City of Vapors

Bob's niece Sheila flew in from out of town to attend an academic convention in San Francisco so we went over there to meet her. We traveled on BART to the Powell Street Station where the cable cars turn around and then walked up the hill to the Hilton Hotel where she was staying. Though we visit San Francisco often, we rarely go downtown. Nothing much had changed except for us. In the intervening years since we actually lived in the city, we had become tourists ourselves, gawking at the crowd of tourists lined up to ride the cable cars and amazed at all the pandemonium that is normal for Powell and Market Streets. A hip-looking young man yelled at the crowd through a megaphone, "We are all vapor. Vaporous spirits not long on this earth. Living tombstones." At first I thought he must be a Dadaist poet/performance artist, but then I realized he was preaching the Word, that is, Hellfire and Damnation.

Further up the hill, we encountered the panhandlers. "Spare change?" "Sorry, I don't have any." "I take plastic, lady."

We met Sheila in the Hilton's luxurious lobby with its top-hatted doormen and glittering chandeliers. It was fun to people-watch. A flock of Japanese stewardesses arrived, neat and petite in their trim red uniforms, shepherded by their brass-buttoned captain of the air. Soon after that, another crowd of Japanese arrived, all young and fashionably dressed, the boys in tattered jeans, spiked hair and metal studs, the girls in orange and purple hair, with expensive handbags and towering footwear. They didn't look like your usual Japanese tourists. Who were they? Privileged children of the rich? Fashion models? An avant-garde film crew? The winning contestants of one of those weird Japanese quiz shows?

We had a pleasant time with Sheila. Walking down the hill back to BART, a panhandler accosted me again. "Spare change?" "Sorry. I'm all out." "Nice earrings," he muttered as I walked away.