>Maria and I went to this old school bar. It was a total throw back to 1965. It was dark and wood paneled with the requisite red vinyl booths and rounded overly-shellacked chairs/matching tables. The art was from the “Dogs playing poker” school. The place wasn’t too crowded. There were a couple of archetypal bar patrons at one end of the place while Maria and I were at the other, huddled in the corner sipping our rum and cokes. Nearby us was a guy who looked like he worked in some blue collar occupation. I heard him talking to the bartender and figured out that he was learning to be a cop.
He was talking about the various callers he rode along on. One was a domestic disturbance call in the Tenderloin. For those of you unfamiliar with San Francisco, that neighborhood is one in the middle of the city. It’s pretty much home to drug addicts and prostitutes.
He and the real cop went to some rundown SRO. The guy who made the complaint was nicknamed “Chicken Man”. He always wore a giant black Stetson hat. The top of the hat was cut out and a live chicken was always nested in its place. Maria accused him of making that up. Pre-cop protested, “Chicken Man also had pictures Michelle Kwan plastered all over his room” along with something else the guy wouldn’t mention in mixed company.
Then Pre-cop also shared a story about a friend of his who worked undercover in the Vice Squad. The woman was walking the streets in the Mission District looking for johns to trap when some guy tried to pay her in oranges. Clearly a desperate, yet resourceful individual.