Begging and Pleading

Last night Danger invited me to join Changman's sociology friends for a delicious Pakistani dinner. I was lucky enough to sit on the meat-eating side of the table and therefore got more than my fair share of yellow chicken, green lamb and white-hot fish and sausage platters. The naan was electric saffron and had industrial quantities of garlic to keep me safe from potential pretenders. We had spent the day at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, which was a reminder of why I love this place so very much, and that it really is special. For an entire month leading up to the bicentennial in Mexique the only thing I heard was that no one wanted to celebrate, everyone was either discontent or afraid, and that the government was wasting money feting themselves. People who two years before had witnessed a grenade attack at el grito made their way to the plazas valiantly if cautiously, and there is a general sense of unease whenever more than two or three are gathered in one place.

Here in the city by the bay, though, babies and gray-hairs swayed in the packed park, celebrating their bare feet and their dressed up dogs, cheering to the vaguely revolutionary cries of the oldsters onstage. There were lots of babies in backpacks, PBRs being sold out of ice chests, and requests to please to leave the park better than we'd found it. The fog rolled in over Patti Smith's reading of St. Francis of Assisi's prayer to be an instrument of peace, and the characteristic feeling of being frozen to the bone, which I have only felt in the mid-50s in the Bay Area, never in the sub-zero temperatures of the mountains or the Midwest, set in.

After dinner we emptied the packed restaurant, whose counter was lined with hungry people leaning menacingly and waiting for our party of nine to make room. On the sidewalk we said our good-byes and so-nice-to-meet-yous, grouped up in a huddled circle. Suddenly a bearded man in a fisherman's hat and baggy pants slinked into the middle of our circle, bent over like a Wheelie from The Return to Oz, snapping his fingers and singing, "Ain't to proud to beg, sweet baby, please don't leave me, don't you go," I started singing along involuntarily, and just when we got to the good part (ain't to proud to PLEEE-HEEEEED) he interrupted himself, wishing us a good night then switching to "Sitting on the dock of the bay" clapping and swaying, before introducing himself.

"I'm Gary Watson, why don't you sing with me," he joined Esteban for a side to side move, then asked his age. Esteban answered, and was then forced to guess Gary's age.

"Twenty-seven?" was the highly flattering venture.

"Good guess, but I'm forty-three. I used to have a drug problem, but now I got some help and got cleaned up. I don't ask anyone for money, whatever people give they give me freely. The other day I paid my hotel, my dinner and my breakfast by just walking down the block singing," and he broke back into song, this time a nod to the classics with a little "Stand by Me."

Danger, of course, could not stand to stand still and revved up the back-up dancing. Gary was enthralled, and had to stop singing to compliment her: "She's got spirit!"

He mentioned the fact that he was not asking for money one more time, and Esteban offered a dollar for a Marvin Gaye tune. Gary looked like he was concentrating for a minute, asked us to get ready, then started in with, "Sittin' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll away..." He was good-natured about his limited repertoire and earned a laugh and a dollar. Chang pitched in too, and I got out my wallet, but had to complain a bit: "You didn't finish 'Ain't too Proud to Beg'."

He immediately called up the song and I sang along. His face lit up as our duet went on, and when it came to, "I've heard a cryin' man, is half a man," he threw the three, now-crumpled bills on a pile in the ground and bent down on one knee, singing, "If I had to sleep on your doorstep, every night and day, just to keep you from walking away" and I realized the grand irony of Gary's insistence that he was not asking us for money, and I was forcing him to beg...but at least I was begging along with him, "Please don't leave me girl," he sang, and I added,

"Don't you gooooo...."

"What's your name, girl?" he asked me, and I told him. He introduced himself once again and started giving me an object lesson. "You know why I put them down like that?" He signaled the dropped dollars. "It's because this, spending time together and having quality time together is more important than any money!" He kept swaying and snapping his fingers, finally snapping up the dollars to keep his traveling show moving.

Golden Gate Park, with its acres of eucalyptus and museums, is too small for the free festival that is this city. I can't get enough of it.