Castro Clones

July 6, 1996, San Francisco, CA

Bagdad Café, corner of Market and 15th

Herein is writ the story of one Easterner (dislocated, at that) and his first encounter with what many had described to him as Canaan, as Paradise, the Kathmandu of the lavender lovers, of the abject and disowned, of the expelled, the marginal. It is not writ without a tear of disappointment, a smudge of sadness, a few smears of contempt, a rip of disillusion and chagrin. The characteristic overflowing effusiveness of contemporary accounts of many an amateur ethnographer is lacking. It is unfortunate that the sardonic must be absent from these pages--there is, unfortunately, no irony to be found within these words, around these phrases punctuated with a lackadaisical disregard for the outward anonimity and the internal vacuousness of the crowd described, of the people mentioned. Accuracy, however, has been sacrificed for literary effect.

This formica will never lose its color. The many poems that have been written with reference to the sunshine over the San Francisco Bay never saw this table. Their rhymes never talked of this café. There were never any alliterative allusions to this decor, these wooden floors, these rough brick walls and wooden pillars, covered with a thick green paint that hopes to, someday in its confusion, appear Mexican. There really is very little that's Mexican about this place, other than the friendly people working in the dishroom.

"Rocío, ¿cómo te fue anoche?" asks one of the employees to another, both of them most likely underpaid, both of them most likely unable to live in this area unless they head west, towards the Mission. Last night might have been good for Rocío. We'll never know this. This area won't care. Her struggle is not the struggle of the people that drink her café latte and her double mochaccinos. She's not covered with paint, seeking an identity; she's not concerned with blending in. But for these patrons Rocío could be a fixture more uninteresting than this table.

And if we were to find out how Rocío's evening went, the knowledge wouldn't do us much good. Regardless of how much some of us Know, it doesn't help us get along with others. Knowledge isn't what protects this table from the consistent beating of butter knives, from the chemicals that clean it after the long day of work, from the vapid words that fly over it as the day goes on, as the sun moves farther down along 15th street. This table doesn't put up with the foolishness of Pretty People because it understands anything! This formica will forever feel like granite because, unlike its unfortunate human colleague, it doesn't have to relate to its fellow tables across the hall. This table will have a polished look strong enough to endure the Big One--and it won't have to find some way of responding to its surroundings. This café, with its gaudy lights and pretty waiters and Rocío is its environment--it knows no other and that makes it happy, or at least indifferent.

I can't say that I'll ever be like this table. But, to be honest, I can't say I care about it that much. The table, unlike me and Rocío, isn't sentient; it isn't personable. It sits there and waits for someone to use it... it fits in its surroundings better than I do.

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