Sleeping Beauties

Thursday, Plotnik and Ducknik took The Great Fate-Nik to lunch in the 'loin. Plotnik parked at Ellis and Leavenworth. Between Leavenworth and Hyde, he passed Sleeping Beauty Number One.



Between Hyde and Larkin he passed Sleeping Beauty Number Two.




At Larkin and Ellis he walked into Mangosteen and got to order these.



People walking around in the Tenderloin look worse than the people sound asleep. Every man seems to have a two day beard, and scabs, and a fresh cut or two on his face; the women are young and angry and cursing out someone on a cell phone, or middle-aged and washed out, bleached out, tapped out, screeched out, hair uncombed, a loose sweatshirt, floppy sandals, missing teeth. At Leavenworth, everyone is black, but by the time you get to Larkin they're mostly Vietnamese. Makes no difference. Drunk, drunk, drunk.

Wheelchairs, crutches that nobody touches. Faces lined like a canyon. Blind dog for my companion. If tomorrow is like today, OK. I can live with that, I can live with that. If tomorrow is like today, OK. I can live with that. I can live with that.