friday freakshow

characters im developing. well. people i find so fascinating for one reason or another who i have the priveledege and good fortune of spending three hours with every friday.

and because its anonymous, the names have been changed.

molly-works in juvenile detention center for community service, owns a seriously divey bar on irving. looks like a combination of anna nicole smith and tammy faye. its frightening. she shakes nervously. her speech is always on the verge of tears. i sit right next to her and she draws on a fake mole right above her upper lip. its really strange and moves around and its all i can look at when i look at her. she has asthma so i get her glasses of water throughout our meeting or else she coughs like crazy and her jangling gold necklaces make so much noise its distracting.

"tug boat" original member of the hells angels. maybe one of the most obnoxious and unnerving people ive ever met. uses the same jokes every time we meet. "sorry, my suit was in the cleaners." constantly looks as if he just came from a 10 day bender, peeled himself off the floor of his own vomit, threw on a ripped worn 49'ers t-shirt, wiped his face with a greasy handkerchief and came to class. his speech is slurred. i never know if hes wasted or just brain dead from years of abuse.
"tug boat" is full of stories. says his friend held the rights to 'brave new world' but sold them. not just his friend, his best friend.
he also bursts out in the middle of the meeting
"wheres the best place to buy a liver? my old lady needs a liver and im gonna get her one."


al wears a hat from lone palm. has blue wolf eyes and looks ruggedly handsome but not. when we leave the meetings he tells me i look familiar and asks me where i hang out. i feel embarrassed the first day that i could have had some really wasted night at some bar and possibly talked to him for hours....that possibly i do look familiar to him because weve met. but i just laugh and say well, san francisco isnt that big, and he winks at me and drives his huge lifted truck around the corner and im standing in a cloud of exhaust.

delaporn is from thailand and hardly speaks english but when we do our weekly check in she says she "feels sad about the businesses and bombs in her home town." its endearing that this 30-something year old is so naive. or stupid.

chris is hot. wears a gold ring, like a family crest, grew up in the valley and looks like an athlete. looks like the boys i grew up with, tan and skin stretched tight over accidental muscles. he looks like he swims, snow boards and knows what its like to hear crickets at night and sleep in the valley heat, the way crush smells. hes the type of boy id fall in love with, hard, sweet desperate love. a boy id love but always, always leave...because his world is too small and my dreams, too big.

max is crazy normal looking. cute almost, has a thick lisp and shifty eyes. he tells us he used to do a lot of speed, like its the most casual thing you could tell a person, had a girlfriend who shot dope and got pregnant but she ran off about three years ago and he never did know what happened to her. his real name is something russian. and long. so we all just call him max and now hes a lab technician and doesnt do speed anymore. says he quit real easy, cold turkey.

this is all i have so far. but it seems like the material will just keep coming....