Time, oceans, precious jewels, tortillas & hangouts, the City.
Can you put them together?
2.
“Johnni, you ever gone to El Capitan theatre kitty corner from here? It’s a parking lot now.” “Everything is a parking lot now.” I tell Frank. I used to go to El Capitan when I was 10. I don’t talk about those days anymore. I did find a diamond ring when I was 10. On Folsom and 22nd. I was buying tortillas for my tía Abina. The ocean swallowed the diamond in La Jolla Cove. The perfect place to swallow diamonds.
“It’s too late to head back to North Beach,” I tell Frank. It’s one of our hangouts. Sometimes we get up in the morning and roll out to Golden Gate Park. We both live on 24th & Capp Street. Bell Apts. He’s on the first floor. I sublet #10 to him. Up on the 3rd floor now, my studio. At GG park, we walk to the end, cross
the street and shuffle on the sand. We go in his smudgy gray-green Malibu carrucha about 100 years old. To tell you the truth, the other day, Frank got close to getting stabbed in the Tenderloin. A guy with a miniature jack knife came at him. Who knows what. Frank leaped into his gray-green shark car. Good ‘ol Malibu. “Get on the cement,” I say to Frank. I didn’t know the beach had a cement stage. Frank crouches and throws a left hook and dances in all directions. My Pentax follows his boxing moves. Flash. Flash. Flash!
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