Curious Times in San Francisco

This is a true story and a tragic one. It happened this way.

I ran away from home after quitting high school in the middle of my senior year. Eventually, I ended up in San Francisco and its famous Haight-Ashbury District. But there is more to Baghdad by the Bay than Haight-Ashbury. There is the Sunset District, the Presidio, the Tenderloin, the Fillmore, the Marina, and there is North Beach. Ah, yes, North Beach, home of Carol Doda's and all the other topless joints. Home of the City Lights bookstore, Ginsburg's home. There are a few other bookstores around and these are mostly frequented by out-of-towners in dark glasses who lurk furtively in and out of these places. And then there was Enrico's.

Enrico's is gone now, destroyed by fire from what I understand and, while this is not the tragedy I spoke of in the first sentence, it is a tragedy in its own right and should not go unremarked. Enrico's was one of the finest Italian restaurants in America and it had both indoor and outdoor seating. When I began going to Enrico's I decided that the outdoor seating was fine for me. I was underage and was ordering wine that came in these glasses that resembled goldfish bowls. The traffic in the outdoor area was thick and the waiters paid me very little mind, or so I thought.

The outdoor seating area at Enrico's fronted the width of the place and my best seat was in a corner at the left as you faced the place. In this corner I sat at least one evening every time I visited San Francisco then and in subsequent years. And I mean the entire evening. It was too good a spot to give up watching the people show on the passing on the street. Eventually, I became fairly well known to the staff and the regulars. After twenty years away from the place, a bartender still recognized me and remembered my name when Mary and I walked in one day. "Hi, Marc," he said. "How have you been?" Before I got a word out, Mary had turned a funny shade of whitish-red and said, "My God. Those stories are all true." Most of them.

At any rate, going back to my very first visit to Enrico's in early 1967, I sat in my corner seat and watched people, especially a long line of people lined up to go into a place next door. There were men in tuxedos and women in the most fantastic gowns this Michigan boy had ever seen. The women were absolutely gorgeous and I was having the time of my life watching this slow-moving parade waltz (there is no other word for it; it's how they moved) past me on their way to the door that would hide them from my sight. I was so seated that my back was turned to part of the line and I really did not think too much about this as I was getting quite a show as it was. But then it happened.

Someone had pinched my backside and when I turned to see who had done me this outrage (it was the first time this had ever happened to me and I was not yet 18), my outrage turned to amazement as I saw one of the aforementioned beauties fluttering her eyelashes at me and giving me a little wave. Her escort was oblivious and it came to me that I could grab her hand and run off with her right there, him never knowing what happened. It was about that time that my regular waiter came over and we had the following conversation.

Leaning very close in to me and speaking very quietly, he said, "You're not from around here, are you, kid?"

"No, I'm not," I admitted.

"Well, son, you're in San Francisco where not everything is what it seems to be."
I told him I didn't understand.

He finally came out with it and said, "That woman is not a woman."

I looked and said, "Nooooo."

He said, "Yes. Check out her feet and hands. Oh, and the Adam's apple while you're at it."

Next door to Enrico's was Finnochio's, at that time one of the most famous drag clubs in the world and just seconds before I had been all set to be dragged away. Now, scooting my chair as far from the rail as possible, I pondered the possibility of heading back to Michigan. But that was out of the question; I figured there was still more to see and learn. I headed into the night.