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IN THE WEEDS

         I roll down from my perch on Bernal Hill for the last of the last moody strolls I will ever go on (this is starting to feel old) and I will never again find another photograph lying in the middle of the street, I swear. It is late afternoon, and the cantinas are open wide and airing out their rank breath. Soon they will seal back up and throb to the music of the live ranchero bands. Men and women will spill out laughing and call after one other, up and down the sidewalks. For now I shuffle past in this quiet interim, in the dusty afternoon shadows, so happy to be stationed here in this outpost on the far frontier of old Mexico. 

         Approaching the bottom of the hill, I keep reaching down and turning over slips of paper on the sidewalk, hoping for a photograph, but only finding hand bills and receipts. I need a sign from the universe. It is a Thursday, and that weekend I will wind up going of the drugs for good. I feel queasy, and I think about sitting in a cantina with a beer, as a bit of the greasy, old, late day sun slopes in and rests on the tiles and the leather padding riveted to the edge of the bar. Then I think, “Well, if I’m going to lollygag in public places, I would rather stroll around these streets than be stuck on a barstool.” A week or so earlier I had published some my found photographs along with essays like this one in the first issue of my found photo zine. It was the first time ever I had shared them with anyone. As I walk along, I am sure that this effort will mark the end of my found photo career forever.

         I arrive at the bottom of the hill, where the last cantina drools out the last of the drunks lying face down on the sun warmed sidewalk. Then comes Cesar Chavez, formerly Army Street, the great divide between here and the 24^th Street Mission. I stop and wait to slog over it, wait to cross over into the 24^th Street Mission, where I can lose myself in its weird parade of magic. I am waiting for its lurching motion and colors and smells of roasting meats.  I am waiting for the lollipop flavored shop signs and Moorish walls overrun with graffiti runes and spray-painted peyote visions. I only have to ford this gigantic avenue before I am marching in time with the skaters and tricksters, gangsters and anarchists, laboring families and rollipolli men draped on all sides with inflatable toys and plastic guitars. I long to glimpse a cloaked and hooded princess emerge from a narrow corridor and step through a steel gate, move swiftly down a tall stoop and into the bazaar. This is the place where we all step silently past one another, tiptoeing around the jingling ice cream carts, the Indian blankets piled with cell phone wires, the bacon wrapped hotdogs sputtering on sterno powered cookie sheets. I am waiting to lower my eyes and absorb its presence through my skin.

         As I approach the big edge of Cesar Chavez/Army, the bottom of my hill, I am thinking, “Can I get a witness?” That old bluesman line has been my recent motto. But as I wait for the don’t-walk signal to change, the holy man in my head interrupts and asks, “Are you happy?”

         “Happy with what?” I respond.

         “Happy with life.”

         “Happy with what part of life?”

         Then I look down into the gutter and see this photo lying face down. Its backside is so clean and white, I figure it is just another receipt, or a backing from a package of Ho-ho’s, or a label from a package of underwear—or some fancy packaging scheme, considering the way the paper curves so elegantly at the corners. I am curious but reluctant, so instead of reaching down into the gutter, I try to flip it with my foot. I pretend I am no longer eager to find a photograph. I tell myself I am just operating in the mode of no-stone-left-unturned. But then my foot starts to accidentally bend it, and I suddenly become afraid that I will ruin it if it turns out that it is in fact a photo. I continue to tell myself that it is not, thinking I will have a better chance of it being one if I prolong this denial. As it bends, I catch a flash of unusual color on the underside, so I reach down and pick it up and turn it over and look at it. I immediately think, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

         Then the light changes, and I cross the enormous street, smiling wide. I get to the other side and twirl and bow to the opposite shore, to where that photo was washed up. Then I disappear into the 24^th Street Mission. The beautiful and absurd parade swallows me whole. The light drops into orange and purple, and all of the promises of magic come true. I bow my head and catch glimpses from underneath my hood. The colors are all vivid, and there are men singing while they work and blowing into great plastic trumpets in celebration of some event about which I know nothing.