After the Win

I worked at the restaurant the night of the election. Towards the end of the evening, listening to Obama’s acceptance speech, I leaned against the counter, celebrating with a beer in hand, and noticed the Mexican cooks toiling hurriedly in the kitchen.

One of the cooks and I play a game where we hit one another in the arm until one of us gives. I give.

On the way home, waiting for the J-train, 30 minutes behind schedule, a homeless man shuffles down the steps from the bridge over the 280. He climbs over the divide into the freeway and, bowed, walks to his island home out of which juts a massive column supporting an overpass. Rags, papers, bags, trash, all tuck up against the concrete pillar forming a great round bed of debris. I forget about him in my mounting frustration with the tardy train, until, minutes later, a flame bursts out of his shadows lighting his form and immediately subsides.

After waiting for a train that should have arrived 40 minutes earlier I can’t get the backdoor to open, so I slam myself through its front door thinking I’m furious and it matters.

Walking down Duboce Street to my apartment I notice darkened helicopters hovering over our Castro neighborhood and realize Prop 8 will not pass. The noise from the incessant chopping of the cold night does not cease until after I fall asleep.

Walking to school in the morning, it seems everyone thinks you voted for McCain. The space between us has that feel.