One Contact
I was in need of a friendly face. I had been in Babylon for about a week. Things were looking and feeling quite grim. The job slash apartment search was lurching forward at the kind of pace one might expect from erosion or distillation. When I came to Babylon Towne I had only one contact. His name was and still is Ezra. That week that I had decided to move to the Bay Area it just so happened that he had come to Austin to install a digital delivery system at 501 Post. The company that he was representing is now defunct. Probably because of their fucking highly inferior hardware. As a result of said dodgy hardware Ezra was in Austin for a week instead of two days while the technician was trying to get that state-of-crap system working properly. I told Ezra that I was putting in a month notice and I was moving out to Babylon where he lived. We seemed to get along well so he gave me his contact info and told me to call him when I got out there. He said that he might be able to get me a job interview. Seeing as how I didn't really know anyone in Babylon I planned to call Ezra for sure.So I had been out there for a week and I called Ezra. We made plans to get together for dinner. He and his girlfriend had a car so they came up to the Lower Haight and picked me up on a street corner around the way from where I had just been to an "open house." It was one of those affairs where about 50 people were vying for a space in an apartment that had literally been a pantry. I think the rent was $850 for a space that was the size of a largish office cubicle. The big draw was that the roommates were all beautiful people and it had roof access. Wow. It was one of those moments where I thought to myself, "Now what brazen side effect of your naive ego made you think you could just come out here all jobless and homeless and with nary a prospect and all that shit and make it happen...stupid." I don't really talk to myself like that very often but that situation seemed to warrant a little self critique. I was so glad that Ezra and his girlfriend Tera were coming to pick me up and we were all going to dinner like local citizens of Babylon do. It all seemed so friendly and civilized.
So Ezra and Tera picked me up on the corner of Steiner and Hayes and we went to the Upper Haight to a place that I grew to love called Magnolia Cafe and Brewery. Ezra told me that when he was in Austin about thirty people told him they were moving to the Bay Area and he gave his contact info to a number of them but he assured me that I was the only one that had followed up. He told me this not in a put out kind of way but in a much respect for following through kind of way. We had a nice dinner with both Ezra and I talking a mile-a-minute. I had a Cole Porter to drink and I had the Bratwurst sandwich. I didn't know if these two were smokers and I wanted to breach the subject but I didn't know how. Finally we were wrapping up dinner and Ezra was saying how if I needed anything just let him know. So I took a chance. I asked if he knew any smokers and if not I asked if he knew where to get some weed. People had told me that I could just buy it off people on the Haight Street but that sounded terribly dodgy so I was just holding out.
Both Ezra and Tera's eyes lit up.
"Yeah man, we are smokers, I can get you some later but for now I can smoke you out."
So we went out to the car parked right on Masonic and proceeded to blaze. By the time they drove me the four blocks to where I was staying with Jenny Cossey I was more lit than I thought I had ever been to date. I thanked Ezra profusely and he asked if I wanted to come on Saturday to Oakland to his friend Kevin's house to watch game five of the World Series (Yankees v Mets). Not a baseball fan but so grateful for the friendship I accepted. I went to my little room in Jenny's house and I don't know what the percentage was between the weed and the emotion but a feeling of great contentment filled my head and for the first time in Babylon Towne I felt like things were gonna work out fine.
Ezra was really great to me when I came to Babylon. It is a shame the way things spiraled out of control between us. There is a lot I would like to take back but since I can't turn back time I think I'll just blog about it.
Peace Ez.
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