I soon found myself pressed against a stool at the far end of the bar.
I turned a shoulder in an attempt to slide through the crowd. And before me was a face that stopped me as if I had been turned into a pillar of salt. My dear student! I thought.
I looked into the face. I could see it only in blue flashes. Was it he? As the lights blinked over him, I looked at the eyes: childish rounds. At the body outline: slim, still adolescent. No! It could not be he! See! This youth sitting here does not know me, and besides, my dear student could not possibly be here, now, in San Francisco. He had returned. He had completed his “pilgrimage,” he said. He was back at the university. No! It was not he!
I pushed my way through what seemed a wall of flesh; was cursed at and elbowed and scoured by nasty glances; and finally reached the street.
I fought my way back toward Market Street. But as I approached the corner, I remembered that I did not know where I was going. It was nearly midnight. Where was the stop for the N Judah?
Before me, as if magically, was the most improbable of stores: a bead shop. I all but shook my head in disbelief at seeing this slip of a shop on such a street. Supplies for stringing necklaces and bracelets and earrings. Was this truly here?
The shop was empty but for an elderly woman, who sat upon a stool behind a vitrine filled with beads of various descriptions.
Can you please direct me to the nearest stop of the N Judah? I asked her.
Oh, yes, she replied in a sweet voice, going on to say that I should cross Market Street and go uphill until I passed a hospital on my right. Then, turning right, I would find the stop on Duboce, just below the crest of the hill.
It is the last stop before the tunnel, she said with a smile. But you had better hurry, dear. You’ll want to get there before the owl.
Her way of putting this—that I must get there before the owl—seemed to say that a dark, winged creature would descend upon the tunnel at midnight. And in that mood of dark enchantment, I hurried across Market Street as directed, then marched up the steep hill leading out of the intersection.
The night overtook me: the dunnish sky, its metallic dome, the cold of the fog. The higher I climbed, the more empty became the streets, until I seemed to be the sole creature about. Even the hospital, as I passed by it, appeared stilled and shut. Then, just as my good witch had predicted, I came to Duboce. I turned right, and glanced down the hill: She had not deceived me.
The platform was deserted, its lights enswirled in fog. My watch said 12:05, but I put aside my panic by reminding myself that midnight referred to the time when the last car left downtown, and surely it would need more than five minutes to travel this far outbound. I stared into the maw of the tunnel, at the dark outline of the hill rising above it, then back at the street, my eyes following the line of the tracks until they, too, were surrounded by fog.
When suddenly out of the mist swam a police cruiser. It slowed as it neared me, stopped. The officer riding shotgun gave me a once-over, and I felt guilt drip from me like the condensing fog. I am the one who did it, I thought, whomever you are seeking, whatever the crime. Then I saw him mouth “Zodiac.”
I began to shake; I thought I would fall down. A rumble rose from the tracks. Something creatural wobbled toward me: the one-eyed light of the streetcar. It screeched to a stop; I climbed aboard the too-bright car; the doors shut behind me. I saw the police cruiser drive off.
The streetcar entered the mouth of the unlit tunnel, its stone walls painted black. At moments, the tram lost its electrical connection, and we rode in utter blackness under the hill.
Finally we emerged at Cole and Carl, the first stop at the other end of the tunnel, on the west side of the hill. We had left the world of the Castro. From here, we would ride farther and farther away from the gay bars, into more respectable neighborhoods, where families huddled in their apartments and houses, worried over jobs and