Seatless in San Francisco
I wasn’t ever mad. I got peeved, when I came out of the theater. I walked over to my bike and saw it askew. I noticed what was missing said out loud to no one, but also to the only two people within earshot, “oh, man.”
The man said that they were hoping I had my seat with me. “We were hoping you had the seat with you,” he said.
I did not. I said as much to them but kept my eyes locked on what was left of my bike locked to the loop in the cement in the sidewalk. All of us looking forlorn for a long moment in the Mission.
I had left it, firmly, but apparently not securely, attached to the frame of my bike before I went in to do my show. I do shows.
“Well, at least they didn’t take the whole thing,” I said, trying to make some of us feel better.
“Yeah, but that shouldn’t happen,” said the man, angrily sympathetic, which was, I realized, an emotion I elicit from strangers fairly often. I do shows.
“Yeah,” I said. I’m a performer.
“It’s the fucking Mission, man,” said the man. He was right. It was the Mission.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and prepared myself for an awkward ride home, uncertain how it would go. “Let’s see how this goes,” I said, to myself. The couple has already lost interest in me and my plight, more quickly than I lost my seat that night. I’ve spent years honing my stagecraft, learning how to command attention.
“Good night,” I lied.
