THE ROYAL RESIDENCE 2 ================================================================= THE ROYAL RESIDENCE ================================================================= This is episode two. After we completed my ablutions this morning, Mr Cheez and I went to the sidewalk cafe for coffee. We met another resident of the RR. Annie is a statuesque lady who resembles Beatrice Arthur. Annie welcomed me to the building and said it will get better. I questioned what she meant about better. Well, she meant they were trying to get rid of the undesirables. It seems that at first of the month when many pension checks come through, a considerable number of residents go out and get likkered. When they come back they tend to be noisy or to raise a ruckus. Truth to tell, Mr Cheez and I saw an interesting character on our way down from my floor this morning. He resembled Moses a la Charlton Heston with his prematurely grey beard. Moses was collecting the doorknob are-you-in-there-dead cards. Annie continued by telling us there were those who wear the same clothes day in and day out until they only have to step in and out of them to dress. She said riding the elevator and not holding your nose can sometimes be a funky experience. Annie took her coffee back to the lobby where she sits to watch the passing parade. Mr Cheez and I remained to finish ours at the little cafe table where we could letch the German tourists with their golden-fuzzed stout little legs descending from classic khaki shorts. Later Miss Kooky came by to push my throne up hill to Caffe Maison on the line between the Upper Tenderloin and Lower Snob Hill. We had a quite decent hamburger with excellent fries for our supper. I was surprised that places such as Booger Queen cost almost as much and have neither the food quality nor ambience. The place is every bit as retro as the rock cafe chain but without the price goudging. It even has the requisite noise for those who cannot abide silence. In place of thumping tunes this one has an artificial rain effect which we cannot see as relevant to the vinyl 50s decor. The staff were friendly and didn't stare at me, the tard. On our way back by a more circuitous route, we observed that the whole block on which the Royal Residence sits is going Japanese. Nearly all the restaurants and businesses are so oriented. The one anomaly is a smoke shop nearby which hawks cigars, zippo [sic], and phone card [sic]. But since there is a cigar bar across the street, the proprietor likely does good ancillary business. Tourists would probably go for the phone cards, but who uses zippo (!) any longer? Maybe this is the generic term for lighter in other places. As I sit here looking out and down toward the smoke shop, I see the disembodied heads of passers-by. Their trunks and legs are hidden from me by the rooves below. Unless I choose to go out and take the elevator to the lobby and go onto the street, the street doesn't intrude upon me except by ocassional loud noise and sometimes the smoke from a nearby restaurant's grill. In this confusing interim of setting up systems for living, I have Mr Cheez to assist me personally, and Miss Kooky and The Demon to bring mealtime tribute. I see how it is possible to sit alone in your room and be lonely in the midst of busy-ness. I look forward to the fabrication of hardware suited to my mobility (or lack of it), home health care for personal assistance, and the power wheels which will take me from my aloneness in a room out to the cabaret of life in this place. I've made so many phone calls to voicemails in so many agencies I could just scream. I am requesting applications and forms and filling them out and sending them back. These, when heeded, will obtain for me the goods and services I need to get around and participate as a subspecies of consumer. But for now everything is up in the air. Auntie Lenore and her lover Bobbi Hatch blew into town this weekend to visit the so-called Cow Palace. The CP is a property of the City and County of San Francisco, originally built as an ag showgrounds. Now it is the site for all sorts of desperate volume selling operations -- boats, cars, inventory liquidations, and in this case a gun show. How fitting the Cow Palace is over the line in Daly City. Even the combined city/county jails are in the next county. So is Taste guarded in the City That Knows How. They offered to pick me up a BB gun to pick off seagulls with. I chose instead to have Sunday brunch. But today we went across to Coffee Ron's, a landmark coffee shop and cocktail lounge which is an exposition in Taste Misunderstood. The decor is somewhere between English pub and San Francisco whorehouse. I expected to see the ghost of Sally Stanford grope Coffee Ron and he to remind her the pool table is for the use of customers only. CR appears to be afraid the riffraff will make use of his establishment. The cheapest thing on the menu is a cheese sandwich at six dollars. These are uptown prices on a Tenderloin budget. This alone should keep them out, let alone his constipated disposition. I had begun to think there was not going to be true hilarious tastelessness in my new hood, but I have been most gratified. This evening on our way back to the RR from the Virgin Cafe in the media store two blocks away, we were set upon by a crazed member of street society who kept genuflecting to the Holy Stump of Redemption and attempting to kiss it. He lept kneeling on the pavement, interefering with my use of the curb cuts to make the crosswalk. This fellow's ministrations and worship even attracted the attention of a city cop. Miss Kooky gave him the high sign and the street crazy then understood prayer meeting was over. I am amazed at the number of spare change artists who think I am rich and can give them money. Wait til I get my cup and _join_ them! I am still waiting on the delivery of my real throne, the heavy- duty commode chair. As you may recall, Demon brought me a most thoughtful housewarming gift, a Rubbermaid bedpan. This morning I employed it. This is the first shit I've had since I left St Timmy's. Obiviously, I haven't been eating much roughage -- much of anything, actually. Things have been rumbling about in there as though they might want out. But there has been no great pressure or urgency. Still, enough is enough, and victuals can wear out their welcome. When Mr Cheez called this morning, I told him it's time, bring the buttbomb. But before the buttbomb we had to play with the bedpan. Turn it upside down and put it on your head and it makes you look like a miner 49er. Mr Cheez came excellently prepared, with a great rubber sheet and extra towels. When the bed was protected, I graced him with the royal smile and he uncorked the buttbomb. He made a solemn ceremony of reading the instructions on the box and performing each task with great panache. I really didn't think this little dab of stuff would do the trick, at least not before tomorrow afternoon. But pretty soon I grunted and heaved and gave most generously. Mr Cheez wouldn't show me my product but said I nearly filled the three-quart capacity "hat". He even admitted that my gift didn't smell too bad and that the whole experience wasn't nearly as horrible as he thought it would be. I got through the day feeling most pleasantly light when, in the evening, I began to feel rumbles again. Mr Cheez took a little trip out of town, Miss Kooky was off at work, and I didn't want to scare Demon to death so I went to bed without calling for the 49er hat and assistance with it. This was a big mistake. I thought, I'll sneak a mouse fart and see what happens. I got instead a torrent of soup. Then I got great bubbling farts all in a row. There was nobody I could call that I would wish this mess on, so I slept in it! The diaper under me soaked up most of the crud leaving my buttcakes frosted with a hard shell coating, sort of like a giant pair of M&Ms. I called Miss Kooky at work in the night and said please to come over as soon as you get off work and don't have breakfast first. The mess really wasn't as bad a some I'd made at ERR and Timmy's. Miss Kooky took the bed sheet home to wash. Miss Kooky will help me wear the 49er hat on my nether face this evening. I have learned my lesson: Never trust a rumbling starfish. I had my official welfare services interview this afternoon. A senior worker and an RN came to look me and the place over. I qualify for in-home health service which I can get through an agency or I can use a friend or relative. Why go back to having strangers looking at my pussy when I can frighten Mr Cheez every day of the week? My share of cost for this service is about US$123 per month. The going rate for this service through an agency with their cut figured in is US$16 per hour. With my certifying the need of an hour and a half per day of service, on average, Mr Cheez should be quite nicely compensated for yanking my pants on over my butt and vacuuming the carpet. I'll give him $123 credit each month on an outstanding loan and he'll still get some money from official sources. All hail nepotism. =================================================================