My steps are measured. Casual, determined, as if I belonged here. My bag with a screaming-orange priority luggage tag betrays me. I ignore it. Head raised high, confidently, but not defiantly. I’m staring ahead, like a horse. What you can’t see won’t scare you. No, not that. I’m staring ahead, avoiding all eye contact. If I meet his eye, I might smile. Then he will kill me.
My first business trip to San Francisco. I was warned not to stay in Tenderloin, so I picked a 4-star hotel next to Union Square. That walk from the subway station to the hotel, on a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon was a walk of a lifetime. They stood there, sat there, lounged there, doing nothing, quietly staring at me. Was I intruding?
A cool winter evening. Tired, I am on my way to the hotel. I gape at the majestic Salesforce tower, stop by a closed bookstore to read the titles of every book in the window, walk into a Starbucks for a soy latte, leave immediately. Here, Starbucks is a dirty, slightly creepy, faceless chain where you do not go to quietly sip your brew, unwind, watch people. A young man in a baseball hat asks me for spare change, I smile, shake my head, apologise. The man is polite, and I do have spare change. But the street is dark, and if I take out my wallet, someone will steal it.
I walk away, tears fill my head and my chest and my solar plexus. It’s the jetlag.
