldn’t go.  Not knowing my aunt would tell her what I could not.

“Selfish brat." That's what she said before storming off to the party. I lay in bed crying my guts out, fearful of her return.  As promised, my aunt broke the news to my mom.  She was devastated.  No, not at my condition  (she also urged me to terminate), my mom was hurt because I hadn't told her myself--to this day, she hasn’t forgiven me for the fact that my aunt found out first.  To my mom's chagrin, my aunt also found out first that I was getting a divorce. But that's another story.

 

Back to San Francisco. 

 

I didn’t much like the city at the time.  Being from the Midwest, the houses were too close together and the trees not tall enough.  My last escapade before settling down to what was ahead of me and I was greatly disappointed.

Still, on that rough road back across the country, something of the city seeped into my pores.  I didn’t know what it was.

After I returned, I called Bob and he came over.  Sitting at the chrome table in my parents’ kitchen, he told me I looked different.  He said it seemed something inside of me had changed.

 

And it had.

 

I sat across from him, assessing his long stringy hair, his crooked nose, his fake smile, his drug problem, his intellect--or rather his lack of--and right then and there I had a moment of clarity. I can't even say it was a vision of what my future would be like because it was not as concrete as that. It was a truly a moment.  A moment where something snapped. 

With no prior thought, no script in my head, my mouth opened and I told him I wanted nothing to do with him. 

 

Ever.

 

Again. 

 

Nothing to do with him. 

 

Nor his offspring.

 

I absolutely cannot explain why I changed my mind.  Or how.

The details that followed are not pretty.  They involve going to another state for a late term procedure, a dark dank hospital, a dim light, an injection, cramps, and a garbage can.

This is something I am not proud of.  But it is what happened. 

A short trip to that west coast city, a trip where I made a promise to myself, and afterwards, on the turn of a dime, did a total reversal.

 

I can’t say that I regret it.

 

Who knows what would have happened.  All I know is that something about traveling west to San Francisco changed the course of what could have been.  And something about that city stayed with me.  I vowed to return. 

It was another two years before I did. 

The next time under happier, hippie-er circumstances.  Stay tuned.

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p.s. If I seem cryptic here, it is because my 13-year daughter reads this blog on occasion. Daughter, if you're out there--do not do what your mother has done. Use protection.  And find something better than Bad Company.  And some decent music as well.

You can find other true confessions and many not-so-true at Humor-Blogs.