What I did on my summer vacation

FICTION By Sy Huff

I. I START SHOPLIFTING.

It's June. I am standing at Kinko's, the one at Dolores and Market, waiting to pay for three copies of a piece of sheet music. It really bugs me that the longest wait at Kinko's is the wait to give them money. That's the part where I'm doing them the favor, right? So I'm waiting, I'm looking around. Nobody is paying any attention to anyone. And I'm thinking, why don't I just leave? If they notice, I'll use it as a chance to complain. My copies cost 24 cents.

I'm standing in line. I hear my mother's voice; I hear my father's voice. I hear the voices of many generations of hardworking, trustworthy immigrants all telling me that girls like me don't shoplift.

I left.

I'm walking down the street expecting another voice, "Hey you, you forgot to pay...." Would I run? Would I turn around and act clueless? It doesn't matter, 'cause nothing. I'm walking towards Church, waiting to get smited (yeah, like I believe in God.) I want to get smited by something — perhaps internal moral righteousness. Instead I feel terrifically satisfied. So much so that I go straight to Walgreens and lift some eye pencils.

II. I BECOME A CALL GIRL.

I am waiting at the bar at the St. Francis. My cousin from Minneapolis is going to meet me, and we are going to walk around Union Square. For once, I am not reading, but instead am chatting with the (guy) bartender. A man wearing a trench coat comes and sits down. He sits right next to me at an empty bar (oh god, not really, this guy is old — is he just lonely? A lonely businessman?)

Can I buy you folks a drink? (Both of us? Me and the bartender? Sorry I'm on duty, well how about you then, umumum.)

I wear glasses. I have good hair, and a very charming face. I am small. I do not wear bright lipstick, or any lipstick once the first round rubs off. I do not replenish my lipstick.

I am not pretty.

I can't remember everything, so here's the upshot. Man thinks I, short-legged-curly-haired-ironic-sensibility I, am a call girl. Perhaps he'd had luck at the St. Francis before. Perhaps he thought that there was something about the early evening hour, a woman alone in a hotel bar, talking to the bartender. He waits till the bartender is gone to make his pitch. He makes it flat out: I'm in town for three days, I'll take you out to dinner first, $300 dollars and no need to stay the night. He gave me his room number and his first name. Enter some more trench coats, he rotates off his barstool and goes to them.

Two days later I call him. We eat in North Beach. We go back to the St. Francis. I go down on him. He goes down on me (what a surprise that is; thank God I'd taken a shower.) I come. I mean I come. He opens up some beers from the mini bar. We have sex. I get up, get dressed, and he pays me $300. Fifties.

Then he arrests me (hah!). No, he asks me how he could get in touch. I give him my cell phone number.

Later, another guy calls.

III. I TAKE DRUGS.

So anyway, until now, my entire drug life has consisted of two to five joints, one bong, and almost taking some mushrooms. I'm not evangelical. Certainly I have friends who take drugs. Hey, I have friends of friends or relatives of friends who are heroin addicts (one dead now).

Forget that.

I start asking around. Actually, I start asking all the people to whom I give my stolen loot. I'm an excellent thief. Drug stores, supermarkets, Ross Dress for Less, Macy's and umumgood, Nordstrom. I love stealing from Nordstrom. I take it all home, rip off all the tags, then give it to the junk sellers in the Tenderloin. I am a new priestess of consumer goods. I am enchanted with myself.

At first, they just give me drugs, pot mainly. I train myself to look cool smoking a joint. They give me what they can spare. Pills, don't even know what they are, although I do take them one at a time. Then cocaine.

IV. I RIDE MY BIKE AROUND THE MISSION AT NIGHT WEARING GOLD COWBOY BOOTS.

It's late June.

One night, I go to a guy's basement and try meth, and, what is that stuff, crystal? Is that the same as meth? I take it to my clients — yes, I'm calling them my clients — they love it. I am just so, so hot.

Nothing feels like anything at all (even the acid I took at Golden Gate Park in a fit of never-happened-to-me nostalgia doesn't hit, I'm not tripping, I'm not tripping). I'm just not here.

It's mid-July and I don't go to my job (lots of dying relatives, but they don't fire me and I don't quit). I don't see my roommates, I don't see the Fellini series at the Castro, I stop listening to public radio. I am making so much money as a prostitute that I easily support a new heroin habit.

V. I GIVE UP THE REMAINING VESTIGES OF IDENTITY.

I begin to wear wigs. I discover clients like me to change hair midway through the date.

No, I mean midway through the sex.

One night I shoot up in a bright doorway, a bus goes by and people looking as I take in the light. I close my eyes, turn my face upward.

Here's where it ends.

VI. I LEAVE THE PARTY.

August — stop shoplifting when a kid catches me at Safeway. I had just pocketed some bobby pins. He was right behind me. How come kids can get so close to you and you don't even know they're there?

His hand goes into my pocket, and why I don't know, I grab his hand and squeeze as hard as I can. I scream. He yowls. His mom comes running. The manager comes running. I stare down that skinny black kid like nobody's business. I'm not scared — I'm pissed. I'm so pissed. Kid says nothing. I walk away, dropping the bobby pins behind me.

I give up prostitution next. There was a series of phone calls from repeat clients with dense schedules. I quit in mid-conversation, hung up, honest to God, I think it was to some guy's assistant.

I take my money and buy a junker and decide to either detox or ascend to the heavens somewhere in the Southwest.

VII. I AM RECEIVED BY THE DESERT.

I get up every day at some Motel 6, have my morning vomit and spend the day drinking and hanging out by the motel pool. It's fun watching siblings drowning each other, I want to call my brother. At night I drive.

It's late August, and it is hot. I am one with the patio chair.

VIII. NEW MEXICO ENDS.

I can't go any farther unless I cross the border into Texas. Unable to imagine such a fate, I turn around, and decide to get back in one night. Perhaps I'm not thinking too clearly. Perhaps I'm not thinking. Perhaps I'm not.

I am tired. The highway is dark, but, faintly, I hear a siren. They're finally coming to get me, I think. They're nailing me for tax evasion.

Headlights suddenly shoot up from behind and a car zigzags around me. I get out of the way of the police car that follows.

Then I speed up. Because I want to see what happens.

IX. I KILL SOMEONE

Hill-bump-car in flames (not mine) car veers off road (mine) into person running from exploding car and policeman with gun. There is a sound and there is a bump and I have stopped.

My head hurts. I get out.

In a dark night, there can be a lot of light from two sets of headlights and a flaming engine. I walk over slowly to the dying man.

Are you okay? I say. (God, that was stupid.)

He says nothing. He dies.

The policeman comes over.

Thanks, says the policeman.

Did he do something very bad? I ask.

Not really, says the policeman.

X. I go back.

To work. It's September, they need the help. I stop drinking, I get tested for HIV, I get my eyeglasses repaired. My cat dies of some kind of intestinal disorder. I tell my him I'm ready to get married. I get pregnant right away. I turn 32 and give birth.

I am exhausted. I sleep and breastfeed and breastfeed and sleep, and then sleep while breastfeeding. I breastfeed and stare out the window and think: That person walking down the street — they can walk down the street because they don't have a baby. Because I have a baby I lie in bed and dream up stories of freedom where nothing is true not even getting your glasses fixed.

I've been a good girl and now I will be one forever.

Light comes from street lamps, and from God's grace. *