8 Aidan San Francisco — 1986 The Tenderloin

Aidan hitches his way to San Francisco. Truckers desperate for company, or lonely men drawn by his shining beauty, pull over and throw their doors open wide. But, after only a few miles, they turn off into small towns, muttering about relatives to visit or business to attend to. Some wait in roadside diners for hours before sneaking back to their cars. They take small dirt roads, adding days to their trip, in order to avoid Aidan’s bloodless presence and bottomless eyes.

Aidan arrives in San Francisco at dusk. He is dropped off in the Tenderloin by a man desperate to be rid of him. Aidan’s presence in his car is like the scent of mortality. In the twilight, large red and blue neon breasts flash from dirty bars, igniting the night. Giant muscled men guard dark, curtained doorways.

The Tenderloin has always been a rough neighborhood, hot with neon and prostitutes. It gets its name from police captain, Alexander S. Williams, who said, “On a policeman’s salary, I can only afford chuck steak. But after transfer here, I make so much in bribes, I eat tenderloin every night.”

Most of the buildings contain single-occupancy hotels and studio apartments After the Vietnam War, refugees from Southeast Asia; Chinese from Vietnam, Khmer from Cambodia and Hmong from Laos moved in. Studio apartments became vertical villages, overflowing with entire extended families. Asian restaurants, Vietnamese sandwich shops and ethnic grocery stores blossomed. But the strip clubs remained.

Aidan, of course knows nothing of this. If he had, he would not have cared. He stands beneath the yellow and red glow of “Club Vamp” lit like a Halloween tree.

Frankie, Club Vamp’s manager, is in a hole. His current bouncer, Lou, has just staggered off the job. Lou had gotten soused and punched out a patron who’d been making eyes at a waitress that Lou fancied.

Despite Aidan’s spare frame, despite the fact that Aidan has no resume, no work history, not even an address or a telephone number, Frankie hires him on the spot. Aidan does not look like someone who would ever get drunk, or lose his head over a girl. He does not look like a fighter. Nor does he look like a bouncer. He is lean and esthetic. Yet, despite his leanness, Aidan radiates menace. Frankie thinks that this is good. It is not. Prospective clients, looking into Aidan’s fathomless indigo eyes bring no trouble... and no business. They skirt the doorway of the Vamp, trying to avoid Aidan’s gaze.

Frankie is in a bind. He does not want to lose business, nor does he fancy firing Aidan. He fears the space that seems to fall away into forever behind those eyes.

One night, a D.J. doesn’t show.

“Hey,” says Frankie smiling, his eyes move side to side searching for escape. “How’d you like to try your hand at D.J.-ing tonight?”

He reaches up to pat Aidan on the back, but stops. His hand remains flat in space as if he’s miming a wall.

He knows putting Aidan in the booth is a stupid thing to do. He knows that if Aidan breaks his equipment he cannot afford to buy more, but he must, if only for a moment, get away from those bottomless eyes.

It turns out to be a perfect solution. Behind the glass, Aidan is no more visible than a dream. And Aidan spins disks as naturally as breath. In fact, under Aidan’s fingers, the ancient stereo that has always skipped and sputtered skims smooth as a bird over water. The Vamp is loud, and its patron’s drunk, so perhaps it is not surprising that no one realizes that the songs are all slightly slow. The customers do not connect the melodies that begin to haunt their dreams with the background noise that accompanies their nightly binges. Pop tunes, so distorted by tempo, so twisted by harmonics as to be unrecognizable. They are the soundtrack to nightmare.