South of Market, San Francisco, 7:40pm

With the winter light, the street was already two shades dark than the municipal, pisspot gray it was the month before. It did fascinating things to people's faces. There was the disjunction of parts, eyebrows separate from eyes. And big mouths of teeth proceeding lips, like the inverse of kissing. On his skateboard, he moved so fast. My roommate told me to hold my keys in my hand if I was scared walking alone at night. And as I grabbed my keys from my pocket, I was incubated by a voice.

'Hey girl, you want a boyfriend? I could do that, you know. I could be good at that.'

Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco, 4:16pm

His shoes were at least two sizes too big. He was a large man but the shoes dwarfed him. Made him the younger brother. The sadder nephew. They were suede mocassins. Real suede. And his callused heels double-thwapped the concrete with each step. First, the soft thud of the wet suede on the city sidewalk, second, scarred heel on suede. The shoes jingled as he walked, not bells, but beads hitting other beads he had applied with care.

The pants unlike the shoes were not real suede, which was too expensive to buy in yards. He carefully tucked the bolts of ultra-suede, into his sweatpants and had cut the edges to look like fringe. There were more beads and shiny Texas stars affixed to the fabric with hot glue. He had a poncho too the color of weak coffee with cream and it rumbled like a thousand love-sick buffalos across his chest as he walked. Strapped to his ribcage was a stereo, blasting rap music with enough bass to strip the lyrics of their words. He walked aggressively, with his shoulders pointed in the direction of each step. Bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow.

His head was shaved, a fever pitch shave with newly formed scabs above his ears. A single red feather was positioned behind his ear, like an extra appendage. Across his face were black streaks, thicker than coal. His skin white as flour or frost. His eyes too were muddied in black making his brown eyes bird eyes, with the black socket exposed. Bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow.

When he got to the intersection, he waited like the rest of us. Bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow.

'Hey, you an Navajo?'

'No, I'm Saponi,' he said, eyes fixed on the storm water drain.

'So you're a New Yorker, huh?'

'Yeah,' he said with a wing-span grin.

Bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow, thwap, thwap, bah-bow.

NW 23rd Street, Portland, 5:17pm

'Hey, can I bring you guys anything? Beer? Sliders? We have a mean cheddar cauliflower soup.'

'A water, please'

Followed by water...water, water.

'Alright then, 4 waters. No worries, guys. Just so you know we've been boiling the water. We're even using bagged ice. Expensive as sin but can't be too safe, right?'

--

'...what?'

'Yeah, no, I just wanted you guys to know that we've taken some precautions and are boiling the water as advised.'

--

'I'm sorry but what the bizerk are you talking about?'

'The e coli scare.'

--

'I take it you didn't hear?'

South of Market, San Francisco, 9:12am

'Man, at least my underwear are new.

His underwear are secondhand. Even the shit stains are used.'

South of Market, San Francisco, 4:42pm

There is that smell again. On the balmy stoops still damp from junkies, the smell of spree's marches in circles like an angry wind sock. What is that goddamn smell?

Google search: the smell of crack cocaine.

"Caramel." "Sort of a mix of piss and sweet perfume smell." "Burnt plastic and a Bic pen with a touch of sweetness." "Crack smells like crack."

Bernal Heights, San Francisco, 8:22am

'Nope, no way, not even true.'

'It is true. I swear.'

'Spiderman is not real, Daniel.'

'He is too,' fingers tighten into the small husks of fists. Light-up shoes light up, though it is not yet 9am. 'Dad, tell her, tell her Spiderman is real.'

--

'Dad?'

--

'DAD??'

--

'See, even dad doesn't believe it. He isn't real and neither is that stupid Superman.'

'You haven't read the comics. You don't know...' the smallest voice, '...dad?'

They reach the crosswalk. The father's windbreaker is ineffectual, too small in the sleeves. His body, bent into the figure of fatherhood, reaches out for the gloved hand of an eight year old and a limp fist of five and one half years old. One shoulder stooped, the other unnaturally bony.

'Hold my hand, Daniel.'