The Puppetmaster and I walked along the embarcadero after brunch on Sunday. We passed the yacht club at China Basin, and a memory of being a theater usher came flooding back.
It was late one night after a Rent show. There was a cast and crew party at the yacht club, and there were a handful of ushers in attendance. I sat out on the deck in a dark corner with a few of the sarcastic girls smoking and cracking inappropriate jokes about the guys performing their favorite selections inside. They were each very talented, most of them so much that it overshadowed their larger than life egos. I had watched them in their glory so frequently that it was no longer a novelty.
A stranger walked in during one of the performances and bellied up to the bar. He was dressed in the dark layers common to the area like a fisherman or longshoreman. His pace was slow and purposeful, but his height allowed him to cross from the entrance to the bar with a few steps. The deck was silent as we looked on in awe.
He was beautiful. The ends of thick dreadlocks dangled beneath the wrap around his head, brushing his back just above his waist. His face was smooth olive with a thin goatee. His eyes glowed golden green. The silence on the deck was broken with a whisper from one of the girls behind me, "Now, that's a man." The rest of us sighed and groaned in agreement. The top of my head tingled.
The tension in the yacht club was palpable. It became painfully clear that the stranger had encroached on a private function. He didn't stay long, but I don't recall anything that happened after his departure that night. I felt as though I'd seen a ghost, there for a fleeting moment and then gone forever. At least that's what I assumed at the time.
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