Chapter #15

[Scrap #1] We first met online and then in San Diego. Vu was staying at his parents' place over Christmas and we were going to drive back to Berkeley together. Us, my new station wagon 1996 Honda Accord, the boxes, the golf clubs and the bear. Before the departure we saw the Sideways and then went for a meal in Hillcrest. He kept asking me what I thought about the movie. He was a future scientist and I was just one of those romantic majors. "It was good" I answered. We drove to LA by the coast. We didn't get to the Bay Area until late at night. There was snow on the freeway so we had to take a detour via 126. Or the other way around. I dropped him off at his place in the hills and rolled back on a neutral all the way to Albany. We hang out almost every evening. We would go to get spicy chicken from a Korean place on the North side and then take a bus to his studio. We chatted, laughed and drank Vietnamese coffee. Once we drank wine at the bus stop. Vu was the first friend I made in Berkeley.

[Scrap #2] The first lecture took place in the Pimentel [Hall] part of the science department. A few days earlier I walked around the campus trying to memorise the position of the buildings from the maps as not to look lost and new. It was a grey morning and there were already people congregating in front of the lecture hall. Inside was a place that looked like an auditorium with a podium in the middle. There must have been more than two hundred people in the room. It was the American politics and the teacher talked about how the shape of politics had changed and how campaigning for a candidate never stopped. The lectures were to be conducted by the professor himself but the discussions group was led by a Russian-American PhD student. She lived with her parents in San Francisco, used the word lame quite a bit and while nice seemed to project a level of toughness and hard work. I went to see my major advisor and managed to convert the credit for the class I took with Ms. Scarfee. The gsi replied to my email saying there were better classes to take and wished me luck with my studying.

[Scrap #3] The assignments consisted of books and readers which were chunks of photocopies assembled together from various sources. They often exceeded one thousand pages. Darren and I had just enough connection to establish a sort of functioning households without necessary calling ourselves best friends. We shared his couch, watching his DVD sets, using Karren Walker's one liners while drinking rose wine and pretending to be reenacting the household from Friends. He had introduced me to some of his friends and we would drive in his car to hang out in San Francisco. At parties we would talk about electricity bills. My morning routine involved driving the honda to the bottom of the hill and then getting bus 43. On Monday afternoons I would drive all the way to campus and then hunt for an empty spot on Oxford street. It was important to be there to hit the window between 4:00pm when people were finishing a class and 4:10pm when new ones like me would arrive. My room had a desk, the new bed and a wardrobe. It also had an in-suite bathroom but because it was the only one with a shower Darren would have to use it as well. 

[Scrap #4] I wasn't sure I belonged to the campus but when I read that ten percent of the grade is due to active participation I decided it was time to start speaking up. The class with Professor Weber was held at the Life and Science building and it was always a treat. I would get myself a hot chai tea with milk and head for eighty minutes of enlightment. The discussion session was held just after the class and this is where all topics related to the world were discussed. Elections in Iraq, China, whatever came to mind. We would sit in a circle of wooden chairs at the Wheeler buildings while it was already dark outside. When I handed my first two pager I was scared. Speaking was easy but getting your written thoughts validated was a different matter. A week later the paper had some marks on it but overall comment was 'nice work'. That was good enough. I was slowly starting to feel like an insider. Milano or Free Speech Cafe was where I would now treat myself a white chocolate mocha. I made sure to return the glass to the collection bucket. It was Berkeley after all. 

[Scrap #5] I met Lauren on Tuesday evening at a meeting of Model UN. My birthday was coming up, it was dark outside and I was heading for a depression. I needed new friends. It turned out that we were taking the same PS2 class with professor Janos - an old Hungarian man who spoke with an accent and still used [foiled slides] for his presentations. It was an introductionary class and I was one of the older students but I guess because of that Lauren thought of me as a sort of political science guru. We would meet at a library and I would try to explain her what we were talking in the class about. Her plan was to get high one day and smell every book in the library. She had tried other clubs. The Christian meeting was good for the free food but the Model UN was much more interesting. After the club meeting I would drive back home. Darren and I would cross the Bay Bridge to see a midnight transvestite show at the Stud bar on Folsom and [8th]. We would be home early enough to finish my two pager for my morning session with Jessica.

[Scrap #6] There was a cloud hanging over those experiences that could not be further deferred or ignored. I did bring some of Barry's money from my last trip in Los Angeles but that was probably all I was going to see. The time was running out and the reality was that I wasn't not sure how I was going to pay for the rest of my semester not to mention the rest of my studies. I did get some web customers in San Francisco - a Techno Man who wanted to promote his business, a hybrid between circus and a dj, and [Manuel], a Nigerian man needed to learn how to develop a website for his boss's website. But the grand plan was failing and all I saw was that wall of uncertainity which with every week and month was getting closer and closer. And I was scared to see what it was behind. I sat in the Middle East history class telling myself that it was the experience I was supposed to enjoy the most. It was gloomy outside. I could've called Barry but it was probably going to be just another promise. It was just me and that classroom.

[Scrap #7] Asian Ghetto was a small set of restaurants located on the south part of the campus. The university was not the only source of life in town but it certainly in its centre. Because of its student population many of places, like the Thai Basil, was tailored to the low budget of the student body. You could get a good Pad Pai Prik for five dollars and have a free tea with it (but you have to pour it yourself). Telegraph Avenue was the main streets leading to the campus. There you had pizza shop, a shop with vast collections of CDs, some clothing store, Cafe Milano to the right and a Mexican hot dog man just in front of the campus. The first buildings to the right was the Sproul Hall. To the left a student cantine with the chai tea and honey. Wheeler Hall to the right and then Campaignile Tower overlook the Bay Area and the Golden Gate Bridge reminding me to appreciate the place. DOE library, with its beautiful reading room, connected via a tunnel to Mofit with its computers and Free Speech Cafe. Pass LSB downhill to Oxford Street lined with parking meters on coins. 

[Scrap #8] Turn right into Shattuck and drive ahead. To your left is a church where a priest dies during a sermon. The Pope is dying. To the right a CVS with cigarettes waiting to be bought. Pass the tunnel, stop at the traffic lights. Enter Albany. To the right a Starbucks with a puking girl. Wells Fargo with no money. A gas station to the left and Safeway with ice cream. Solano Avenue, a cinema with the Fallen. Pass San Pablo, slow down for the stop signs. Turn right into Jackson. Darren's car parked in the garage. Neighbour with his underwear. Walk downstairs. The laundry is to the right. Rest. Go back to the car and drive down the hill. Right and left into the Freeway 80. Fifth gear. Take the exit onto the Bay Bridge. Pass through the toll and soak up the view. Slow down before the curve. Exit onto Folsom. Or the next exit if you're heading to Castro. Find a parking spot. Get a rice cooker at Walgreen's. Or drive to the Pier 7. Go to the end and look into the dark sky. Splash a coin in the water and promise you will be coming back.

[Scrap #9] It was early in the morning and I was sitting outside of Starbucks sipping my cooling coffee. I was thinking of my Dad, how at the age of maybe three or four we drove up the railway bridge. He talked about the hills of San Francisco and how much steeper they were out there. "One day I would go there visit" I thought. And here I was, sitting in the middle of the city. Darren was in Napa Valley. This was a day after I met Flynn. We met online, of course, and we chose the El Cerito BART station as our meeting spot. I picked him up from the curb on Saturday evening. We drove up the Freeway [80], passed the [San Rafael] bridge and arrived into Cache Creek Casino. First we played black jack and then, after losing the money, we ate at the Filipino buffet. I didn't know where the things were going. The school had been great, the finances more than poor. The silence of the moment however, was to be frozen, preserved and to stay with me forever. I walked back to the car. Maybe there was still enough time to drive to Napa Valley.

[Scrap #10] That felt like we were going to a wedding. Vu, Lean, Laurel and myself in the 1996 Honda Accord. A grey station wagon with manual transmission. Small scratches on the bumper but by now I had mastered the parallel parking. In the rain. Up the hill. We passed through Santa Cruz and stop to take photos. We saw the rock in the ocean. The windows had to be cleaned manually with a sprayer because the wipers still didn't work. Around the Big Sur I let Laurel drive on the curvy roads of the Pacific Highway. The rocks, the ocean, the breeze. I was wearing my Berkeley hoodie, Vu smiled in the camera and sang a Vietnamese song. Laurel was playing guitar. I think she did wear a flower in her hair. Photos of Lean in wearing a hat at the toy shop. Laurel posing at the gas station. Stopped by Nepente and sat on the bench overlooking the Big Sur. Silence of the smooth ocean underneath us. We kept driving. When we got all the way to San Luis Obispo. We stopped by Vons. I sat down with a can of pears and reminisced my great grandmother's garden and tree.