The plane made its final descent into San Francisco. As it passed over the San Mateo Bridge, I stomped my feet in excitement in a feeble attempt to force the plane to land faster. At the time it felt magical that even when traveling by plane, I still had to cross a bridge to enter San Francisco.
The red-eye flight landed at 1:50 a.m. Bartenders all over the Bay Area were shouting out, "Last call." Taxicabs were lining up at bars to pick up drunk, generous patrons, leaving the tight wallet red-eyed ones to fend for themselves for another hour. BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, didn't run to the airport back then. The Airporter bus to the city cost $6 but didn't start running until 5:30 or 6 a.m.
The bus stop for the Airporter was in the Tenderloin at the corner of Taylor and Ellis, across the street from Glide Memorial Church. I stepped off the bus in front of a wooden shed in the center of an asphalt lot. Despite its crime-ridden reputation, the Tenderloin had some of the most elegant buildings in San Francisco. The shed was like a peasant that sat among royalty, and I sat in the shed waiting for the dawn to breach their crowns.
Around 7:30 a.m., carrying my suitcase in one hand, an iron and portable radio in the other, I started looking for residential hotels. I hadn't slept for almost 24 hours. My eyes were red and puffy. They called those night flights red-eye for a reason. There was a leftover Coca-Cola stain on my white T-shirt from the turbulence. Everything about me screamed I couldn't pay the rent.
Each rejection sent me lower and lower until I arrived at Seventh and Market. I was exhausted, anxious, and desperately searching for a place that would say yes. The places that said yes had late check-ins. My salvation came in the form of a vacancy sign in a window and below that a handwritten note announcing early check-in. If the room only had straw on the floor for a bed, I would take it.
The Federal Hotel, located at 1067 Market Street, was built just six years after the 1906 earthquake. It was a cheap hotel with economical, sturdy mid-century furniture that had been preserved with 20 years of cheap furniture polish and had a shared bathroom. The hotel did not pretend to be anything it wasn't. Tourists who stayed there bought 10 postcards for a dollar, rode a cable car, went to Fisherman's Wharf, then went home and talked about San Francisco for the rest of their lives. But I was here to stay.
Tired as I was, I needed a shower. The bathroom was a scene from "Psycho," sans shower curtain. Pigeons were perched on the sill of an open window. It felt as if I was walking naked into a dark, ominous wet alley rather than a shower. Somewhat apprehensive and not wanting to turn my back on the entrance to the shower or the pigeons, I showered facing out. I took further precautions by shampooing the right side of my head with the left eye open. Then I shampooed the left half with the right eye open. Showering at the Hitchcock Hilton, I risked being pecked or stabbed to death. Or maybe it was a double feature, and I would suffer both fates. If anyone had seen me in the shower, they would have thought I was crazy. Showering different halves of your head might be the early signs of a split personality. I had become the person to keep an eye on.
My precautions were not unfounded or paranoid. The year 1980 was the most dangerous year in U.S. history for murder rates and San Francisco was just transitioning out of its San Fran Psycho years. The kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army; the assassination attempt on Gerald Ford, the 38th president of United States; the Zodiac Killer; the Zebra Killers; the Trailside Killer; the Jonestown massacre; the assassinations of gay Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone; and the gay riots were recent memories for San Francisco. If anything, I should have been more afraid. Instead, I washed away what little fear I had to begin my new life.
Dwayne Ratleff, who lived in San Francisco for 40 years, is the author of the recently published "See, What Had Happened Was," from which this is an excerpt, and the award-winning "Dancing to the Lyrics" (2020). He was born in Ohio but grew up in Baltimore and Connecticut. As a product of the segregated Baltimore school system, Ratleff did not learn to read or write until the age of 10. Overcoming the stigma of spending two years as a special education student, he quickly adapted and graduated high school with honors. He claims turning disadvantage into an advantage is art and employs it in every aspect of his life. He now lives in Palm Desert, California with his husband, Michael. For more information on "See, What Happened Was," click here. Excerpt used with permission.
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