EMERGENCY!

They walked down 17th towards Mission. A large Black woman rushed over from across the street.

“I just set my girlfriend up in there with a nice white man,” she said, as if they’d been waiting for the news. “He’s gonna buy her a nice dinner,” she added, waving at the run-down hotel.

“That right? You must be a good friend, to set her up like that.”

“That’s right. Gonna get her some steak ’n’ eggs, Mexican, Chinese, whatever she wants…”

They crossed Mission and she wandered along behind them, but then peeled back toward the hotel. Maybe the exchange reminded Milo of his hunger, because he said: “You wanna go and get something to eat anyways?”

“Sure, why not.”

They walked to Valencia and 16th Street. The falafel joint was closed, so they wandered further and found a little pizza place near the alley. As they stepped inside, a distressed woman pleaded for change. Milo promised to give her some after he paid for his pizza. She stood miserably in the doorway.

One of the Arab proprietors rushed to shoo her away.

“But I’m jus’ waiting for him to give me change,” she protested, and Milo confirmed it.

The man didn’t care. He didn’t need her haunting the doorway, especially with her open sores and scowl.

Horner bought a Coke and gave her his change; Milo did the same, and they wandered back out while Milo wolfed down his food.

Next to the Tenderloin, this was the bleakest, seediest scene in San Francisco. Nightclubbers in black leather rushed into the Skylark Lounge. Scabby-faced junkies scrounged for heroin. Pimps stalked around in fedoras. It was too much to take in over pizza and soda.

Made somber by this scene, they wound their way to Dolores, trying to recover the mood. They talked about the women.

“Nana looked terrific… and that other one, Kayla’s roommate… very sexy. But you know who really opened my eyes tonight? Kayla.”

“I know… that’s why I feel so funny. It kinda seemed like she wanted to do something.”

“Well, you know,” said Horner, “she was there with her boyfriend.”

“Really? That was her boyfriend? Then I guess I don’t feel so bad.”

“But who knows… maybe she did wanna take you home.”

Horner told him about Kayla’s “keep things open” speech. “I used to really have a thing for her, you know.”

“Really?”

“Sure — why not? I’m in love with all the dancers,” Horner said. He thought again of her smile outside the Rite Spot, and spat on the sidewalk to expel the feeling.

They sat on the broad white steps of Mission Dolores. Horner told him what he’d heard from Hannah: that she and some of the other dancers had started giving “massages” for money, including “release.” “And I don’t mean ‘muscle release,’” Horner added meaningfully. He was relieved to see Milo was as scandalized as he’d been. Yet he thought back over the evening — Gelsomina, the cabaret, Kayla — and saw the contradiction. How much had his own eye objectified, and what right did they have to judge?

“See, you’ve got all this great material to write about…”

“Yeah… I’m trying to find a way to write about what’s going on right now.”

“It’s about time somebody wrote a new Tales of the City,” Milo said.

“Yes, yes…” Horner said, nodding. Armistead Maupin’s novels were colorful but dated. They documented a vanished version of San Francisco, stubbornly maintained by aging hipsters in rent-controlled apartments. Horner knew and liked some of the older San Francisco crowd, and respected Maupin’s depiction of the AIDS era. But his novels didn’t reflect the current bohemian struggle under the shadow of the tech boom.

Soon after, Milo offered to drive Horner home in his ancient van — though, as usual, he couldn’t remember where he’d parked. They searched up and down 18th Street. As they walked, sirens screamed and several cop cars zoomed by.

The next morning, as Horner ran down Dolores, he passed two chalk outlines on the sidewalk. The bodies had limbs fanned out like Egyptian drawings. A red starburst was drawn on one side and along the torso, someone had scrawled “EMERGENCY!” Horner never found out what happened.

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