During my last visit to my old drinking hole in San Francisco, the Gangway—right before I moved back to LA—I was having a few beers with one of the bar’s many characters I had befriended: Guy was his name. He had told me a few times about how he was a metal sculptor and had a studio in Oakland. (I always took this with a grain of salt because most of the Gangway’s regulars were pathological liars. Myself included. We all have big stuff going on. Someday, you’ll see.)

As we talked and sipped our beers, I watched a handsome Latino clean up behind the bar. I hadn’t seen him before and thought, “Jesus, the old queens in here must love him.” It was then that I remembered an interesting fact about Guy: He liked to huff spray paint and cruise day laborers at Home Depot for sex or, what he calls: “A little uno-dos.” I asked him that evening if he was still hitting Home Depot for his fix of spray paint and “uno-dos.”

“Naw,” he said. “I haven’t done that since the last time you drove me over. Besides, I think I’m getting too old for that shit. I have more fun on Craigslist now. Much more convenient.”

That last time he was referring to was, actually, the first time he told me about this little secret about a year ago. It was that night, after many drinks, I demanded he prove to me that he huffed paint and fooled around with day laborers—not just for the sake of his own integrity but also to, perhaps, inject some much needed variety into my own anemic dating pool. He slammed his bottle down and just like that, we were off to Oakland.

Crossing the bridge, while driving his pickup (he was too drunk) proved slightly more nerve-wracking as I was almost as intoxicated as he was. But he kept me steady with one arm on my shoulder and the other pointing me forward. As we got off the bridge he had me take an off-ramp which lead straight to the local Home Depot. It didn’t take long to spot a group of guys hanging out near the entrance.

They saw us in the pickup and waved to get our attention and, sure enough, two of the laborers broke from the herd and chased us around the block where we stopped to let them catch up. Guy and the men talked business; then one guy hopped in the back and we headed out. It was all happening quickly, which made me more nervous. “What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him we needed help lifting a cabinet into my shop.”

Illustration by Dana Collins.

“So, what’s going to happen when you break out the spray can and tell him he’s actually been hired to party with you?”

“I’ll handle it. Ain’t nothin’ a little huffing and some straight porn can’t do.”

A few minutes later, we arrive at his “studio” which was actually an RV parked beneath a freeway overpass in an area surrounded by warehouses and more RVs. There was an odd, out-of-place corner market across the street. A sunken-faced older man was standing outside smoking, watching us pull up and hop out. I figured he was one of the other RV dwellers.

Just up a dirt embankment behind Gus’ mobile artist studio were scraps of metal and unfinished projects spread out all over: A wild-eyed, screaming horse head, a rooster sporting a giant human penis—it was like I had discovered the Bay Area subsidiary of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

I was feeling uneasy about what he was trying to pull off so I attempted to steer things to the subject of his art pieces. “So, what exactly are some of these supposed… ” He was paying no attention to me as he had already taken the guy into the RV, leaving me standing there. I didn’t know if I was invited but I was still buzzed and, now, a little freaked out by my surroundings.

I stood there wondering what to do next. Then, I looked over at the small market nearby. The old man had been joined by an old woman and they were rummaging through two bags she had apparently brought out with her. He was holding a new roll of toilet paper and the woman kept reaching for it. Each time she reached, she looked over at me. Her partner noticed this. “Oh Jesus Christ, he don’t care that we got toilet paper! What? You’re embarrassed?” He looked over at me and started waving it over his head and began dancing a jig. “Well whoop-dee-fucking-dee! They gotta wipe their asses the same as the rest of us!” I smiled back at him and clapped my hands to his dancing—then all hell broke loose behind me in the RV.

The door to the RV swung open and out ran Gus—his nose was bleeding: “Go! Go! Go!” he screamed at me as he headed for his pickup. The Latino day laborer came crashing out of the RV behind him and looked very angry. He was screaming names at him in Spanish and throwing cans of spray paint. I ran to the truck and into the passenger side as Gus got behind the wheel, turned the ignition and sped around in the other direction from the guy giving chase. “What happened?” I asked. “Isn’t it obvious?” He shot back and then began to laugh. “Sometimes they’re not into it!”

I looked back and saw the man chasing had given up but not before he threw one last can at us as hard as he could. It came smashing through the rear window of the pickup, shooting glass everywhere. A shard of the broken window punctured it and a red cloud started to fill the inside of the truck. I grabbed the hissing can and threw it out onto the street.

Gus and I both rolled down our windows as quickly as we could to get the aerosol and paint out and get some fresh air in. The paint filled my nostrils and was all over the left side of my face where it had exploded. I took off my jacket and gave it to Gus to wipe the inside of the windshield off. I lifted off my T-shirt and wiped my face and blew my nose into it. I was sure I was going to be blinded or suffer some sort of “painter’s lung” disease from all the spray paint we just inhaled, but then I realized that if that was possible, Gus would’ve been dead years ago.

Gus wiped enough paint off the windshield to see to drive. We kept trying to wipe ourselves off as we got back onto the bridge heading back into San Francisco. Gus looked me up and down and looked around the inside of the truck that was now almost totally covered in red paint. “Well, THAT’S never happened before. How about we go back and finish those drinks and call it a night?”

“We’re covered in paint and your nose is still bleeding. Don’t you want to wash up?” I asked.

“Naw,” he said. “I’ve come running into that place looking like this a million times. Face it, it’s why we like hanging out there.”

He patted me on the back as we drove into town to the Gangway for what was to be my last visit there, as it is closed now—making way for gentrification. Maybe Gus will finish those sculptures now.