West Oakland: "The Animals Don't Wake Up Until Later"

Early Monday morning I walked from Jack London Square Station for an hour to the place in West Oakland where I was planning to stay. The place had been hooked up for me through a friend of a friend's friend. I have since decided that three degrees of separation is too many.

I didn't know I was going into fifty cent's neighbourhood, I didn't know West Oakland was basically a ghetto! I just walked there innocently singing om dum durgaya namaha, jaya durga ma to a melody I'd invented on the train that morning. Everyone greeted me just like on Sesame Street. The twirling children in the schoolyards were laughing and adorable, and my heart was melting in the sun reflected off the shining white teeth in the smiles of their little brown faces.

"The animals don't wake up until later," said an old man to me. Whatever, I thought, this place is lovely. But the morning sun hides all ills, making each day seem fresh and new. Later comes later.

The house where I was supposed to stay had eleven people in it. Eleven people of varying degrees of negativity with varying amounts of steel stuck through various body parts, various jobs as (macabre?) circus performers, and code names like "Trinity" (as usual). None of them, it turned out, actually knew I was coming, so I had to explain myself to the three pit bulls at the door. The mug from which I drank my bhoomi amalaki had a graphic of a skull and the word "havoc" written with blood dripping from each letter in that font usually appearing on Halloween products. This seemed emblematic of the household overall.

The room where I stayed had parts of dead animals strewn across the floor - taxidermied parts, not decomposing or anything, but still! - and was painted with chaotic red and green swirls that looked like tangled yarn stuck all over the walls... except for where the visual cacaphony coalesced into the semi-recognizable figures of that cultural cliche, the gray alien. And when I moved the dirty cloth off the head of the mattress, underneath was a humongous veiny dildo and at least five used condoms. Fuck!

The leader of this den went over the stories of every house on the block for me, dealer-dealer-whorehouse, dealer-dealer-whorehouse. This one saw his father kill his mother with a knife, that one sells her body to send her son to school... then I was briefed with the rules and tactics for negotiating the streets and their denizens if coming home after dinner. "If [complex social cue], then [apply social skill set beyond my comprehension]."

(And I'm thinking: Yeah, you anarchist kids are so fucking cool for living in hell! Yeah you are really proving your solidarity, good for you. But you can't fool me. The glee with which you recount these stories of horrors not your own betrays your tourist mentality. The truth is you are a child of privilege and you are slumming it, motivated partly by guilt it's true, but still, partly for kicks and for ego... and so I now apply that criticism most stinging to the young and idealistic: You Will Grow Out Of It!)

And they judge me cool for seeming to take it all in stride. Every item of clothing I own is brightly coloured and my face is a smile, in contrast to their affected scowls and unwashed, unravelling, black garments. Yet still I am judged cool because I am unruffled. Externally at any rate. I realized this was a test I had to pass, so I pretended that I didn't give a shit about anything.

But, dear reader, in fact I am SO cool that what I really give no shit for is seeming cool. Test still freshly passed, I quickly outed myself as a totally uncool enjoyer of life: "So where do i go to look for clues left for me by the beatniks and the hippies?" Shocked eyes stared at me. "Not for me personally of course. I mean clues in the general sense... inspiration. I'm not crazy." A glimmer of light seemed to dawn. (And I think to myself: how can you live without inspiration?!)

I left my backpack in the dildo room and lit through the neighbourhood to rapid-transit myself across the Bay to San Francisco, the former capital of music, peace, and love...