The hotel is full of high school age children. There are police in the lobby. The elevators smell like marijuana and there are beer spills everywhere. My card won’t open my room door so I return to the lobby where the night manager struggles to remember my name. I don’t know why he would remember it since he’s only heard it once or twice. My stay was extended (they still thought I was leaving on February 28th) but the entry cards can only be activated for a week or two. I pass the police officers, thankful that I’ve only had a few shots of whisky and I can still walk without stumbling. I make my egress onto the cold street. Around the corner, I find a shop that carries my brand of cloves. I’ve been smoking Djarum Blacks since I ran out of the X-Tras I brought with me. On the same street I find the gay district. I find one bar that doesn’t look too disagreeable. A drag show is just ending. There are the expected men in leather chaps and motorcycle gear next to boys that look like they’re spending their inheritance at the Gap. There are also women here. This confuses me; dykes and queers don’t normally mix, even in drag shows. The scene bores me quickly and I leave after one beer. A man with a blanket over his shoulders shuffles past, his boots scraping the cement. I begin to sing a Neil Young song (“People shuffling their feet, people sleeping in their shoes.”) I wonder how much money I’ve given the beggars here. I’ve given some $2 coins to calm my conscious (“Don’t feel like Satan but I am the Lamb so I try to forget it any way I can.”) The ones I’ve seen don’t seem to be smoking or drunk. I wonder how they deal with their desperation and cold. It’s below freezing some nights. It’s little wonder so many homeless go to the West Coast, the weather is always mild and there are few areas that it will get so hot or cold as to be fatal. I see a woman, bundled up in rags holding a steaming cup of coffee. She has a little hand-written note asking for money and a few coins in a hat near her lap. The prostitutes I’ve encountered here seem more like beggars than professionals. I leave the subway on Queen, trying to get to a bar. I have taken a wrong turn and I ask a woman directions. She’s very nice and points the way to Bathurst. She asks what I’m doing that night, I tell her just going to a bar and return her question. “Just trying to make some money.” I tilt my head and look at her for a moment. I understand where this could go; I’m just trying to hear her story. I turn towards the street and flag down a cab to take me away. I wonder how close to the curb I’ve been in my life. When I was a child, my mother and I had her mother, sister, and brother to help shelter us. The state of California picked up the tab for a number of years as well. Here years later, I don’t have such a web to catch me if I fall. I would find something, but it would be difficult at best.