by John Levitt
Outside was a ghost town, devoid of people. And cats. And dogs. Only the birds seemed to be in fine form, chortling and squawking as if there was no tomorrow. Which, I reminded myself, there might well not be. I leaned against my van, trying to come up with an idea or a place to go. This singularity couldn’t extend forever. If it did, that would mean I’d been transported to an entire other world, and that wasn’t possible. So if I could get out toward the edge of it, where the reality was thinner, maybe I could find a way back. I thought for a while longer and finally settled on Ocean Beach. Why not? At least it was a sunny day for a change.
I headed up Guerrero Street to 280, got off at John Daly, then across to Skyline. Empty, empty, empty. I did the U-turn and pulled into Fort Funston where the cliffs plunge down to meet Ocean Beach, parked, and strolled out onto the observation deck that sits on the edge of the bluff. Most days there you can watch the hang gliders swooping back and forth like ancient pterodactyls searching for quarry. Today the sky was abandoned except for the birds who had reclaimed the skies.
Fort Funston is the place where dog owners in San Francisco take their dogs to run off leash. There is a three-mile or so loop that winds along the cliffs, down to the beach, and back up onto the cliffs again. Technically it’s not an off leash area, but you’d never know it. On any sunny weekend afternoon you can easily count three or four hundred dogs running loose: pugs and Pomeranians, Labs and goldens, rottweilers and Dobies, along with the most amazing collection of crossbreeds and just plain mutts. Some were as goofy as could be, doggie clowns, some sedately dignified with slowly wagging tails, some flat-out hysterical. But they always seemed to be having a grand old time—in all the years I’d been going out there, I’d never seen a serious fight. A few quicksnarl disagreements from time to time, but that was about it.
I come here with Lou on occasion. He seems to enjoy playing dog once in a while, and it gives me the chance to stretch my legs and clear my head. You almost need a dog to come out here, though. If you are just innocently taking a stroll with no dog accompanying you, people tend to view you with suspicion, much as they might a childless middle-aged man sitting near a school watching children play. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday a special pass for the dogless was required.
I dangled my legs over the edge of the platform and watched the waves breaking on the sand far below. The sky was a steel gray with the sun angling planes of light into different layers. It edged out from the usual sea mist and highlighted the occasional wave crest with gold trim. I could see as I looked toward the horizon that the sea started to go fuzzy, looking more like dirty felt than water. Sure enough, the singularity thinned out there, though what might lie beyond was a metaphysical question that I didn’t have time for at the moment. But if I could get out there, possibly I could find a way through and back home.
Too far to swim, though. The wind was chilly but fresh, smelling of salt and fish and a hundred other things. If I didn’t turn around I could imagine what the coast must have been like a couple of hundred years ago before the cities were built and civilization put its ineradicable stamp on the shore. Despite the mess I was in, I felt oddly at peace. I remembered an old quote I’d once read, D. H. Lawrence or somebody, “…a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up.” It was an appealing thought, but this wasn’t exactly a world—more like a fold in a blanket, I expect.
I idly watched the shorebirds, thoughts drifting. There seemed a lot more of them than usual, a whole lot more. Little sanderlings scooting back and forth, timing the waves, always just out of reach of the foam. Some bigger birds, maybe godwits or curlews; sea ducks bobbing and diving, and of course the raucous gulls, screaming and chattering as they fought one another for some prime morsel of food. And through it all, the sound of the surf, hissing and booming, timeless and hypnotic.
I must have sat there at least an hour looking out over the ocean and the distant horizon before I got an idea. It wasn’t particularly brilliant. I needed a boat. And I knew just where I could find one. On the way to Fort Funston I’d passed Lake Merced, a small man-made lake where people fish and boat. A boathouse stands on the east end, not too far from where I now sat. I’d often seen rowers practicing there in racing sculls, mostly large six- or eight-man boats, but a few of the single sculls as well. Those single sculls are fiberglass, light enough for me to wrestle one single-handedly into my van. I could drive right onto the beach farther down, launch the boat, and skim across the ocean waves to the very edge of the singularity. I hauled myself to my feet and took one last look at the ocean stretched out in front of me, but when I turned to leave, a slight problem reared its head. Literally.
Twenty feet away from me sat three very large dogs, watching. I had thought there weren’t any dogs in this place. On second look, they weren’t dogs at all. Unless I was very mistaken, I was looking at three full-grown wolves. And not any cartoon wolves either, constructs that I could defeat by using talent. Not that I had any talent to use here. These were real, solid, living, breathing carnivores.
I froze until my heart rate returned to something more manageable. Intellectually, I know that wolves are much maligned, that they seldom if ever attack humans and, unless you happen to be a deer or a rabbit, are somewhat benevolent predators. What I hadn’t known is that wolves instantly instill an atavistic fear far beyond the power of intellect to rationalize. For the first time in my life, I truly understood the meaning of the word “prey.”
I tried to look behind me without turning my head, an operation which was not particularly successful. From what I could remember, I had no more than five feet of leeway before the cliff plunged steeply down for a hundred and fifty feet or so. Not much to work with.
The wolves were still sitting quietly. In front sat what I assumed was the alpha male, just ahead of the other two. His tongue was lolling out like that of an overgrown puppy. His left ear was partially missing, giving him a raffish look, but aside from that he looked sleek and healthy and well fed. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Now that I’d had a chance to study him, he didn’t look that dangerous after all. Maybe I can bluff him, I thought. I took one step forward, slow yet confidant. The big male snapped to attention, tongue snapping back into his mouth, and suddenly he looked twice as big and very dangerous indeed. Okay, time for plan B.
I slowly eased my head to the right, trying to see if there was anything usable as a weapon, while at the same time watching the wolves out of the corner of my eye. No such luck. I turned my head to the left and repeated the maneuver. On the ground, a few feet away, lay a large branch blown there from nearby trees by the wind. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than the alternative, the alternative being nothing at all. I stood there, indecisive, and then gave a mental shrug. I had to do something, and there’s no time like the present. Darting to one side, I snatched up the limb and charged toward the wolves, screaming like a madman. I’m nothing if not subtle. The three of them nearly fell over their feet, looking positively comical in their eagerness to get away. They didn’t go far though, stopping about fifteen feet away and sitting back down again. The two in the back turned to each other and exchanged a momentary glance as if to say, “What the hell was that?” then turned back toward me, staring composedly. It was such a human gesture that it made me think twice. I know very little about the behavior of wolves, but this struck me as unnatural. Not that I should have expected anything else.
It almost seemed like they wanted something from me. I hesitated, then slowly lowered myself down until I was sitting cross-legged on the ground. I kept myself ready to spring up at a moment’s notice in case it turned out they were simply masking eagerness for an early dinner. The big male padded slowly sideways, head down, watching me out of the corner of his eye. I couldn’t figure out why he would be cautious of me until I realized it was the other way round. He was being careful not to spook me.
He reached a patch of ground, stopped, and then started digging vi
gorously. He stopped, glanced over at me, then resumed digging. As soon as he’d created a shallow trench, he stopped digging and did the same sideways walk back to his original position. He flopped down on his stomach and stared at me, tongue lolling.
I wasn’t sure what he wanted. I was used to trying to explain things to Lou, so nonverbal canine communication wasn’t new to me, but this time I was the one who couldn’t seem to catch on. Then I got it. I was supposed to look at whatever it was he’d dug up.
I got cautiously to my feet. The wolf didn’t move. I eased over to where he’d been digging. As I approached the spot, small bones from some unfortunate creature he’d unearthed crunched under my feet. A tiny glint in the sand caught my attention and I bent down to see what it was. It might have been a piece of glass, only it was a deep red color. Whatever it was flickered brightly as the sun hit it from different angles whenever I moved my head.
I brushed sand and bones away, realizing that what I had thought was tiny was just the edge of a larger object, about the size of a marble and just as round. I picked it up and held it up to the sky, letting the sunlight stream through it.
I don’t know much about precious stones, but I did know I’d never seen anything like this before. It was smooth and round, deep red like a ruby, but as the sunlight passed through, other colors were gradually revealed, greens and blues and even an inky black. Yes, I know black isn’t a color, but this black was. I stared intently, now seeing swirls of blue and purple that roiled around hypnotically in the center of the stone, constantly expanding and contracting. It took some effort to finally break eye contact and slip it into my pocket. I had momentarily forgotten about the wolves, which should give you a faint idea of how hypnotic the stone was.
The big male had meanwhile silently come up behind me, and when I turned he was only a few feet away. He opened his mouth wide, showing some truly impressive teeth, and I panicked. Before I could do anything stupid, he sat down, threw his head back, and let loose with a powerful howl, oddly familiar from countless movies and TV shows. Immediately, the second wolf added his voice, a minor third above. Fellow musicians. The third chimed in a semitone apart, giving the chorus an odd twist that sent a chill through me. Hearing it in a movie is not the same as hearing it for real from five feet away. Abruptly, they stopped, and sat looking at me again. After about ten seconds they started in again, only to stop as abruptly as before. Again, they stared at me. They repeated this odd behavior a third and then a fourth time, each time staring at me a little longer. Wolves don’t possess human expressions, but I could swear the big male was looking frustrated. He jumped to his feet, almost causing me to topple over as I backed up frantically. He stood there and uttered what could only be described as an impatient bark. I didn’t even know that wolves could bark. Then again, I no longer thought that these were truly wolves.
He lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled once again. It gave me a weird idea. I filled my lungs and joined in with him, tentatively at first, then with more confidence as the other two added their voices. They looked at me approvingly, or at least that’s how I interpreted it. I followed their lead, weaving my own motif through the dense texture of their howls. Thank God for the voice lessons I had taken during an aborted attempt to become a singer. The thing that most worried me was that I might disappoint them and embarrass myself. Once a performer, always a performer.
I must have been doing okay, since this time they didn’t stop. Our voices blended together into a bizarre wolf/ human hybrid song. As I hit one especially long and quavering note, I noticed the ground start to glimmer. I closed my eyes and threw myself into it wholeheartedly. The sound enveloped and surrounded me, like Buddhist chanting where breath and sound and body all merge into one. It was the same feeling I’ve gotten once or twice when I’m playing at my absolute best, but a hundred times stronger. I don’t know how long it went on—in that state, time doesn’t have much meaning. I was swept away by the music, if music it was, totally enraptured, transported out of time and space. A small part of my mind noted that phenomenon, since being transported away was exactly what I wanted, but I let that thought slip out of my consciousness as quickly as the flicking silver tail of a fish disappearing in deep water. The concreteness of thought is always the death of magic, however you want to define it.
I became aware of a fifth voice adding to the chorus, high-pitched and sharp. It would have seemed out of place had I not been in a space where such a concept did not exist. I knew that sound. I focused on it and as it grew stronger and more insistent, the music of the wolves faded to a muted drone. Along with it came a rhythmic pounding, intrusive and unpleasant. Finally the noise became so distracting that it broke my trance state. My eyes flew open and I found myself sitting cross-legged on my bed at home, howling at the top of my lungs. Beside me, on the floor, sat a small black-and-tan dog cheerfully keeping me company with a series of high-pitched howls of his own. The pounding resolved into the sound of a fist on the front door, along with some muffled curses.
I staggered to the door and opened it to find my next-door neighbor Gary, usually a tolerant sort, looking not so tolerant. He was so mad he could hardly speak.
“For Christ’s sake, it’s three in the fuckin’ morning! What is wrong with you?”
I apologized the best I could, assured him of prospective quiet, closed the door, and staggered back to the bed. Louie hopped up and looked at me worriedly. He made a whining noise in the back of his throat, the noise he makes when he wishes he could speak, or when he sees a squirrel up a tree out of reach. He’d had something to do with my return, but what that was, I hadn’t a clue and I doubted if I ever would.
“It’s good to be home,” I told him. At the sound of my voice he relaxed, as if he hadn’t really been sure it was me until I spoke. I looked at the clock on the bedside table. Three in the morning. But what day? I turned on the TV and flipped over to the Weather Channel. They always run a scroll with the time and date on the bottom of the screen. Sunday, December 04, 3:00 a.m. So the day I had spent out by the ocean hadn’t happened. Or somehow I’d been returned to the moment I’d left. Or something. I’d let Eli figure it out.
An odd idea struck me, and I crossed the room and pulled open my bureau drawer. My black sweatshirt was sitting in the drawer, sloppily folded, as well as on my back. Cool. I was ahead of the game. I’d got an extra sweatshirt and a pair of Levi’s out of the experience. So it hadn’t all been for nothing.
On the other hand, my guitar wasn’t in the house. And my van wasn’t in the driveway. I wondered if it was out at Fort Funston or still parked by Rainy Tuesdays. I was pretty sure it was still by the club, given the way things had unfolded. Which meant it was still poking into a red zone. Which meant if I left it there until morning, not only would it get a ticket, it would probably get hooked by the city. Which meant two hundred dollars for the towing and an additional two hundred a minute for storage, or something like that. If you have an older car and it gets towed, you might as well just buy another. It would probably be cheaper. Not everything about San Francisco is great.
Also, that meant my guitar was still in the van and I couldn’t leave a valuable instrument there overnight. It wouldn’t last two hours, not in the heart of the Mission. And besides being worth a lot of money, it was my guitar. It had taken me years to find just the right model, and after that, just the right instrument, a 1950s blond Gibson Bird-land with a clean, mellow tone and action smooth as butter, even with heavy-gauge strings. There aren’t many around anymore. Besides Lou, that guitar was about the only thing I cared about these days. There wasn’t any choice; even with everything I’d been through, I was still going to have to get the van.
I looked out the front window. Still raining, drops splashing on the empty driveway. I could call a cab, but I had no money. I briefly considered calling Sherwood, but couldn’t bring myself to bother her. Not to mention all those questions. It was only about a half hour’s walk anyway.
I desp
erately wanted a cigarette. I could feel the cool and soothing smoke filling my lungs, calming my nerves. Unfortunately, I’d quit smoking years ago. I’d quit smoking dope, too, for different reasons, but I never missed it the way I did tobacco. Devil weed it surely is. I sighed, slipped on my old semiwaterproof leather jacket and a battered slouch hat, opened the door, and walked out into the night.
“Come on, Lou,” I said. I wasn’t about to walk back through those streets without him. He looked out at the rain and looked back at me as if I had suddenly grown an extra head. “Yes, I know,” I said, trying to placate him, “but I’ve got no choice.”
He made some obscure dog noises and stepped through the door out into the rain, where he ostentatiously began shaking himself before he even had a chance to get wet. Then he started trotting down the street without a backward look, martyrdom evident in every line of his body.
“Hey,” I told him. “I don’t like it any better than you do.”
I walked until I reached Valencia and turned onto it, a slightly safer option than walking down Mission Street, although at three in the morning walking anywhere through the Mission is never entirely comfortable. I’d only gone a couple of blocks when I noticed three Latinos, early twenties, walking toward me about a block away. They were wearing 49ers jackets and red headbands. Gangbangers. Norteños. They were walking silently, never a good sign. I suddenly felt extremely white. Louie started growling softly. His sense of danger is not confined to the supernatural.
“I see them,” I muttered. As they approached they split apart, two on one side of the sidewalk, one on the other, so I’d have to pass between them. Very subtle. I felt a sudden surge of rage. I’d had enough for one day, and here was something I could vent my anger on and still feel justified. Someone needed to pay for my bad day, and these were the perfect candidates. They were about to be very, very sorry.
