This is a back-dated post for my archive project, where I am copying over every piece of art I have ever submitted to DeviantArt, with the original submission date or watermarked year stamp, so a complete archive of my work can be found on this website.

Yes, these things did happen. It might not all have actually been on the same day, but I thought it worked well that way for a narrative.

I hope you guys enjoyed the story.

The Morning Commute

It’s a strange thing how thoughts and perceptions of hours and days blur into each other when regular sleep is elusive.  Each day began pretty much the same.  I would wake to my cell phone’s alarm and climb out of bed in an automatic motion independent of conscious thought.  My roommate, sleeping in the bunk below me, might have rolled over in response, but I never noticed.  In the night light of the bathroom, I used a pony-tail holder to restrain the strip of foot-long hair which ran from my forehead to the nape of my neck.

I don’t remember getting dressed, but I must have done so before slipping on my boots and lacing them tight, the bottoms of my fatigues tucked into the tops.  From the closet in what passed for a hallway I grabbed a flannel shirt and my army surplus wool trench.  It was WWII Italian officer issue – nice and warm for a cold San Francisco morning.  I pulled the soft wool scarf from under the collar of the trench and wrapped it around my neck, buttoning the double-breast over the dangling ends.  Last came my hat, a fedora-like creation made out of oilskin.

Delicately, I danced across the wooden floor of the living room, careful to avoid the deadly squeaky boards.  It wasn’t for my roommate’s sake.  She wouldn’t have cared.  It was the neighbor downstairs, of dubious sobriety, whose countenance was best avoided.  I also avoided the kitchen, not because I wasn’t hungry or thirsty, but because sleep is precious, and those precious minutes I might have spent in pursuit of sustenance had been consciously sacrificed to dreaming.

Air sweet with salt and Alaskan ice whipped across my cheeks as I locked the bolts and walked the planks to the stair.  I could feel my cheeks turning red, and my fingers too as I slipped them into the gloves pulled from the pockets of the trench.  My eyes gazed to the right, up stair-stepped road.  A good fifteen blocks were visible, devoid of life.  To the left I could see the ocean and icy broken clouds racing quickly inland, driven by the same wind that stole the heat from my breath.

I glanced at my watch.  1:50a.m..  No bus.  No life.  Just the steady glow of the street lamps and the overhead electrical wires waving in the wind.

My hands seated my hat a bit more securely before grasping the cuffs of my trench coat sleeves and pulling them into the outer pockets in an effort to keep out the wind.  I walked to the corner and dutifully waited, leaning on a lamp post.  On a calmer night I could hear the buzz of the wires overhead, but not tonight.  It looked like there were darker clouds out over the ocean.  I wondered if it might rain.  I hoped the bus wouldn’t be long.  Most nights it arrived on time.  Some nights it didn’t arrive at all.  A friendly driver told me once that some of the guys on the night shift would just park the bus and go to sleep for an hour or so.

I tried not to think about sleep, gazing groggily up the stair-stepped slope of the road inland.  I was awake, or as awake as I ever was anymore.  Technically I got enough sleep each day, but I never felt like it.  Groggy was a normal state.

Twin beacon lights appeared at the top of the hill and began bobbing their way down.  Finally.  Refuge was only a few minutes away.

The bus paused across the street from where I stood before continuing its journey to the sea.   On the sidewalk it left a couple young men and a middle-aged man, who dispersed down the grid-work of  tiny apartments and crowded houses, no doubt looking for the comfort of their homes and beds.  I wondered fleetingly if they were coming home from work, or from the bars and clubs dotting other parts of the city.

Once again I was the only living thing in sight.  I gazed down towards the ocean with an almost meditative stare, listening for the distinct drone of the bus’s engine.  A couple minutes later it returned, steadily working its way up the street on its accustomed path.  I stepped into the open bus and removed my hands from my pockets.  I didn’t recognize the driver.  He wasn’t one of the normal guys.  I showed him my monthly pass and proceeded down the center isle as the bus resumed its journey.

I took a seat by the back door, removed my gloves, unbuttoned my trench, and pulled a novel from my pocket.  Only one other person was on the bus, probably homeless by the look of him.  Probably.  I wondered mildly if he thought I was homeless too.  It was a look I had cultivated, a conscious defense against the possibility of mugging or harassment when traveling alone.  The way I figured it, people were less likely to bother me if I didn’t look like I would have anything worth taking.

I read a couple paragraphs of the novel, occasionally gazing out the window.  There was someone waiting at the stop ahead, but instead of stopping, the driver just kept going.  I didn’t blame him.  The driver must have been a substitute from another graveyard bus route, and he couldn’t have been a bad sort, or I would have been alone on the bus.  The end of the line was just a handful of blocks past my home.  Anyone still riding was supposed to get off there, but the other passenger was a refugee from the cold, and the driver was kind enough to let him stay.  I recognized the fellow at the stop, and was grateful for the driver’s good judgment.  Not every refugee in the city was thankful for the respite.

The bus wound its way over the hill and down into the Castro where it picked up and dropped off passengers here and there.  The bars and clubs had just closed for the night, and many of the stragglers made their way elsewhere on the public transit.  I kept my face in my novel, but I took note of every person who entered and departed the bus.
A fellow sat down in the bench across the aisle from where I sat.

“What are you reading?”

“Gibson.”  I looked over at him, clean but slightly rumpled from a night out, his lightweight coat betraying his alien nature.  My own clothing was layered and thick enough I could have survived a night sleeping in an alley.

There was a bit of a pause while he contemplated what to say next.  “It sure is a cold night out there.”

“Yup.”  Great.  A talker.  The bus was so much more pleasant when everyone just kept to themselves.

“I wasn’t expecting it to get this cold.”  He snuggled a bit into his jacket as if to validate his statement.

I didn’t say anything.  I just wished he would leave me alone.

“I have a nice warm hotel room.  You’re welcome to spend the night there – get out of the cold.”  His voice had a hopeful note, as though he was expecting me to be grateful for the offer.

I was a bit taken aback.  “No, thank you.”

There was another short pause while he shifted his weight on the seat.   “It has a small kitchen, and you’re welcome to some of my food.”

I sighed, too tired to think of a lie.  “No, thank you.  I’m on my way to work.”

I could hear the disbelief in his voice.  “Work?  At this hour?”

“I’m a pastry chef.  The hours suck.”

The pause was longer this time.  I looked at him, hoping that if he didn’t hear the irritation in my voice, he might take the hint from the weary look on my face.  “How far are you going?”

It was starting to rain outside.

“Financial District.”  I looked back at my book, not really reading anymore, and hoping he didn’t ask any more questions.  Very few people stayed on the bus as far as my stop, and no one who was genuinely going to a hotel.  If he didn’t get off before I did, I contemplated the wisdom of staying on the bus until after he did get off.  I thought about the knife under my shirt, another in my pocket, and steel-toed boots on my feet.

“Well,” he paused.  “If you decide you want somewhere warm to sleep, I’ll be getting off in a couple more blocks.  You’re welcome.”  The guy was persistent.  “It’s safe,” he added, as though I might believe him, even though he obviously didn’t believe me when I told him I had a job.

“I said, ‘No.’”

In a couple more blocks he pulled the stop cord and stood.  He paused for a moment at the rear doors before departing.  I could feel his eyes on me, and wondered how many girls had taken him up on his offer before.  Was he really just trying to be helpful, or did he prey on them?  There was no way to know for sure, but I suspected the latter.  Either way, I wasn’t desperate, so I didn’t make the gamble.

From there, more people departed than entered the bus, until it was down to just me and a couple other people.  I pulled the stop cord and stood by the back door, re-buttoning my trench, pulling on my gloves, and re-seating my hat.  As soon as the bus stopped, I departed, flipping up the collar of my trench to fend off the biting rain.  The bus hurried off on its roundabout journey and I headed off between the sky-scrapers toward the restaurant, the clip of my boots and the pounding of the rain my only company.

The city is quiet at 3:00a.m.

Down a dubious-looking narrow street kissing China Town, I unlocked the restaurant door and let myself in, shaking off my hat and trench in the entry.  I clocked in and headed down the treacherously narrow Victorian steps.  This restaurant had been continually running for more than a century, and the steep, twisting service stair was proof of that.

I hung my flannel, trench coat, and hat, by body reasonably warm and dry.  In exchange, I donned a plain chef’s coat, thankfully in my size.  I wore the same size jacket as most of the prep crew, so there wasn’t always a clean jacket my size.
I entered the walk-in refrigerator to take a stock of the desserts, and munched on a gallette while contemplating making a pot of coffee.  The sugary apple calmed my grumbling stomach, and I decided I wasn’t desperate enough to make coffee.  It’s not that I don’t like coffee.  I actually love coffee, and therein lay the problem.  Like every other restaurant in San Francisco at the time, the house coffee was French Roast, a trend I don’t believe I will ever understand, for I find the flavor of brewed carbon absolutely unpalatable.

All the desserts at the restaurant were of a kind that could be kept in the walk-in refrigerator for days, to be warmed and plated when ordered by a patron.  My job was to make certain that on any given day they would not run out.  Thus, I took a count of the desserts left from the day before, estimated how many would be used that day, and made sure we would have enough of each for the next day or two.  Some things needed to be done daily.  Other things needed to be done weekly.  It was all very stable and predictable, so without much need for contemplation, I got to work.

The truth be told, I was not required to come to work so early in the morning.  That was a choice I made.  The kitchen was very small, and I had a lot of work I needed to do each day.  After the prep crew arrived at 7:00am, the cramped quarters made it difficult for me to work efficiently or quickly, and if I was there late enough to see the lunch crew, life became miserable.  Thus, I arrived at the restaurant between 3:00am and 4:00am every day, and tried to get as much work done as I could before anyone else arrived.