A Night At The Balboa Cafe
PROLOGUE
Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
- George Bernard Shaw
Balboa Cafe. Night. A friend I met for a drink is now drunk. She must have had one too many drinks because she is really talkative and needs to be held up to walk.
“Let’s go to The Matrix. Let’s get something to eat.”
A Yellow taxi pulls up to the corner of Fillmore and Greenwich Street heading north. Two men start to put her body in the backseat. I’ll get in last if the driver approves to let her in the vehicle and take her home.
Where does she live?
“I can’t take her. She might throw up.”
The two men take her out of the backseat. The taxi drives away.
It’s at this moment that I thought I should have driven here instead of taken public transportation. I wished I could go back in time and remake this event. I didn’t even expect this to happen. The afternoon hadn’t started like this.
CHAPTER 1: FINAL BAR NIGHT
Monday afternoon. I’m in the Inner Sunset District taking a long bike ride in which I bike to UCSF, 9th Ave and Lincoln Way, onto Judah Street to 19th Avenue, go south 4 blocks, and head west into the Central Sunset- back home. Today, however, is different than my usual bike ride because as soon as I’m on Noriega Street I head onto Sunset Blvd and bike south 3 blocks. I hadn’t been biking each afternoon so now I was catching up.
During the bike ride I stop and text some friends about how their day was. One of them texts back and we have a conversation- Angela Roberts.
“Want to go to a bar?”
“Sure. Can it be in the Sunset?”
“No. Why don’t you come to the Marina?”
“I don’t like travelling far.”
“Well I can’t go to your neighborhood because I don’t have a car.”
“Then I’ll go over there.”
Once I get home I shower, dress casual with my black suede jacket and put on some cologne. I’ve become used to wearing the jacket whenever going out on social events because it makes me look sophisticated.
Who’s that guy?
My brother is about to go with my mom to Home Depot to buy a Christmas tree. I ask him to leave me at 19th Avenue and Noriega Street. I can tell that tonight is going to be one of those nights where I end up staying out longer than usual.
The 28-Noriega heading north isn’t really crowded. I hate it when buses are really crowded that you have to squeeze through 2 people to either get to a seat or exit.
I text Angela that I’m on my way.
She texts me back that she is expecting me and is excited. I take a seat in middle of the bus and look to the north, though I’m heading northeast from my house.
My phone rings.
Aren’t you anxious to see me?
“Hi, Roberts.”
Before I had said anything it sounded like everybody on this bus was heading to San
Quentin Prison to meet their
I have been calling Angela by her last name for 2 years now. She was staying at Carla’s
small apartment in the summer of 2007 for a month after being kicked out of the homeless
shelter she had been staying at. One Saturday night I decided to pay her a visit. Little did I know
that she would not answer the door.
A man who lived in the building was coming back. The garage door was open. I
proceeded in.
I knocked on the door 3 times until it was opened by Angela.
The conversation we had was if Carla knew that I was at her place. I showed her the text
message Carla had texted me about coming to her place.
“Does this answer your question?”
“No.”
“Trust me. Carla knows I’m here.”
“I think we should call her so I can make sure.”
An entire minute of silence felt like a bank robbery gone wrong where the leader is
thinking about the team’s next move
“I’m just going to go to bed,” Angela said.
I did an about face and Angela closed the door.
Years earlier I invited her to a friend’s birthday bash at Element Lounge on Geary Street
in the Tenderloin. I had told her about it on a Friday night.
“Thank you for inviting me Frank. What are you going to wear?”
“Probably something fancy.”
The date was the following night.
I was getting ready that night to go to the club when I tried to call her. She wouldn’t pick
up.
What the hell is happening?
Eventually she answered and told me she was sick. I believed
her and went to the club alone.
Angela has a way with people, so-called friends. She will hang out with them, seeming
like the nicest person they’ve met. But in the end she will ask for favors and then go in the dark-
Basically out of sight and out of mind- That’s what so strange about her communicating with me
tonight.
“What did you call me?”
I pause for 2 seconds.
Time to start over.
“Hi, Angela. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Where are you?”
I tell her I’ll be there soon.
“Just one drink and I’m out,” I tell her.
Unfortunately, I miss my stop on Lombard and Fillmore. My
mind must have been somewhere else.
I get off at Chestnut and Laguna Street, and run/ walk fast to the Balboa Café as if it’s an
emergency. I focus on getting to the bar.
I call Angela as I approach the bar.
“I’m inside.”
I walk inside through the corner door of the bar and look around for her. The lights are
either dimly lit or off because I see silhouettes of customers on the floor and against the walls.
I look from right to left, searching for Angela.
Talk about finding a needle in a haystack.
She’s sitting against the wall where the TV is located. A group of gentlemen are watching the NFL game tonight. They’re probably lawyers celebrating a case they won in court today.
I approach Angela. She is standing up with her arms open wide.
Something is different. She is really thin. Almost rail thin, like a model or a mannequin. Maybe she’s been modeling. If Death was a female and had a face it would have short brown hair, hazel brown eyes, stand at 5’7”, be dressed up for a night on the town, and wear a black windbreaker. But I don’t think she’s in the best shape to appear on America’s Next Top Model. If she would be on the show she would automatically be disqualified.
“Hi, Frank. Give me a hug.”
I hug her. She asks for a bigger hug. I hug her again. She asks for a real hug. I hug her for the third time.
What’s wrong with Angela?
I sit down next to Angela. It is at this moment that I notice she is really thin. I don’t know whether it’s anorexia or bulimia. What happened to her? Her long brown hair is short.
“Do I look like a Holocaust survivor?” she asks.
“What? Why are you so thin?”
“I have a benign tumor in my brain.”
Really? Then why are you drinking?
“I’m in my element.”
Drinking isn’t the answer.
“I don’t have to work tomorrow.”
“I think we should take a walk.”
“But, ‘I’m in my element.’”
A female bartender comes to take my order. I ask for a martini.
“He said he’s having ‘one drink and he’s out,’” Angela tells her, quoting what I had told her early over the phone.
I think I’ll have another.
Angela and I talk about what she’s been up to. Then she stops to check the messages on her cellular phone. Looks like she and I both have iPhones. I take this time to text Carla about Angela. Carla calls me a minute later.
“What’s wrong with Angela?”
“She is anorexic or bulimic.”
“Let me talk to her.”
I pass my cell phone to Angela and sit back to enjoy my drink.
Angela hands me back my phone 3 minutes later. I put it against my ear.
“She needs to go back to rehab,” Carla tells me.
I agree with her.
“She has had way too much to drink.”
While I’m on the phone with Carla I can’t tell if Angela is sitting or standing because she is looking at me in a strange way. She is slithering as she looks eyes with me.
She is drunk.
The next thing I know she is giving me a peck on the cheek as I keep talking to Carla on my cell phone. Exactly one minute later, I see Angela lean into me with her lips puckered.
Our first kiss. I didn’t know Angela had feelings for me.
I keep talking to Carla and then pass my phone back to Angela.
By now I have been sitting for 30 minutes. I get up to use the restroom, which is located on the western side of the bar.
As I get up I feel a hand touch the back of my right wrist.
“Baby, where are you going?”
I turn around and tell Angela that I need to use the bathroom.
“I’ll be right back.”
When I come back I notice Angela sitting with my cell phone in her hand, looking north.
Maybe she’s realized that drinking isn’t the answer.
She gives me back my cell phone.
“Let’s go to another bar.”
“I think we should get out of here and talk. Just pay off the drinks and let’s go.”
Angela pays for the drinks with her cute Hello Kitty credit card. I would’ve thought that seeing a seventeen-year-old would be more appropriate with a credit card like that. There are things in childhood that we can’t live without. In this case, she still hasn’t gotten bored of seeing Hello Kitty.
Monday night. It’s after 7 and I’m telling Angela that we shouldn’t go to another bar on
Fillmore Street in the Cow Hollow District. Besides that, people are starting to give us stares as
she starts to cross the street. People outside the Balboa Café have front row seats to see two
drunk people talking: Angela trying to go to another bar and me, somewhat drunk, yet still able
to think, telling her that we shouldn’t go.
A guardian angel.
I look at her and say it’s a bad idea.
“Angela. Angela. Angela. Angela.”
As I hear myself repeat her name I feel like a kid asking someone for attention.
For one minute I face her and say no. Suddenly she falls on her back. It’s not like I
pushed her hard. She just lost balance. I tell her to stand up and grab her right hand. She is really
drunk.
Three men come out from the bar. The one in the middle, which I take to the leader of the trio, looks concerned. Hopefully I’m not disturbing the manager from making money.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I think she’s drunk,” I answer as I’m pulling her up by her right arm. Her eyes are
closed.
The other two ask her for identification and where she lives.
She tells them that she lives on Nineteenth Avenue, which confuses me because I thought
she lived on Treasure Island.
When did she move back to SF? I thought she lived on Treasure Island.
A Yellow Taxi pulls up to the curb on Fillmore Street.
The answer?
The two men try to put her in the backseat.
At least she is conscious. But still drunk.
The taxi driver notices she is drunk and says he can’t take her because she might throw
up on the way home.
The two men take her body out of the cab, like moving a delicate piece of furniture
around.
The taxi heads north to its next destination.
Had I driven here to our “reunion” I would’ve been able to drive her home. Parking far
from this location would have been second nature to me. Angela might have sobered up on the
ride to her place and told me exactly why she went to the Balboa Cafe, as well as what demons
have been bothering her. Maybe we could’ve even stopped at a fast food joint for dinner.
If I’d be giving her a ride home I would’ve dropped her off at her grandmother’s house
on 34th Ave, four blocks away from my house.
If drinking is bad for you, then go cold turkey and find another hobby.
One of the men asks her for identification and what her code is to access her
mobile phone.
She might know. She is sobering up.
“She says she lives on 19th Avenue.”
Unbeknownst to me, I think she is drunk to know her actual address.
The next question is who can be contacted to come pick her up- Aunt Annie.
“No! Don’t call Aunt Annie.”.
Another of the men brings her out a wineglass filled with water.
She sits on a chair outside the bar and drinks water from a wineglass. One of the men
talks to her to keep her company.
I stand beside the bar’s exit on Greenwich Street and decide to film her with my digital
camera.
Angela is really talkative thanks to her sipping one-too-many drinks at one of her favorite
Bar’s, like a hyperactive teenager at senior prom.
“You’re a good man for waiting out here with me until my ride shows up.”
“Thank you.”
“What kind of beer are you drinking?” she asks the man, after she takes a sip of water.
“Coors Light.”
“I want to drink that kind of beer!”
“You need to sober up. We’re going to hang out with you until someone picks you up.”
“You don’t want to hang out with me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You don’t want to end up with the responsibility, and drive me to my grandmother’s
house in the morning.”
The man takes a swig from the beet bottle.
Time flies as the three of us wait for one of her family members to come pick her up. It’s
the beginning of the end where a friend something good will come out of nowhere.
A black 4x4 parks on Greenwich Street, close to the Balboa Cafe. A tall middle aged man
with gray hair, glasses, comes out of the driver’s side. He is dressed casually.
It’s my first time seeing her father.
What he does is like what I’ve seen in movies. He approaches Angela, walks her to the
backseat of the car, where she probably lies down on to take a long-needed nap, and he shuts the
door.
Can I get a ride home?
I consider asking him for a ride back to my house, and then decide not to because I’m too
cold to talk.
Then he gets behind the wheel and drives to their final destination .
Now that Angela is safe I walk to Lombard Street to catch the 28-Daly City Bart to get
back home.
As I walk to Lombard I check the time on my cell phone: 10: 30. It feels like it’s been
longer.
What happened tonight seemed like a little too much for bar-hopping in December.
Actually it was more than that.
Will she remember this night?
CHAPTER 2
Wednesday morning. I am on my PC typing a final paper that has to be around 10-pages
long. I will turn it in next week.
My cellular phone is on the desktop. I see the screen light up. I notice that I’ve received a
text message from Angela.
“What happened last night?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“No. I only had one drink, right?”
I ignore her last text and focus on typing my final paper.
Angela should figure out what happened. Otherwise, why did she go to a bar on Fillmore
Street in the first place?
Wednesday night. I get a call from Angela. She asks me about last night.
“I only had one drink, right?”
“You looked like you had drank three. You were pretty out of it.”
She tells me that her parents haven’t interrogated her about last night yet.
“Two guys tried asking you who they could call and called your Aunt Annie. Then, I
think, your dad came to pick you up.”
“Now I know what to tell my parents.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at McDonald’s at Stonestown Mall, having dinner before my night class.”
Fast food is the answer for hungry students who might be in a rush. No need to enter the
mall and pay for something that a cook will take 5-10 minutes to prepare.
“How many classes are you taking?”
“Six. It’s my first semester.”
`“I’ll talk to you later.”
We both hang up.
Late Sunday afternoon. It’s raining on-and-off. Angela texts me, asking if she can borrow
some funny DVDs I have.
“I have Rush Hour 2 and Austin Powers in Goldmember.”
She texts me if I can drop them off at her apartment on 19th Avenue. I tell her that I’ll
take the bus.
“Come pick me up at 24th Street and Mission.”
I resist driving to pick her up until she calls my cell.
“Francisco, please come pick me up. I’m freezing out here.”
I exhale through my nose.
“Fine.”
CHAPTER 3: Memories
I get into my 1999 Toyota Corolla. My digital camera is in the glove compartment.
I’ll show Angela the footage I have of her being drunk at Balboa Cafe.
I start the engine and head east to the McDonalds at 24th and Mission Street. Music from
the 90s and 2000s plays from my iPhone which I’ve connected to my car radio with an auxiliary
cord.
Another favorite thing I like to do when I’m driving is call people. The sound of his/her
voice will come through the speakers in the back of the car. This beats talking on a mobile phone
while driving, which could get the driver a ticket.
It’s funny how Angela takes advantage of our friendship during times like these, using
me to reach her goal. I guess I’m the only person she can rely on at the moment.
Six years ago she was trying to bribe me into picking her up in Berkeley and bring her
into the city. She was going to pay me $40 for that “errand.”
Money can’t buy you happiness or a ride to San Francisco.
Eventually I snapped and e-mailed her an angry letter. She snapped back at me a day later
when she answered the e-mail asking me who the Hell I was for telling her what to do?
Either stay out of the kitchen or get burned.
I graduated from John O’Connell High School in May, 2001. The school was on 20th and
Folsom Street. That school year I would take the 48-Quintara back home from school along with
a few friends, Chuck, Joey, and Jason Jorge who were heading toward the Sunset, where the high
school had been located for the last decade.
Before O’Connell had returned to its home in the Mission it was located 5 blocks west
from my house. I always thought of that as beneficial because I could go to the Ortega Branch
Library after school on Friday afternoons after all my classes had ended and check out movies on
video cassette. I would do that on my junior year of high school.
Whenever the bus would take long, I would either walk to 24th and Mission or just keep
walking until the bus would come. What a great way to exercise!
Before the school permanently moved back into the Mission, I used to think that the
neighborhood was dangerous from having parents tell me stories about it.
The things parents tell their kids to scare them into not doing something.
Eventually I learned that sometimes people have to lose their fear if they want to do
something that means the world to them as well as ignore everyone who says it’s impossible.
Principal
Principal, now I see
Have always gotten in my way,
You, always called me to the front line,
telling me not to do what I did not do
I always obeyed and walked away like nothing ever happened.
ALWAYS, followed rules and acted cool.
Never thought I was the one being played for a fool
Once I started to tell what others were doing,
I was ignored.
Everybody was against me, especially YOU.
Whenever I told you someone did something to me, you didn't care
But why should you?
It won't matter to you if I dare
die or try to get back at you for what you did to me
I wish I had done something to make you listen.
It felt like everybody was against me, my guardian angel had left my side.
Why?
The only thing left for me to do was run and hide!
I had to either stay and fight my demons or pull out.
I would ride the bus up to 35th Avenue and Quintara Street, and walk 2 blocks north to
my house.
The thing I hated about walking 2 blocks home from the bus stop was passing by the
elementary school I had attended for 4 years, Robert Louis Stevenson School.
My last two years at that school were as horrific as a suspense thriller. The principal,
Mrs. C., would call me to her office after the morning recess to tell me to stop communicating
with my crush, Shay Chan, and to play with students in my court- The school was authoritarian.
Rules were set, and students obliged. Whoever disobeyed was sent to the principal’s office to be
set straight. Each time I walked to the principal’s office was S.O.P. (Standard Operating
Procedure) - She would tell me to stop doing this, and then I would go back to my class like
nothing had happened, like a man in England during the time of the crusades who was heading to
the guillotine for his unforgivable sins. No fear. No thoughts. Just bring it on. Truth was that she
would always agree with the student who told her I had done something wrong, and then put a
loaded gun to my head.
“Stop it!”
You can drag a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You need to leave the horse
alone for a few minutes.
The second time I was sent to the principal’s office was for telling Shasta’s classmate that
I could go back to the school I had come from in Daly City, Thomas Edison, because I was
having a bad start here.
Sitting in her desk chair, Mrs. C. looked me straight in the eye.
“Frank, forget about the other school. You are here now, and you will get an education
just like everyone else. Just be yourself.”
I was usually the last student to leave Mrs. C.’s office each time.
The following time I was called to the principal’s office was about something I had told
David during morning recess in the northern school yard concerning Shay.
“I might not be able to talk to her in school, but I can still call her.”
“Franklin, when you get home today I want you to rip up her phone number!”
However, when I got home I didn’t rip her number. As it turned out, I just told myself
mentally to not contact her ever again. Not even to say hello.
The final time I was called to Mrs. C.’s office that school year was to have Shay tell me
to stop doing this “threat,” as she called it.
That was the first time I had heard such a word and I didn’t bother asking what it meant.
To begin with she told Mrs. C. that she would like it if I stopped my childish games with
her. Then the principal told her to look at me and tell me directly what she wanted.
“Frank, I really want you to stop this threat that you’ve been doing to me.”
“All right.”
That was the only time I ever looked into Shay’s brown eyes. From that moment on I
stopped talking to her. We became as silent as ships in the night with one another.
Never again.
The stakes were raised the following school year. I already knew where to play and with
whom as well as who to talk to. It started to feel that everyone was against me because Shay and
another Kindergarten buddy were hall monitors during lunch recess- Two fifth graders
maintaining order inside the school. If they saw something wrong, they’d report it to the
principal, and then God knew how it would end.
The only thing the monitors couldn’t do, since they were girls, was to report if anything
happened inside the men’s’ or boys’ bathrooms. Everything had a limit.
One day I was in the boys’ bathroom, washing my hands when another student started to
throw wet paper towels at me. I went into a toilet stall hoping that he’d stop. Another joined in-
Just two punk kids in elementary school picking on me. I ran out of the restroom, panting for air.
Mrs. C., wearing her red coat as usual and eye glasses, was in the hall at that moment.
“Two kids were just throwing wet paper towels at me.”
“Who?”
“Uh. I don’t know their names. They’re bothering me.”
I was hoping she would enter the restroom and tell them to stop.
“Who?”
She paused.
“Frank, no one is bothering you. You’re just making this up.”
I headed north to the yard where my class was playing.
Another day during lunch recess while drinking water from the fountain in the yard, I
must have kept my thumb on the dispenser because the water overflowed and one of my pant
legs.
I proceeded to the court where my classmates were playing.
Next thing I knew a Latino friend asked me how I got my pants wet.
I told him that I had an accident at the water fountain.
Then a female classmate grabbed him by the shoulders and told him in Spanish that I had
urinated in my pants.
That’s not true!
I was left talking to the deaf because everyone now thought I had wet myself.
The talk about my “accident” ceased when I returned to class.
These “accidents” would happen day after day. Any classmate I’d talk to would put me in
trouble.
Sometimes I would get lectured by my teacher post lunch recess for asking a classmate a
question.
First I would ask a simple question. Then she’d go to the teacher and tell her what I was
doing. Finally the teacher would snap at me.
“Frank, don’t ask questions,” she’d yell through gritted teeth.
I’d comply and go about my schoolwork.
It must have been one of those days when my past came back to kick me in the rear. Shay
and a classmate came to tell the teacher that I had been bothering her.
It was a sunny afternoon, post lunch recess. Everyone was doing their class work.
Suddenly, two female fifth graders entered and walked toward the teacher. Shay was one
of them. They told the teacher something.
“Frank, come here,” the teacher said.
I walked up to her desk.
“Stop bothering Shay,” she told me through her gritted teeth.
Shay and her classmate left, and I returned to my desk.
It’s funny how bad things can happen on sunny days. Anything is possible.
One week we had been assigned to play on the dodge ball court. Classmates would either
play the sport or sit somewhere else and talk to friends.
On of those days I noticed a group of students from my class fighting over something: A
bottle of White-Out.
Determined to set an example, I got into the middle of the fight and picked up the bottle.
Slowly, I started to close the lid when a friend came up to me from behind and poured the liquid
on my right shoe. I was now determined to tell the principal so he’d be punished.
That day Mrs. C. was not at school. A teacher had assumed the role of the principal.
After lunch I went entered the hall where teacher/principal was talking to another student.
She looked at me and asked “What’s wrong?”
“A classmate poured White-Out on my shoe during recess.”
She looked down at my right shoe.
“Oh, you can wash that off yourself.”
How is this justice? I need to get out of here!
The school had become a Hell zone where the Devil awaited me at every turn. They say
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” but I was just getting really tired of asking for help only to
have a superior tell me that everything was fine. I obviously wasn’t insane, rather the principal
was against me, trying to mold me into something I am not.
Sometimes it’s better to write your problems down on a piece of paper and burn it. The
demons will never return. EVER.
CHAPTER 4
I pull up to the McDonald’s on 24th and Mission, heading east. Angela gets into the front
passenger seat. She’s wearing glasses and is holding a small bag of the fast food eatery in one
hand.
I hand her my 2 comedic DVDs that were sitting on the front passenger seat with the
covers facing skyward.
I remember raising three fingers toward my paternal grandfather the last time I was in
Peru after noticing that he wore glasses.
“Hey grandpa, how many fingers am I holding up?”
He laughed.
Classic.
I head down 24th Street toward the freeway. Music from my phone is still playing on the
radio, which is set to auxiliary.
I give her my digital camera so she can look at “Last Week’s Drinking Binge” after
having turned down the volume on my car radio.
She reacts after 30 seconds of having started the recording.
“God, just shut up,” she tells “herself.”
She’d probably be crying her eyes out had I shown her this at a rehabilitation facility.
“I’m an alcoholic!” she might’ve yelled with her head in her tear-wet hands.
She turns to look at me after having seen the recording.
“Frank, please don’t’ post this on YouTube.”
“I won’t. “
YouTube is a Web site where users can post videos they’ve recorded and watch what
others have posted; either funny or educational- one way slackers surfing the Net can spend their
time. The site has even made certain people famous, such as Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga.
I have posted some videos on YouTube before of dogs snoring and doing tricks. If I were
to post this video it would receive a negative effect, unless I set it to private, which would only
allow people who have the link to view it on their time.
“I thought you were drunk when you said you lived on 19th Avenue.”
“I used to live on Treasure Island. I moved back into the city recently. I haven’t gone to
the DMV to make the change yet.”
“Sorry.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“I do that kind of stuff when I’m drunk. I will never drink again. I mean it.”
“Let’s hope not,” I say as I drive onto the freeway on ramp, heading to 19th Avenue.
It has stopped raining by now, but it’s still foggy. Maybe tomorrow the sun will shine and
the future will look bright.
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