I was in a reminiscing sort of mood today, and telling one
of my tales to my kids got me to thinking about San Francisco. I lived there
for one short year in the 1980s.
It was different then. Real fog horns. Punk rock. Bedraggled
vestiges of a psychedelic past. People obviously dying of AIDS like walking
skeletons on the streets. And Presidio was still a military base – that’s where
I was stationed.
It’s a long story. In basic training, I and a few other
young women bound for the Defense Language Institute formed friendships and
hung out together. But the personnel clerks just couldn’t believe that we were
supposed to go to language school straight out of basic, so they changed our
orders and sent us to AIT at Goodfellow AFB instead. We TOLD them they were wrong,
but what does a dumb private know? So we graduated and got on a plane to Texas.
At Goodfellow they took one look at our orders and said “what the hell are you
doing here?” and took us back to the airport, bound for Monterey.
I don’t remember much of Monterey. I was there long enough
to buy a pink bikini, get slightly drunk, dance my ass off at the NCO club, go see the Rocky
Horror Picture Show, play tonsil hockey with a complete stranger, and narrowly
avoid arrest. The next day, the army stuck me and two of my pals on a Greyhound
bus to San Francisco, where an overflow branch of the language school taught
German and Korean classes.
Lori and Killer and I arrived at the bus station in downtown
San Francisco in the middle of the night. It was…gritty. But hey, when you’re
travelling with a woman named Killer, you fear nothing. We grabbed a taxi. On the edge of the Presidio, far away from the rest of the
base, was an old hospital building that had been casually converted to a
language school. When we arrived in the big, ugly lobby and dragged our luggage
to the CQ desk, a perky young man popped out of one of the chairs.
“Hi girls! I’m Bob,” he announced. Turns out sitting up half the night, watching TV and
greeting all the newcomers, was his odd habit. He cheerfully showed us up to
our rooms after the CQ gave us our keys. I think he was hoping to meet a
girlfriend this way. It never worked.
Ever slept in a hospital? Imagine living in one. The wide
hallways with plain white floors. Exam rooms still equipped with cabinets, sinks,
and black countertops converted to bedrooms. My first room was actually a
former supply/medicine closet. There was still a morgue in the building. I’ll
always wonder if that’s where the commander’s office was. I hope so.
But the city! The long trek to the Geary street bus stop,
past stylish homes, flower stands, the bodega on the corner where I’d buy a yogurt
and a Martinelli’s because the chow hall food was awful. Bicycling up and down
the hills, trying to beat the bus downtown. The crumbling old movie theaters with
their tattered velvet and dusty chandeliers, showing cult film double features
for a dollar. The dive bar where I slam danced while Black Flag played, until
Killer tapped me on the shoulder and said “We have to leave. I’m allergic to
marijuana.” Starting at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge to run my PT test
along the beach. Dodging pigeons on my bicycle to go hang out at Ghirardelli
square, watching street performers, or grabbing a bread bowl of clam chowder on
the wharf. The green trees wreathed in cold fog outside my window, with the haunting
sound of the fog horns ever present. Sitting on a rock at Ocean Beach, watching
the seals and the spray. And always, always the smell of the ocean.
But what I remember most about my time in San Francisco was
freedom. I’d left a dysfunctional family and a controlling boyfriend to join
the army. For the first time in my life I was my own woman. It’s hard to
imagine army life feeling like freedom, but outside of the classroom and the PT
formation, I could go where I pleased, do as I pleased, love (or not) whom I
pleased, wear what I pleased. I was 19 years old, at the top of my class,
ridiculously fit, and all out of fucks to give.
Years later, I went back to San Francisco for a work
project. At a big white marble bank. In the financial district. Everything had
changed. I walked the streets after work and ate alone in little pubs and
bistros and climbed Telegraph hill looking for the parrots. But nothing was the
same. Certainly not me. Because every day missing my daughters was a hollow ache,
and every night falling asleep in my swank hotel, I longed for the open window
of my barracks room and the long-silenced sound of fog horns. I don’t want to
go back again.
