Restless in San Francisco

Last night, I went to the candlelight vigil for Cindy Sheehan at the 24th St. BART station in the Mission. There was an email from MoveOn.org in my inbox two days prior. Shamefully, I’m prone to deleting them. Headers including the words ‘Rove’ and Congress never inspire me to action. I know they should. I constantly beat myself up for not being more attuned to the minutiae of politics, especially now. My knee-jerk newspaper response is to go straight for the fun sections: Arts&Leisure, Dining Out, Sunday Styles. It takes a very conscious effort to read the front page first. In the back of my head, I always hear my mother’s voice saying, “Life isn’t 24 hours entertainment, Andrea.” While I never said this to her, I was secretly thinking, ‘Why not?’

Yet, I do consider myself aware. Just maybe not as informed as I ought to be.

Anyway, I clicked open the email from MoveOn. When I saw the picture of Cindy’s grief-stricken face, it struck a nerve. She didn’t look possessed by some wailing Greek mythological spirit set on beating a path toward revenge. Her face just looked long and lost, like she had forgotten who she was and what she was supposed to be doing. I read on about the truck that ran over her crosses and thought, my God, this is absurd. How is it possible that our President, even one as inept as Bush, can allow a mourning woman to be treated this way? In that moment, my feelings toward Bush changed definitively from passive disgust to outrage. I couldn’t accept his ineptitude as merely a pathetic reality any longer. This isn’t happening, I thought. We can’t allow this to happen. I signed up for the vigil.

Since Mike was out of town, I went by myself, still a little shy to ask friends in my new city to join me, especially to a political event. I walked down 24th street. It was still light out even though the summer fog loomed in the sky. When I told Mike I was going, he told me to be careful. There might be a sniper or something trying to take out objectors. Normally, I would have been annoyed by this overreaction. It was a vigil not a protest but, truth be told, you couldn’t be so sure anymore. I told him I would without making a fuss.

What I did worry about was that the BART station would be crawling with drunks like it normally was. My hair was still wet from the shower and I was wearing my Gap trenchcoat, a pair of argyle slip-on sneakers and my shiny new engagement ring. Could I have been any preppier? I stopped in a deli and bought a box of emergency candles, trying not to give in to the fearful mind chatter, luring me with the option to stay locked up in my warm and sheltered apartment.

When I got down to the station, it was much calmer than I anticipated. No shouting or shoving or fists flying. In fact, I didn’t see anyone right off the bat. The vigil was scheduled for 7:30pm, I wasn’t wearing a watch so I was probably early. I walked further down the block thinking the crowd might be gathered on the opposite side of Mission street when I saw a bearded man with a bandanna around his head hanging a banner from the fence above the station dome. He looked like a leader. A grey-haired woman in a fuschia coat helped him out. She also had the look of someone in charge and my suspicion was confirmed when she handed me a bag of cups and votives to set up on the ground. I was one of the first people there along with a large, misshapen woman in pink sweatpants. Her face looked as if it had been kicked in with a very hard boot early in her life. One of her damaged eyes rested on the top of her cheekbone and the side of her face was covered with fleshy bumps. Two eighteen year-old girls sat cross-legged against the dome, cradling large Jesus candles. I busied myself with setting up the votives while the eighteen year-olds remained seated and struggled to light them with a psychedelic Bic. Because the lighter was so small, it wasn’t exactly efficient but they were determined. After I set up the candles, I fished a long gas lighter from the paper bag beneath the banner and helped the girls out, focused on contributing as much as possible (and not quite ready to engage strangers in conversation). The wind kept blowing the candles out so I kept busy re-lighting.

A woman approached the vigil and asked what we were doing. Someone explained that Cindy Sheehan had lost a son in the war. She said she understood. She had lost a son, too. Three sons. Not in the Iraq war but in another war. Then she referred to a man standing next to her and said that he had fought in Vietnam. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he warned her quietly. It was obviously a sore subject between the two of them. I turned my head to look at them, to see what a Vietnam vet looked like in person. Vietnam vets were literary to me, imaginary almost because I’d only seen them in movies or read of them in books. The woman looked like she was in her early forties but her face was rough and disassembled. He had a permanent look of horror fixed to his face and appeared ready to bolt at any second. They both shook from their cores and it was clear that they were drug addicts. She started a non-sequitur on how candles in the church cost $4 and asked if she could light one. Of course, someone said, handing her a paper cup. She needed a light. Not thinking, I held out the gas lighter to light the candle for her but she asked me (unintentionally sharp) if she could light it herself. Of course, I said and handed it over. Her hand shook and her face twitched as she tried to light it. I told her to hold down the button and the switch at the same time. She was instantly sweet and humble. I felt bad for her, this woman so obviously an emotional slave to her addiction.

By this time, the crowd had grown to about 70 people. I finished my tasks and grabbed one of my own candles. I melted the bottom of the taper to make it stick to the inside of the cup. I lit the candle and passed off the lighter to someone else. With nothing else to do, I stood there waiting, protecting my flame from the wind. I eavesdropped on a conversation between one of the eighteen year-olds and her mom, an earth mother with a great head of long grey-hair. Their banter was so playful and friendly, I was moved to comment.
“You came with your daughter? That’s nice.” I forced the words out, determined to connect.
“I guilted them into it.” She stuck out her tongue at her child.
“That’s what did the trick, mom, the sticking out your tongue.”
I smiled dumbly with nothing else to say then the earth mother introduced herself.
“I’m Barbara. And you are?”
“Andrea.”
“Ann-rea?”
I got this often. Did I slur my ds?
“Andrea”.
“Hi, Andrea. Nice to meet you.”
I was so grateful for her well-timed small talk. She asked me if I lived in the neighborhood and I told her I lived up the hill in Noe Valley. She lived on Harrison and 24th. I explained that I was relatively new to the city, about four months, and she agreed that was new. In the back of my head, I wondered when I would stop being a newcomer. She told me that she grew up in the oppressive suburbs of Utah and Wyoming and when she finally made it to San Francisco she had found her rightful place. “Welcome to God’s country,” she said and then laughed at her own joke.

The organizers had arranged the candles on the ground to spell out the words: EXIT IRAQ. We were instructed to stand in a line facing the street so that we could be seen. El Noticiero, the Spanish news channel was there. Guarded by a beefy cameraman, the reporter was wearing a navy blazer and tan pants. I did a double take when I saw his chiseled face. He looked like he stepped off the set of a telenovela. Another very young, pretty-faced boy holding a tape recorder and a mic asked the gentleman next to me if he wanted to say a few words for the radio. He declined. My heart sped up thinking he was going to ask me to say something so I silently rehearsed a few lines but he walked the other way.

The bandanna man stood facing the crowd, which had swelled to a respectable 150. The cameraman angled himself to the left of him. The bandanna man introduced himself (I couldn’t hear exactly who he said he was) and explained very simply what the situation was. We cared about Cindy Sheehan not because she was some ridiculously stubborn person camping out on Bush’s ranch, but because she really wanted to know when the war would be over. She wanted an answer. He summed up the general sentiment, We had done enough, we had been there long enough. It was time to come home. We were here in support of Cindy, to let her know that we were on her side. He then said that if we were interested we could place a cell phone call to Crawford, Texas to tell her so. He asked if anyone else had something to say but nobody came forward. He seemed pleased since this was part of the plan. It wasn’t about getting up on a soapbox. It was just about showing our support.

The vigil began. We stood there in relative quiet for about ten minutes. The street noise was kept at bay. The absence of fire engines, sirens, horns and Turrets sufferers conspired in our favor, bolstering the feeling that there was nothing else in this moment as important or pressing as this play for peace. Someone tried to start a chant. “Power to the Peaceful.” Since it didn’t really catch, the words sounded robotic coming from the few compliant voices. I felt weird saying it, although I tried. I looked around to see if other people were into it but they were as unenthused as I was. “Stop the Killing, ” was another attempt to rally the crowd but this one even more a failure than the first. I couldn’t help but laugh. It just didn’t really fit with the mood. Thankfully, Barbara made a comment. “That’s depressing. Let’s try, All we are saying is give peace a chance. I’ll start it.” Barbara was so cool.

We sang out lightly. The handsome reporter tapped his cameraman to make sure he was getting this, extending his own mic to capture the sound. The singing continued steadily, softly for about ten rounds. A woman in her 50s with terrible teeth tried to change the words to “All we are saying is go down to the ranch.” She laughed at her own wittiness and a few people standing near her tried to get the crowd to change the words but, again, it didn’t catch. We weren’t an easily influenced group.

The singing tapered off and we stood there saying nothing. A youngish man was putting out loaves of Semifreddi bread and butter in front of the old clock. Barbara’s daughter said she was getting hungry. We said good-bye and I watched them walk down the street. As soon as I couldn’t see them anymore, I blew out my candle and walked home.

I’m not a nice person when I travel. The flaws of the world light up like a thousand dinging seatbelt signs and I just want to tell everyone I encounter how rude they are. This old man sitting next to me on my flight from Washington Dulles to San Francisco kept making these ghastly yawns without covering his mouth. Incidentally, it’s the same noise my sister makes when she wants to drive me crazy. Every time he opened his maw it sounded like he was hacking up a pit in his throat and a gust of mothball-scented wind floated by me. Cover your mouth, damn you! I longed to scream but instead I just glared at him from my peripheral view.
Behind me, a teenage surfer dude announced his desire for a cocktail as his seatmate shoved in next to him. Maybe he was lonely or scared of flying or just bored but he immediately engaged her in a question and answer session worthy of a blind date. What was she doing in Washington? Actually, she was just connecting. Why? Well, this is the airline’s hub, she explained. I was immediately impressed by her tolerance for such random interrogation. From where I was sitting, it sounded like she might even be enjoying it. So you’re going to California? She was going back home to San Francisco, well, Oakland actually. She was in Cleveland at her cousin’s wedding. Did you have a good time? Yeah. (Not really.) It’s always good to see family.

He started to tell her that he was en route to Hawaii for a surfing tournament, that he was meeting his family there and he hadn’t been in a really long time. He had a seven-hour layover in San Francisco that he planned to spend at the bar. She met this with peals of nervous laughter for lack of anything constructive to say. Then he told her that he had gotten his plane ticket for $10 because his uncle worked for the airline. Can’t beat ten bucks, right? She tried to match his deal by telling him that she also had a relative who worked for the airlines. Once they got in on one of the friends and family promotions but she never really grew up living that lifestyle or anything. Not like her nieces and nephews who fly everywhere for free. The conversation breaks, a moment of silence. Thank God. The words on the page of my novel start to come back into focus. But no, he continues.
Did you go to college?
Me? She says. So far I haven’t actually seen this woman. She’s just a disembodied alto behind me but my guess is that she’s well into her thirties. For the first time since he started with the questions there’s a barely perceptible edge to her voice. Of course I went to college, you sparky little souse, is what I’m hearing. So, his next question redeems them both.
Where did you go?
Berkelely.
Wow, he says. I can see his eyes go wide. Everyone I know who goes there is like super smart.
She laughs nervously. She wasn’t expecting such sincerity.
Well, I don’t know how I got in.
Then the bashful laugh. This guy is really sweet, she’s thinking. No agenda. And I’m maybe buying into his whole persona at this point, too. Why couldn’t I just accept that here was a nice kid trying to reach out to the stranger next to him for no other purpose than to make a human connection? Why did I have to judge him based on the volume of his voice? Maybe I was jealous that my seat mates had no interest in my life. I looked to the young girl to my right but she was engaged in her Discman and flinched slightly when she saw me trying to make eye contact. The old man on my left spasmed in his sleep and let out another snozzle. We hadn’t even left the ground, yet.
The dialogue behind me went on.
What did you study?
Architecture.
Wow. That’s awesome.
Yeah, she says, sort of dreamily, sort of proud. Now it’s her turn to keep the chat going. That’s how I ended up in Oakland.
You a Raiders fan?
Hell, I’m a Broncs fan. And here the laugh kicks in again but it’s not self-conscious or nervous anymore. It’s a deep, hearty female Santa sound. I’m originally from Colorado.
I got some friends at the University of Colorado. Man, they like to party.
Yeah. They do.
The captain curtails the chat, alerting the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff.
The voices behind me go silent for a good, long time. They both invest the money for the personal hand-held digibetas and headphones, he gets his cocktail.

Throughout the flight, I long to turn around and stare at these two people behind me, to see what they look like, to confirm or shatter the image in my mind of this unexpected pair of pals. But, I don’t because it would be rude.