Gutter Folklore is a collection of stories I wrote waaaay back when, some of my first attempts to write short stories and a somewhat cohesive narrative. It’s also the stories where I initially developed the extra-urban punk-crust extraordinaire Skye, a persistent character in my fiction.

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    Gray streets.
    Gray sidewalks, gray buildings, gray cars and gray people with gray skin and gray clothes.
    No, it wasn’t cloudy, not even foggy. In fact it was a bright and sunny day, but in the center of the concrete jungle known as San Francisco, a mysterious gray film seemed to cover everything. A dull, dingy, medium to light gray sheen that had become translucent to all of the city’s denizens. The urban regulars had grown so used to it that they barely noticed it anymore, if they had ever noticed it at all in the first place.
    Someone from out of town, say, from a rural area might wonder: Just what was this wraithly gray scum that seemed to cover every square inch of everything and everyone? Was it congealed smog? Was it the all pervasive afterglow of acid rain? Perhaps it was some sort of subatomic fungus. Out of town tourists would check their food to make sure that none of the mysterious gray matter had settled onto any of their edibles. It had crossed the mind of many a visiting stranger to ask about the ubiquitous gray substance, but none of the native San Franciscans seemed to realize it was there, so the tourists kept their mouths shut for fear of causing a controversy or committing some sort of obscure big city discourtesy.
    The other big city facets were there, the ones that didn’t need such close inspection. Any New Yorker or Los Angelesian would recognize them instantly. Hoards of Taxis, buses, cars, sidewalks choked with pedestrians, steam rising from the grates, gutter punks, businessmen, hookers, bike messengers, sidewalk preachers of familiar and unfamiliar faiths, bars that opened at six in the morning, fancy and high priced hotels located next to methadone clinics and porn shops, extremely obscure ethnic food, bizarre little stores with no apparent aim or target market, and cops. Lots of cops. Cops in cars, cops on the beat, cops on horses, cops on drugs, cops on whores, cops pretending to be whores…
    As with many urban areas San Francisco had its share of underground citizens, hearty bohemians that populated the neighborhoods surrounding the skyscraped center. Artists, writers, musicians, progressive activists, sexual adventurists, and a hordes of decidedly unclassifiable people made their home in San Francisco, despite the choking presence of corporate institutions and criminally high rents.
    One of these bohemians was speeding through the rush hour traffic on a partially rusted mountain bike.

    As the mid-afternoon glare sent the gray urban film a’ shimmering, a well dressed businessman stomped through the thinning after work crowd, carrying a cup of coffee and a briefcase.
    Actually, some of his coffee was on his suit.
    He spotted the lean, no frills mountain bike parked in front of a high-rise. The businessman stopped and grimaced at the bicycle. It was indeed the one he was looking for.
    He stared a good long stare and waited. He knew that his nemesis must be somewhere inside one of the sky blotting metal skyscrapers that stood behind the bicycle. The businessman started to pace as he waited for a particular shredded haired punk to return.
    A few minutes passed, and the coffee wearing businessman muttered under his breath as he paced, stopping now and then to take hateful stares at the partially rusted mountain bike until the woman he was waiting for finally emerged from the building.
    “Hey. Hey! Hey hey hey!” Gesticulated the businessman.
    The flayed haired punk looked disinterestedly back at him.
    “Who do you think you are? Look at what you did to my suit!”
    “Belch,” replied the punk.
    “You can’t ride around the city like that! I’ll report you to the police unless you do something about my suit!”
    “Call the cops. I’ll tell em’ you were jaywalking.”
    “I wasn’t jaywalking!”
    “You were crossing against a red light,” said the punk as she double checked her pack.
    “There weren’t any vehicles coming down the street!”
    She got on her bicycle. “A bicycle’s a vehicle.”
    “The hell it is!” sputtered the businessman who started to wave his coffee cup in her face. “Do you realize this is a brand new Brook’s Brothers suit? Do you know how much it’ll cost to clean it?”
    “Get a new hairpiece,” she said as she adjusted her feet on the bicycle pedals. “You should’na barged out onto the street like that. I hadda hit my brakes and skid off to the side to avoid hitting you. I almost got into a serious accident.”
    She started to pedal off.
    “Hey! You’re not going anywhere!” squawked the businessman as he grabbed the handlebars.
    Just as the businessman’s hand plopped down on the handlebars, a fist connected with his face. The businessman was sent stumbling back, trying to balance his remaining coffee while simultaneously trying to regain his balance. During the scant split seconds that he was performing his balancing act, it became apparent that he would either have to regain his footing or fall onto his back in order to keep from spilling more coffee on himself. Not wanting to suffer a fractured tailbone, he set his feet and steadied his gait as the rest of his coffee came splashing out onto his Brook’s Brothers suit.
    Looking up, even more enraged than he had been just seconds before, the businessman swiveled his aching face just in time to see the frazzled punk gliding out onto the busy downtown streets.