Usually he felt solace in the company of strangers in a bar. He could sit quietly nursing his whiskey and enjoy the camaraderie of the group next to him gossiping and complaining about their jobs in a jungle of cubes or vicariously be part of a relationship with the couple sitting shoulder to shoulder to his other side. But tonight all he felt was himself and his own life. Neither the alcohol nor the crowd offered him any escape from his struggles and his loneliness. But on this evening, he was confronted by reality and could not escape it. The beer tasted flat and the music was jarring. He tossed a five dollar bill on the bar, slid the stool back, and headed for the door.
The lights on Market Street were bright and blurry in the fog. Alan swerved to avoid a man in a leather coat carrying two big shopping bags and had to keep weaving to make it through a crowd that all seemed to be going the other way. It was as if he were invisible. A woman in a stained dress sitting on the sidewalk with a sign that read I just need a little help gave him a gap toothed grin, the first sign that someone knew he was alive. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket and pulled his neck a little deeper into the collar. Walking felt good. It was action. It was movement. He didn’t know where he was going, but he let his legs keep carrying him forward.
He wound his way up along the cable cars with their bundled tourists and ringing bells and through the shoppers of Union Square. The crowds melted away as he climbed the stairs next to the Stockton Tunnel and took on the hill at California Street. A Grateful Dead fragment hung in his ear, “California, I’ll be knockin’ on your golden door, standing on the beach, the sea will part before me.” At the crest of the hill the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont reminded him of his early days in San Francisco. Exploring what the city had to offer. Then he crossed in front of the Pacific Union club, a space he would never enter, and stopped at the start of the labyrinth that lay in the square in front of Grace Cathedral. The curving lines led to a lotus at its center. He wondered if he would ever find his center, and if it would be empty or full.