Lance
It had the usual specks of a U Haul you borrow for the day: A Mom’s attic and an accidental scrape. The side of it advertising Vancouver, which was really important, because that is how I met Lance.
Chloe was magic erasing paint that did not belong to the wheel well of this Behemoth rental. Lance was walking towards us carrying two black plastic bags, wearing bulky shoes (they could’ve been orthotics?), and shaggy hair.
“Are you guys from Vancouver?”
We are not so we said,
“No”
“Oh, well I was born there. Did you guys just move here?”
“I moved here last year, and she”,
gesturing towards me,
“Moved here this summer.”
“Where’d you both move from?”
Chloe was relatively occupied and economically answered all the rest of the interview.
“Davis.”
“Where are you from?”
“Southern California?”
And it was followed up by the run of the mill,
“LA?”
Chloe said,
“I’m from Orange County.”
I don’t know why, but I said I was from LA. In some ways it was the last place I lived that I find interesting. I sometimes over explain where I am really from as a “small sleepy beach town” as to differentiate myself from the preconceived and unfortunately honest portraits people have regarding Orange County.
Lance went on to explain bits and pieces of his life, mostly to me, as I was doing nothing else other than standing next to a U Haul.
Lance lacks his two front top and bottom teeth, but Lance is a proper Saxophone player. So, I assumed years of huffing and puffing brass could result in lack of teeth.
Lance relayed a greenroom story that took place in Los Angeles in the late seventies. Rod Stewart came in and,
“Bitched up a storm… Man that guy was a real prick, but hell of an artist. He is still alive.”
He was still clutching the two most likely liquor store bags filled with what he needed. I imagined seeing Lance in such a place, buying the onesie-twosie cans of soup that are somewhat dusty, but not yet expired.
Lance continued with more stories about Los Angeles, all with an err of distaste, but it only made sense. He got beaten by police officers for J-walking Sunset Boulevard.
“Man, LA cops are real mean, ya know that?”
He was in LA for music and wondered about it in San Francisco today.
“What is the scene like today?”
Chloe and I shot a glance at each other. I was not ready to talk ill of this city I have come to really enjoy, but it felt like we both knew there was no real scene. So, we answered,
“There really isn’t much of one”
“What about LA? What is happening there?”
I felt comfortable saying,
“Oh, no, it is really happening down there.” (Because it is).
“What is the music like?”
“I mean, Rock. Folk is kinda coming back, you know the usual suspects.”
Lance went on to explain how he came to San Francisco, it was as if he just showed up one day and never left. In the most eerie way he said,
“When it gets cold here, you feel it in your bones… In your lungs, breathing in that Icy Air.”
Lance lives in the Mission, by the park, and has lived in this particular place for about twenty five years, if I can recall correctly. He likes the people here, and asked who we are voting for. He made me pull up a video on my phone. It was from 1986, when he was in the San Francisco Street band, playing saxophone obviously. He told me to show it to my friends. The last thing he said,
“I’m trying to get a documentary made on my life. Clint Eastwood won’t email me back.”
He walked up sixteenth and that was that. Chloe was crouching down at the U Haul,
“What a weird guy.”
