Trevor, Terah, and I found our way into Vesuvio looking for a place to talk and have a few drinks before making the drive back to Modesto.

A cocktail waitress followed us to our open table upstairs.

Terah ordered her much anticipated White Russian, Trevor and I went for Cuba Libres.

The place was filled with cosmopots. Chinese girls came in wearing white faux fur collared jackets followed by young italian men wearing black, leather jackets. We were in North Beach afterall, with the smell of chinese chop sueys competing with Italian violinists playing for the restaurant goers and bow-tied, slick-backed waiters.

The art bohemian types were there, crooning along to Bob Dyaln's Like a Rolling Stone, singing "How does it feeeeel."

Outside the window, strange red light district characters smoked. Cleavaged women were all dolled up with the arm of face-pierced, goateed bouncers around them.

Trevor and Terah returned from the washroom and I went downstairs to find the washroom myself. Old posters and eccentric abstract art work lined the halls and stairways. Jack Kerouac's image was everywhere, almost idolic. Lawrence Ferlinghetti grinned behind beard, wearing a fedora.

Above the bar, there was a hand painted sign announcing Vesuvio's drink specials. A photo of Kerouac is pasted to this sign, wearing railman's cap.

Vesuvio Cafe
Specialties:

"Bohemian Coffee
Brandy
Amaretto
twist of Lemon
(Coffee)"

"The 'Jack Kerouac'
Tequila
Rum
Orange and Cran
Juice
A twist of lime"

And a poem that reads something like this:

"Before we all go up to Heaven
Visions of America
All that hitch-hikin'
All that rail-roadin'
Will all be coming
back.

Jack Kerouac"

Back upstairs, it was almost 11:30 pm Saturday night, there wasn't a seat open in Vesuvio. All of our glasses were empty, our waitress was back.

"Is there coffee in the Bohemian Coffee?" I asked.
"Yes," the waitress answered.
"Is it GOOD?"
"It's strong. I don't like amaretto in my drinks."
"How 'bout the Jack Kerouac? Is that good?"
"That's REALLY strong, it has tequila in it."

I looked at Trevor and Terah for approval. "Is a drink's strength a measure of how good it is?" I wondered.

"I'll take the Jack Kerouac and he'll have the Bohemian Coffee." I said.

"And water," Terah said as the waitress was moving on to the next table.

I turned in my chair as she was coming back. "And water for her, please."

Trevor sipped the Bohemian coffee through the cocktail straw. There was a little strip of twisted lemon strip floating in the drink. "That's brutal." He said, wincing.

I pushed the Jack Kerouac to him across the little table. "It has a kick!"

We traded drinks again. I carefully sipped at the yellow and burgundy tequila concoction. "You have to down it, not sip it," Trevor instructed.

At our table, we remarked how lucky we were to have the view at our window-side table. Outside, lines of people clustered in front of clubs and restaurants under flashing strings of lights and giant neon signs. Cars sat idling at intersections waiting for their turn.

Above our table, among the dry brushed painting of a curly haired woman and framed inked haikus in Japanese, there was a black and white portrait of saintly poet Charles Baudelaire. He looked down on us with firey heart beating, tired eyes, and pained, sad smile.

We left Vesuvio and walked a few blocks past the caffe's of Little Italy to our car in Chinatown, without saying much, in the cool breeze of night time San Francisco.