On his way home from the Titanic Café[13] and his daily meeting with Mercy, he walks down the heavily populated Powell Street cable car line, tightly gripping his nifty typewriter[14] that is neatly packed away in its case[15]. He keeps his eyes on the ground as the moon awakens. One foot follows the other, gliding over the fractured cement slabs as he thinks to himself, “The story must be down there somewhere, buried beneath the pavement. I can see it as it mingles with the minerals and organisms that are constantly at play in the dirt.[16]” Unaffected, Sidney eyes the concrete as hundreds of passersby, [17]all on their way home too, weave through crowd after crowd in the dying fog.
His feet move on in the darkness, following the rising moonlight up the steps to the door of his building[18]. Key; Lock; Enter. He sinks down two more flights of stairs to his apartment that rests underneath the littered and thriving metropolis. Key; Lock; Enter, silence.
Upon entering the apartment, he walks directly into the lingering smell of spiced rum and tealeaves that respire during his daily absence and is the first and only thing that waits to greet him. He doesn’t survey his surroundings or make note that nothing has changed while he was away. He simply sets down his case[19] and lofts his coat[20] onto a nail that hangs off of the backside of his withering kitchen door. Exhausted and empty from writing[21] all day, he slowly drips drops of rum onto two used and discolored teabags that sleep in a bed of honey as he waits for the whistle of the kettle.
[13] 825 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA. 94109. A small café that on the outside has a recreation of the famed vessel crashing into the front of the structure. Gaudy and tasteless. Shows America’s incessant need to glorify and capitalize on horrific moments in history
[14] Royal Quiet De Luxe. Made in USA.
[15] A tad worn, with tape covering minor holes and keeping together the thin veneer.
[16] A thought that fills Sidney’s head every time he makes his way home. “Keep your ear to the ground. The story is in the soil.” A reference to the only advice he remembered his journalist father ever gave him before he went off to cover the First World War. Also a constant reminder of his father, a man whom never returned from the front lines, and his mother, who died while giving birth to him. Both of their stories are buried in the ground of a Palo Alto cemetery. The search for story also refers to Sidney’s profession as a short fiction writer.
[17] Elated people who have just had the best day of their lives because of their favorable position in the capitalist system or the ones who still bask in their love of or love from another; people who smile in shiny new overcoats, neatly pressed business suits and polished Florsheim wingtips; grumbling, dissatisfied and perhaps even suicidal people who have just had the worst day of their life due to low status, cheating spouses or diseased relatives; holey shoed and muted homeless solicitors who beg with signs and empty faces; frowning executives or businessmen whose hair is frustratingly disheveled, their suits open and hopelessly wrinkled; the empty-eyed and limping women whose broken heart coalesces with their broken heel that began their day; tattered clothed and barefoot kids who seek food in dumpsters, revolution, reaction, or simply amphetamines. Or people just like Sidney, unaffected, as they have just lived the same day that they always do.
[18] 343 Taylor Street right next to the Mark Twain. A tall old brick building covered with ivy built in the 1840’s. The neighborhood once flowed with diversity and charm but now was declining and becoming what common tourists might deem “seedy.”
[19] See 14, 15
[20] See 39
[21] See 16,36
BLONDE ON BLONDE 