Taking it as it comes

Can’t afford anything this night but the streets, walking by Foster’s I see a man prone and motionless on the sidewalk. I go next door to alert the hotel clerk that possibly someone is dead. He hurries out. Upon shaking the man by his ankles, the clerk has this to say, “Don’t worry about him; he is just in a drunken stupor.” I then keep on walking on Market Street. San Francisco at night is neon. I still have not claimed my baggage at the Greyhound Depot. I need to find Fred and Alex. They are a gay couple I knew in Seattle. But now it is three in the morning. I impulsively come down to San Francisco, and although I have relatives here, I don’t feel like I can meet them like this. I need to walk some more hours until it is dawn in North Beach. I have only a twenty bill in my wallet, a choice between breaking it on a pack of Marlboro or a cup of coffee and a donut at Foster’s. I could not make decisions like these and that is the reason they reject me from the Army. Sally says that I have to measure a sandwich with a ruler before I cut it in half.