Patchouli and Potatoes

I knew Saul from surfing, so Casey and I met up with him a few times at the Open Bar—that’s where I first met his girlfriend, Patti. She was a true bohemian and drew chalk art on the sidewalks on Mission Boulevard. Part hippie, potential whore, a wandering vagabond, she was as gritty and dirty as you can find at the beach. She had a short boy haircut, rounded shoulders, and a dimpled, round ass to match her round face, shiny from her greasy, patchouli-oiled pores. Saul was crazy about her.

At Thanksgiving, she invited a bunch of us to her apartment for turkey dinner and drinks. I had been invited to a different party, so I didn’t want to go at first, until my curiosity compelled me. I went with Casey since Saul always liked having him around, especially because Casey worked at South Beach and was a good connection for surf gear. It was a hot November, and the smell of the turkey hung thickly in the air from a block away, masking the usual Mission Cafe smell of marijuana mixed with blueberry pancakes. We walked up the crumbling back stairwell to Patti’s apartment, one of two small studios above Mission Cafe just off Mission Boulevard.

The door was open, revealing a crowd of miscreants and locals already gathered. Special guests included druggies from the strip, the smoke shop owner, and at least two local homeless guys in dank, soiled clothing with more open sores than visible teeth. Patti was busy in the kitchen, stoned off her gourd, stirring what might be gravy while Saul stood mashing whole potatoes with the skin on using the butt of a beer bottle. A mutilated, half-picked turkey sat on the cracked laminate counter in a blackened aluminum pan.

“Heeeeyy!!! You made it! Have a beer!” Patti said above the music, then opened the fridge, pulling out two Coors from among the condiments, her huge, floppy tits fully visible through a translucent blouse open to her belly. Her kitchen was a closet, really, and hot as hell, so Casey and I sat down in the other room on a limp beanbag and popped our beers. People were sitting on the floor with paper plates piled with turkey and white rolls that came in a bag. There weren’t any forks, so they were eating with their hands, which didn’t seem out of place, considering. I saw someone passing a joint.

Eventually, Patti came out with paper plates full of mashed potatoes and gravy, with bits of turkey that resembled burnt bacon. She handed me a spoon. Saul was pouring whiskey shots into an array of cups. Casey and I ate sparingly, washing down pantomimed potato mouthfuls with beer and watching the escalating scene. Squabbling became bickering, which soon became rowdy, and potatoes fell under heel, mashed into the carpet.

One of the bums started arguing with a couple of the surf slackers. I overheard something about somebody drinking somebody’s beer. It was better than a sitcom. The volume rose, and suddenly, in a drunken burst, one of the beach rats threw his shoe at the ceiling fan, which spun it around, flinging the shoe out the open window onto the sidewalk below. Everyone laughed, and then a kid from the beach known to me only as "Top Charlie" threw a beer can at the ceiling fan, which had the same effect and drew raucous guffaws. Within a minute, the guests were throwing everything from empty beer cans to handfuls of potatoes into the fan, half of which flew out the window and half of which landed on the walls and floor or sprinkled onto those of us sitting there like a sticky, potato rain.

I got hit with some potatoes before I moved to stand at the wall by the kitchen, Casey ducking to stand by me, wiping potatoes off his shirt. The only one not throwing things was homeless “Book Man,” who was too busy scarfing free food to care. It was like a demented circus, but I couldn’t stop laughing. A brief lull in the chaos revealed angry shouting from the street below, which prompted Saul, by now in a heavily inebriated state, to lurch over to the window and shout obscenities out to anyone who happened to be below. Beer cans were thrown down. It was dusk. You could feel tension rising, and everyone was standing by the windows, taunting and posturing. The skaters took off early, wary of the law coming around, but there were at least ten people there when Casey and I escaped, and more people clabbering up the stairs, drawn by the shouting.

Potatoes and paper plates, empty beer cans and broken bottles littered the sidewalk in front of the Cafe amid a small, milling crowd when we went out, so Casey and I doubled back through the alley to avoid Mission and walked up the Bay-side toward Vanitie Court. We walked in silence at first until Casey and I just started laughing, we couldn’t even talk, and my eyes were wet from the hysterics. We tittered and giggled all the way home, stinking of patchouli and retelling what we had just experienced. I still had my plate of potatoes.