Incident in San Francisco

The lines which he had read to the class one afternoon had stuck in Ranny’s mind though, and it was doubtful that he would ever get them out, at least not as long as he lived in San Francisco. Unbidden, they popped into his head again today, and as always, Ranny dismissed them derisively. “”The fog creeps in on little cat feet”, my ass!”, he sneered. Obviously that Carl Sandburg was some kind of wimp who lived in some kind of pussy city that never had real fog. If he’d ever stepped out of a San Franciso doorway onto a street where the wind from the ocean was driving those gray streamers with a cold force which could cut through anything less than a down-filled jacket, he would have had to come up with some more realistic metaphor: “Races in like a cheetah” would be a more accurate description of its speed, but to really get the feel of the cold, Ranny thought maybe it should be compared to an Arctic wolf.

However the fog was described, Ranny just plain didn’t like it. It would probably clear sometime before lunch, but he knew that the first few hours were going to be very unpleasant outside. A sharp twinge from the old injury in his left leg reminded him that he’d soon have that to make his life even more miserable than it was now, what with October almost over and winter well on its way. Muttering and cursing to himself, he started pulling on his work clothes, getting ready to head out for another day working for those sons-of-bitches at the Cow Palace.

Chapter 3

Impatiently, Laura pushed the little gray mouse to the back of its pad with her right hand, and shoved hard against the edge of her desk with her left so that her chair rolled back almost to the wall. Not that the wall was all that far away, because it was a small office. She stood up quickly and shook her head sharply to clear it of all thoughts of work problems, then turned toward the window. The vertical blinds, which had been closed against the early morning sun, had finished their job for the day. Laura loved the sun and the views of the outside world, but direct sunlight quickly overwhelmed the building’s air conditioning and made her office unbearable. With one precise, economical gesture, she tugged the control cord just the right amount to turn the blinds exactly 90 degrees to the window glass, then reached high on the other cord and pulled it down with one efficient motion to draw the flapping slats into a neat, tight stack at the side.

As always, the magic worked. Opening the blinds was like the whisking away of a magician’s concealing cloth. With them closed, her small office could have been in Halifax or Winnipeg, in the basement or on the top floor, even somewhere in the interior of the building. With them open, the wonderful sight which greeted Laura’s eyes was the view of Montreal as seen from the 10^th floor. Her building was far enough removed from the other downtown high-rises to provide unobstructed views in most directions. When she visited her boss in her office across the building she could enjoy the green, unspoiled beauty of Mount Royal rising up to the north, behind the stately old buildings of McGill University. But she loved her own southerly exposure.

Vertigo was unknown to Laura, and she sometimes achieved the necessary break from her work by pressing her face against the glass and watching the activity below on busy St. Catherines Street. Although there were pedestrians at all hours, the advent of flex time had spread out workers’ starting, ending, and lunch hours so that the solid masses of a few decades before were now replaced by a more continuous stream of hurrying people. On a sunny October day like this, most people in this northern city opted to go about their business out-of-doors, knowing well that in a few weeks they would begin making use of the underground routes and travel inside for most of the long winter.

When Montreal was chosen as the site for the 1967 World’s Fair, the visionary mayor Jean Drapeau had made completion of the subway system a top priority. Modeled on the Paris Metro, it was mechanically wonderful, trains whooshing into stations on silent rubber wheels, swiftly opening wide doors to disgorge passengers and take on new ones, then quietly accelerating away into the dark tunnel at the end of the brightly-lit platform. The almost-compulsive behavior of Canadians regarding the neatness of public property meant that the cars and stations were always clean and free of graffiti. What set it apart from most subway systems even more, though, was the design of these stations. All underground, each had been designed by a different architect and decorated, in easy-to-clean glazed tile, in a totally different style. Making the system even more useful in this climate was the fact that the massive excavation needed for the subway had been expanded so that stations were connected by underground walkways to the basement floors of neighboring buildings. Many of these, which were office buildings above the street levels, were similarly connected to their neighbor, perhaps a large hotel or department store, by an underground walkway. And these were not dark, threatening tunnels, but rather brightly-lit thoroughfares lined with shops, bars, and restaurants. In inclement weather, a person could walk great distances without ever emerging above ground.

Today, though, the pedestrians were hurrying to their lunch-hour destinations out in the bright, cool sunlight. For a minute Laura watched them - the older businessmen in their well-tailored dark suits, younger men dressed down in sports coats and slacks in a variety of colors, and the women, dressed in that style so unique to this city. It was not the cold, sexless high fashion of Fifth Avenue, nor was it a cheap, flashy sexiness. Rather, it combined well-cut clothing and eye-catching accessories worn with an attitude of joie de vivre which made people-watching a delight for men and women alike. Delighted also were retailers, for maintaining this style required constant wardrobe refreshing. Perhaps rooted in some generations-back genes from Paris, but enhanced by an awareness and acceptance of everything new and interesting in the clothing world, the style adopted by the women of Montreal contributed greatly to the city’s charm.

Some of the Paris genes must have carried through to influence the driving style, too, although the movement of the vehicles Laura saw below was much more controlled than the craziness of downtown Paris or Rome. But the speeds were similar. With the excellent public transportation systems, people who were nervous about driving in downtown traffic simply didn’t drive. Those who did drive, drove with the intent to get to their destination as quickly as possible. Absent were the blaring horns and yelling drivers of New York, and any screeching of tires was more often due to too-sudden acceleration than to braking. Driving here was a terrifying experience for people who had moved or traveled from some quieter place, but a delight to those who drove well and appreciated being able to get where they needed to be with a minimum of time wasted and frustration endured.

The colorful flow on the streets and sidewalks below was not the view Laura needed this time. She had to rest her eyes and clear her mind by looking up, over the busy scene far below her window. From this lofty viewpoint she could see the business area of the city as it sloped down thorough centuries-old Old Montreal to the river. The mighty St. Lawrence was halfway along its thousand-mile journey from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic at this point, and Laura was much too far away to draw on the soothing effect of moving water. The sight of this great body of water, unchanging through the years, did help her relax as she let her gaze roam from the Champlain Bridge to the south, downstream past Ile Ste.-Helene, and on to the east for as far as the river remained in view. Then she lifted her eyes from the slaty blue-gray ribbon of river and looked due south, over the flat lands of the Eastern Townships below the St. Lawrence. Just a short freeway drive to the south lay the border, where drivers suddenly had to get used to speed limit and distance signs with measurements in miles rather than kilometers. Looking at the distant horizon reminded Laura that it was the USA down there, and that thought jolted her out of her reverie and brought her back to her desk.

Ignoring the work she had been doing, she cupped her hand over the familiar back of her little mouse, her index and middle fingers lightly touching the two buttons in a practiced caress. With the adroitness which bespoke long practice, she slid the mouse quickly across the pad so that the small white arrow on the screen shot directly to its destination. This was the small icon providing the key to the infinite resources of the Internet. A quick tap of her index finger gave Laura the screen she needed, and keys clattered as she entered her password, hit the Enter key, then used the mouse once again to hit a different icon and open a work screen. The Internet had been slowing down a little lately and there was sometimes a delay: Laura had too much work waiting to waste any time. For a few minutes she worked feverishly at the modifications she was making to a reports program, then re-opened the Internet window to find that she was connected and could search for whatever information her heart desired. She selected the Travel category and typed in “San Francisco”. If she was going to be there tomorrow, she wanted to know something about the place. Laura had never been to the West Coast.

It’s an ill wind that blows no good, indeed, thought Laura. Both her window office and the trip to San Francisco had resulted from a very traumatic downsizing which the company had just gone through. Several old-timers who had found it difficult to keep up with the almost-daily changes in technology had been among those laid off. A few months earlier, Laura had been promoted to senior analyst-programmer, and had used that as leverage to get herself moved from a mid-room cubicle to a newly-vacant window office. As one who had always been able to shut out distractions, she had not found life in a cube as bad as Scott Adams depicted it in his Dilbert cartoon strips. Nevertheless, she appreciated the perk. As with all downsizings, this one had resulted in the remaining staff having to pick up additional work, and Laura felt that getting her own office was a small but well-deserved bonus. She had been moving further into systems analysis and design work when the layoffs hit, and now she was back helping out with programming because of the staff shortages. On the plus side, upper management had realized that keeping the remaining staff up to speed on technology issues was now very important, and so Laura had been chosen to go to San Francisco for a 3-day seminar on the details of the newest upgrade to their PC operating system.

Although she had received a hefty informational packet with her registration, Laura had been so busy with her regular workload that she had only glanced at the seminar topics scheduled and had not even opened the glossy “What to See and Do in San Francisco” brochure. Besides, she had become accustomed to browsing the Net for information and could do that in idle moments while performing her normal job, as she was doing now. Her initial search had turned up sfbay.yahoo.com as a likely candidate for information. What she was looking for was something different, fun, adventurous. Montreal was a very cosmopolitan, sophisticated big city, and Laura had made full use of her limited time away from work to explore its life. Her interests were wide-ranging, from watching Grand Prix racing to attending the symphony. From her reading she knew that San Francisco was much like Montreal, and she was eager to parlay this business trip into a journey of discovery, to add San Francisco to her memory book of experiences.

She had long ago learned to skim over the eye-catching , gyrating graphics designed to attract the viewer to the advertiser’s wares, and to cut through to the heart of the information. Similarly, her eyes didn’t even need to move left-to-right as she scrolled rapidly through the screens of information on happenings in The City, as its inhabitants called it. Ballet, symphony, plays from New York and new plays opening in San Francisco, Indy car races at Sears Point, all drifted past her vision without stirring interest. She paused briefly to read the description of the show by female impersonators at Finocchio’s - she had seen a couple of them on an entertainment show on TV, and Finnochio’s had been mentioned as the premier venue. She mentally filed that as a possible, and clicked the mouse button again to continue scrolling. Suddenly she stopped. A small picture of a cowboy on a wildly-bucking horse sat beside a banner blaring “Grand National Livestock Show And Rodeo!”. Like most Easterners, Laura thought of California as the land of Hollywood in the south and dense forests in the north. That it considered itself part of the West, and would actually have a livestock show and rodeo in San Francisco, seemed so bizarre to Laura that she knew instantly that she had found one of her adventures.

All thoughts of the work waiting on the hidden window on her screen were gone now. Laura clicked quickly on the bucking-horse icon and avidly devoured the superlatives on the following pages. Ten days and nights! Thousands of head of show horses, cattle, sheep and swine from the top breeders of the West! Evening shows which included both classic hunter and jumper arena events as well as rodeo events with top cowboys competing for PRCA money and points! A special evening on Thursday night, Cattlemen’s Night, with a huge barbecue in the arena preceding the show! Laura couldn’t believe it. Calgary, Dallas, or Houston, maybe, but San Francisco? Home of drag queens and pastel-colored Victorians? Not even pausing to consider what outfit in her closet might be suitable for such an event, Laura quickly clicked and typed the few bits of information needed to charge a show ticket for Wednesday, tomorrow night, to her Visa card. When she decided to do something, Laura acted with a swiftness and single-mindedness which rivaled her computer.

As she added her e-mail address to the order form, Laura smiled and shook her head as she read the name of the facility where the event was to be held. California did have a reputation for a certain degree of craziness, but the incongruous juxtaposition of the two words made her laugh out loud as she gave a final click on the icon of a flying envelope to speed the order over the miles to San Francisco. Who but Californians would name a building the Cow Palace?

Chapter 4

By the time he crested the hill and started east down Geneva, Ranny found that he was already at the limit of this morning’s fog bank. The wind-whipped, cold grayish-white storm back in his district had slowed here and had piled up against the heat of the rising sun. To the commuters rushing to work a mile away on the Bayshore Freeway, the fog appeared to be a solid blanket over the hills, with its edge curled under, as sharply-defined as a down featherbed. To an observer just under that edge, though, it was evident that a struggle for dominance was under way. An advance guard formed of tattered streamers of pure white stretched ahead of the solid gray mass, probing toward the strengthening sun in the east. Today the warming sun would be the victor, meeting that ghostly advance and forcing it into the retreat which would end with the fog pushed back to Ocean Beach, perhaps back a half mile off shore, or even totally eradicated. The dissolving wisps of white against the brilliant blue of the sky should have been a sight to lift the spirits of almost anyone on this autumn morning, but Ranny was too engrossed in contemplating the miseries of his life to enjoy, or even notice, the beauty above him.

It was Grand National week at the Cow Palace, and that was one of Ranny’s least favorite times of the year. He didn’t so much mind the sporting events or the music concerts. There was always a huge amount of trash to clean up after those nights, but at least it was just empty food and drink containers. Sure, sometimes you’d find a mess in a corner where some stupid fan had been too drunk or too lazy to go to a washroom before throwing up. Maybe have to hose off an outside wall where some man had unzipped and urinated rather than wait in a line inside. But that was nothing compared to what he had to deal with for the ten days of the Grand National.

Even the Dog Show or Cat Show was preferable to this. God knows, he had little use for either of those animal species, especially the stupid little yappy lap dogs or the grossly fat long-haired cats which lay as useless as stuffed toys while their owners gushed over them. But at least the dog and cat people kept their animals in small cages, so most of the crap ended up there and the owners looked after it. Besides, these owners were used to collecting their pets’ droppings, so they almost automatically scooped it up if their precious little Snookums dropped one while out for a walk. Ranny always smirked when he saw that, remembering a Seinfeld routine he’d seen where Jerry asked,”Suppose aliens were watching through a powerful telescope, and saw one species on Earth walking in front, while a second species followed behind, gathering up its excrement. Which do you think they would assume was the Master Race?”. Ranny didn’t always get Seinfeld, but he’d sure gotten that one.

As for the Grand National, he did kind of like the cowboys - and the cowgirls - and he found the livestock men and women to be OK, but he had no use for the stuck-up show-horse people. It was the animals that he really didn’t like. Dogs and cats he understood, although there were exotic breeds of both at their shows which were unlike anything he’d ever encountered on San Francisco streets. These animals, though, were totally alien to a city boy. Sure, he’d seen lots of cows and horses on TV, even some sheep and pigs. Up close and personal was a different matter. Those horses were a lot bigger than a man, and the damn young cowboys didn’t seem to know, or care, that not everyone felt safe with an 1,800-pound horse trotting past only a few inches away. The cattle at least were kept to a walk when being led from stall to show ring, but Ranny had seen their weights posted on stall records and knew that lots of those bulls were over a ton. They weren’t as tall as the horses, but Ranny figured a person could get pretty well crushed if one of those big buggers decided to pin you to a wall, or stepped on your foot. Pigs and sheep were a lot smaller, but he’d seen a couple of incidents when a big old ram or a 400-pound sow had turned ugly, and it had taken quite a few strong and experienced men to subdue them.

No, it wasn’t just the unfamiliarity, tinged with a little fear, which caused Ranny to dislike the animals. It was because much of his job entailed keeping the premises clean. All those horses, cows, sheep and pigs were always being ridden, led, or driven between the stalls and the show rings, and they dropped copious amounts of pungent manure as they went. Most of the people were good about cleaning it up if they could, but usually they were on a tight schedule and couldn’t stop, so Ranny or one of the other maintenance workers got stuck doing it. Animals had started arriving last Friday and this was only Wednesday morning, so Ranny still had tons of shit to shovel before they all went home Sunday night.

A more contemplative man might have been struck by the diversity of the forms taken by the waste from these four species of mammal. Horses delivered the by-products of their digestive process in a clump of individual compact bundles, each larger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball. Sheep used a somewhat similar method, dropping pea-sized, hard black pellets. The pigs, showing yet another similarity to humans, ejected a lengthy cylinder. But the cows were the bane of Ranny’s existence. For some reason, they did not get rid of their bodily wastes in a solid or semi-solid form. No, they performed as though their food was always laced with a strong diuretic, and dropped their waste with the consistency of very thick pea soup. If they stood still, it formed a thick pool a foot across and a couple of inches deep - but when they let it go while they were walking, it caused a trail of dirty puddles which could stretch for thirty feet. Ranny hated cows.

The scatological terms for this excrement were many and varied: strangely enough, many were food analogies - “road apples” from the horses, “raisins” from the sheep, “cow pies” from the cattle. Ranny hadn’t heard any unusual terms for the pig turds, and he really didn’t care what people called the stuff. To him, it all stunk, and it was all shit.

Engrossed as he was in thinking about the coming day’s work, Ranny gave little thought to his driving as he coasted down the curb lane, preparing to make the right turn in through the lower gate leading to the employee and exhibitor parking area beyond the barns. Suddenly, he slammed on his brakes and cursed as a truck coming the other way made a wide left turn and cut in through the gate in front of him. Ranny was so close he could hear the frantic stomping as a horse inside the trailer tried to keep its footing through the sudden turn. With both hands clenching the wheel, Ranny didn’t even have time to give the other driver the finger. But he saw her, with her perfectly-coifed blond hair, staring straight ahead as though she was the only person on the road that morning - but Ranny knew very well that she had seen him. She had just figured that he’d be intimidated by the rig she was driving, and she was right.

This was one type of exhibitor which Ranny hated with a passion. Even if she had been a nice person, he would have loathed her for the ostentatious display of wealth evidenced by the outfit she drove. The truck was the biggest model of pickup, with a custom-built cab and dressed up with custom moldings on fenders, roof line, and pickup bed sides. It had tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom equipment outside and in. The long horse trailer behind matched it perfectly, with the same size and style of fancy chrome wheels as the truck, a roof-mounted air conditioner to keep the horses cool. Truck and trailer were painted to match in a deep forest green, and Ranny knew guys in the Mission District who would have killed to get the paint jobs on their lowriders finished to the degree of perfection on this horse truck and trailer. And of course, the doors of the truck were emblazoned in gold script, but tastefully, with the words, “Windmere Stables, Woodside, California”. Too bad his brakes hadn’t failed - it would have been worth it to see the look on that haughty bitch’s face when she saw the side of her beautiful truck caved in.

Ranny’s heart was pounding and he took a couple of deep breaths to calm down, then swung his car in through the gate behind her. If she’d been out on the street and done that, he’d have fixed her but good. In here, he’d better cool it or he’d be out on his ass, and he need to keep this job now that he’d moved out of his mother’s house. He contented himself with a couple more expletives flung after the receding trailer, as he swung off to the employee lot and she continued on to the stable unloading area.

Had he but known it, Ranny’s mood was no darker than that of the truck driver. Cynthia had expected to be cruising in her big BMW up scenic 280 to get to the Cow Palace today, and to be doing it several hours later. She wasn’t scheduled to show until 10, but at 6 AM her driver, Juan, had phoned and said that he was too sick to come to work and definitely too sick to haul horses up to San Francisco. Something he ate, he said. Furiously, Cynthia hung up on him before she could lash out at him - “Something you drank, more likely, or somebody you ate, and are still eating!”. She was gaining a reputation as a hard person to work for, and she didn’t want to alienate another worker just now. But she was convinced that Juan was another lazy Mexican trying to get out of a day’s work. She wouldn’t have believed that he would have given anything for a trip to the city, because his cousin knew a couple of girls they could see after the horses were put to bed for the night. He had been really looking forward to the action in San Francisco after the quiet of rustic Woodside.