Oh God! What to do? She collapsed on the single bed that squeeked under her slender weight and, covering her face with her hands, she wept, her five-foot four-inch body rocking back and forth on the Indian print bedspread. Why had she insisted on coming to San Francisco without a job? Her uncle Frank had warned her, her aunt Violet, her father, and her very own younger sister. But no, Chris O'Brien was going to prove her independence regardless of the ominous odds. So what if California already suffered from 13% unemployment, not to mention the spate of 18-22 year old jobless, of which she was but a statistic. Chris would prove them all overly cautious and narrow-minded. She would come in cold, get a well-paying, creative job with travel benefits. After all, she had a college diploma in one hand and a portfolio brimming with talent in the other. What more could she have going for her? Her professors at the University had encouraged her, telling her she should try cracking into the fashion design market out here on the West Coast. Sure, they'd said, it you want to start a career, go to New York; but the West Coast has lots more amenities. Now, after two months of scouring the streets, all she could show for her efforts was a bad blister on her left heel and an arm-long list of useless telephone numbers and contacts. And no money.
A roar as loud as her own crying rocketed through the Geary Street apartment, the din's vibrating rattle making the stereo groan, then skip a cut. Chris pounded an angry fist into her knee. And this hole! It was filthy and noisy, snorted Chris. You couldn't listen to a record album without a bus interrupting everytime its brakes ground to a halt to repeat its never ending route up and down Geary Street all night. But you could hardly complain to a landlord about cockroaches and broken windows when you still owed last month's rent and had no prospects for paying the current month's either. You bit your lip and endured: that was city living.
What could she do? Chris bit into her trembling lower lips and stared blurrily at the yellow cracked wall. She might as well call her parents collect and humiliate herself by asking them to send her a one-way ticket back to Detroit and forget there was any part of America west of the Mississippi River. No. That would be giving in, sniffed Chris, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She'd rather work at the telephone company, God forbid, than do that – if they were hiring.
The twenty-two year old slim-hipped girl braced her foot on the bed board and, out of habit, twisted to reach her cigarettes on the night stand. With a wince and a snap of her fingers she remembered she'd smoked the last one last night – or had her roommate bummed it? She couldn't remember which. Just yesterday she'd spent her last cash on a pair of stockings she didn't like, to wear to a job interview for a job she didn't want. Damn! she hissed, clenching her fists. We've got to do something. Anything!
And her roommate Sandy was no help either. God, she couldn't keep a dollar in her pocket for five minutes without it sending up flames. That, thought Christ pacing in front of the window, is the whole trouble with Sandy. Drugs. Money spent uselessly on drugs, and all it got you was a headache and another day in debt. In school it had been no problem even though they'd roomed together since neophyte freshman. One collect phone call to the folks telling them you needed another easel or art book, and the check was in the mail pronto. Now, being twenty-two and independent, neither of the girls could expect anything in the mail except for a good wish and a stamped, self-addressed envelope to back home. A case of responsibility, pure and simple.
Chris put her finger to her lip and concentrated on the old man across the street, stooping over to pick up cigarette butts from the gutter. Where had last summer's savings gone? She tapped her foot, mentally counting off the dollars. Rent-$70, clothes-about $10, rock concerts… ummm, that's where a good share of it had gone. And dope. One pound of top grade marijuana that she and Sandy had bought the first week in San Francisco. "Good stuff… safe connection… you can sell it, keep a couple lids for yourselves and make a killing on the rest." Right, thought Chris with a sarcastic nod of the head. Safe investment, huh! The dealer, some guy Sandy had picked up in the park and brought home for an afternoon of frolic and post-hippie lovemaking, sold them the goods and ripped them off on the same night. Some scam!
He'd come late at night to break up the kilo and weigh out the pound in front of the two girls. Next thing Chris remembered she was lying on the floor from an overdose of PCP sprinkled in the marijuana – a drug she'd smoked occasionally while in school – with Sandy making passionate love to the dealer on the sofa. Chris, on hands and knees, had crawled to her bedroom, just one doorway beyond, and listened to the grunts and groans and slurping and slapping of flesh on naked flesh only to wake up the next morning to find her roommate passed out on the couch and Chris' purse laying open and empty… and the pound of dope picked up and carried off by the same hands that had brought it in only four hours earlier. It was a killing all right, mused Chris with the caustic wisdom of a victim of the city. A real lesson.
She'd blamed Sandy for it, calling her irresponsible and a poor judge of character, that she should have been able to pick up on the guy's vibes and known better than to buy dope from a stranger. But then, honestly speaking, if Sandy had to pass on her judgment of people, she wouldn't have passed kindergarten, for Sandy was a girl who knew what she wanted on the skimpiest of superficial levels and sacrificed anything to get it – money, honor. It didn't matter. If it felt good, Sandy indulged. It was her life's principle. "Some people live by the ten commandments," Chris remembered her best friend saying, "and I have my fun." No one could argue the point; in a crazy sort of way it made sense.
Even Chris couldn't argue with Sandy on that issue. The long haired girl lit the half-burned cigarette she found among the marijuana roaches in the seashell ashtray and lit it, feeling the hot match warm her fingers as she thought on. No, Sandy had never been discriminate about her college dates. If they liked loud music, beer, and dope, they were Sandy's kind of people. Poor, rich, white, black, yellow, red – Sandy had had them all. And loved it.
That must have been thought Chris pulling on the second-time-around cigarette, why Mom and Dad were opposed to her coming along with me out here to California in the first place. Though she was loathe to concede the issue, her parents were right. Sandy was getting out of hand with bringing home guys from the laundromat, the bus stop, and the pool hall – anywhere she could find a willing mate who wanted to spend an afternoon in bed. And worst of all, they would crash all night with Sandy in her bedroom and play the stereo on full blast so that Chris couldn't get to sleep until the east turned yellow.
But damn it, you couldn't help but love Sandy no matter how many times she broke a promise or borrowed money. She was a true friend, a real sister, and Chris would do anything to help her roommate. After all, Sandy had stuck by Chris through all her traumas and hard times, always offering everything she had to give.
Like the time Chris' parents had decided to make a surprise Sunday afternoon visit to their oldest daughter in college, and Sandy had given up her afternoon to chat and play hostess to Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien while Chris lay in frozen silence behind her bedroom door with her boyfriend after a night of de-flowering love making. Chris had been far too embarrassed and shame-faced guilty to face her parents, especially with Dick haggling her for a second time around. Hadn't Chris a debt to pay there? Return one good turn for another? Sandy had shrugged it off, saying she enjoyed company. True, the dark haired girl did like people.
That, succinctly, was another one of Sandy's problems. But nobody could blame her. Everybody said she was lucky not to be scared for life. And to think her step-father was responsible.