 Please join me in welcoming Mr. John Goines. First, I'd like to dedicate this reading and the book to my late dear friend Francesca Rosa, who was my editor at The Real Spear Press. And she was a wonderful editor and writer as well, whom just passed in October. And I guess I'll start. By the way, Francesca took that picture. It's off of a wall that was a part of a mural right behind the O'Farrell Adult Theater. And we are still looking for the painter for that very small mural, no larger actually than the picture you see there. But we haven't been able to find the artist yet. But we definitely want to give some attribution to the artist. And I think I'll start by reading two brief poems, Haiku, that's at the beginning of the novel. And the first one is by Busan. And it goes, they end their flight one by one crows at dusk. And the second one is actually by my favorite poet, Ryokan. And I was actually thinking of Francesca when I chose both poems. She was very ill at the time. And this one goes, months pass, days pile up, like one intoxicated dream an old man sighs. And the first chapter is called Refugee, which I'm sure strikes a chord. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard the door, the knock on the door. At first I thought I was dreaming. Who would have the gall to knock on my apartment door at one in the morning on a weeknight? Hell, any night. But when whoever it was knocked to gain using the metal clapper this time, I bolted out of bed grabbing the Louisville slugger near the closet. In any insomniac, grabbing a few hours here and there in the middle of the night with a full eight hours of work in front of them knows what I mean. Was it a thief? No. A smart burglar knocks on your door in the daytime hoping no one is home, but not in the middle of the night. The cops? Another one of those botched raids that the news media always forgot to tell us about? It wouldn't be the first time they'd barge into an innocent man's home. A bat in my hand could get me killed. And I had a pipe filled with hashish on the nightstand. I could imagine them leading me out in cuffs, one of the few black people who lived in the neighborhood. Had the country really changed? It was 2012 when I was as afraid of the cops as my great-grandparents must have felt in 1912 when black people were being lynched across our country. I tried to calm myself before looking out of the people. A small woman with long braids and honey brown skin stood on the other side of the door. A short thin scar ran down the left side of her cheek. At first, I didn't recognize her, my lack of sleep or the hashish. Yes, I asked, wary. Bill? Bill Haywood? Is that you she asked urgently? I put down the bat. Ayana? Yes, are you going to open the door? It had been five years since I'd seen or talked to her. A lot had changed in my life since then. Not all of it good. I turned the knob, the suppressed memory of our last meeting, rushing through my mind like oxygen fed to a smoldering fire. You don't have to do everything he tells you, you know. We could still see each other if you want, be friends. She shook her head crying, no, heat find out. Maybe later, she said, with an accent that sounded like a bird warbling outside the window at dawn. Her English much improved since I'd first met her, but still difficult to understand. Later, I repeated, mocking her. The look on her face almost made me want to cry, but I'd stopped shedding tears over women long ago. She appeared ill and gaunt when I opened the door like a patient just emerged from a long convalescence. The weight of the backpack strapped on her frail shoulders, too heavy to bear. There were dark circles under her eyes. I can't believe, she said, staring at. I can't believe, I said, staring at her. Hi, she sighed, looking relieved. Can I come in? What are you doing here? I replied. She shrugged. It was drizzling outside. Her hair and face wet from the rain. Come on in, I said, hesitantly. I'm so sorry I disturb you. She spoke with a formality that I'd always found slightly off-putting, an emotional wall that she couldn't or wouldn't step from behind to reveal herself. Are you alone? Let me get you a towel, I said, retrieving a fresh towel from the closet in the hallway. Thanks, she smiled, drawing her face and hair. What are you doing here at this hour, I said? May I have some water, Bill? She asked, her fingers lightly brushing my arm. I let her into the living room. Why don't you take that backpack off? It looks heavy, I said, curtly. With her, there was always trouble. Like the night she slapped a drunken patron in a bar in the Mission District, when the man, a broad-shouldered, ruggedly built pugilist with a shaved head, retaliated, pushing her across my table, I intervened without thinking the fight, if you want to call it that, ending abruptly with a glancing blow to my temple that put me flat on my back. I feel lucky that he didn't stop me, crushing my skull on the cement floor. When I regained my senses, Ayana was gone for good reason. She was an immigrant without papers and didn't want to be swept up by the police. I learned from the bartender that the man who decked me was a veteran from one of our innumerable wars, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, who knew. We were so many places killing so many people. He probably had PTSD, not that that gave him an excuse for tapping a woman on the ass or shoving her after she smacked him across the face. I was the collateral damage. Thanks, Bill, I forgot your phone number. I wasn't even sure where your apartment was until I saw the building, she said. After drinking the water I gave her, thank God you opened the door. The rickety wooden building on Sacramento Street between Sherry and Arguello stood out like a sore thumb on the block where I lived, even after the cheap coat of paint that my landlord had slapped onto it. You couldn't remember where I live, I asked. I wasn't sure, it's been so long, she said, glancing at the family photos on the wall and the many books that I had accumulated over the years, stacked on shelves that I had made or salvaged from the street. She had only been to my place a couple of times in the past feeling more comfortable when I went to her small apartment in the Mission District instead. She didn't like my neighborhood in Presidio Heights or the vibe that people who live there put out as if we were interlopers who had no right to be there unless we were collecting their garbage or working the cash register at the overpriced Cal Mart grocery store a few blocks away. She was not wrong about the vibe. I did not feel entirely at home or welcome where I lived, but that was all right. My parents had suffered far worse in life. It's one in the morning Ayana, what happened? She shook her head, sighing like a woman who had run out of options. Her nervous smile masked fear and something darker that I could not put my finger on. Listen, she said, pausing, gathering her thoughts. I need, there's a favor I want to ask you. I know it's a surprise me being here but is it possible for me to stay here for a couple of days? You don't have a place to stay, I asked incredulous. You come here out of the blue all these years. I'm so sorry, she said, slowly reaching for her bag. Wait, hold on, it's late. I wasn't going to kick a woman out of my apartment at one in the morning. I wasn't raised that way. I tried to put myself in her position, a refugee from Eritrea. Her uncle who drove a taxi and lived in the mission had invited her to live with him but he had died from a stroke less than a year after she had moved to the States. Fortunately, she had found a job by then and was able to maintain the rent on the small apartment that they had shared. According to Ayana, the property owner wasn't even aware that her uncle had died and she was not about to tell him fearing that he would evict her or raise the rent, demand a security deposit, money that she could ill afford. We had spent time together in and out of bed. She told me about her plans for the future, she wanted to go to college and I helped her discover and adjust to life in the city. You didn't throw someone like that out into the street even after your relationship had gone sideways and you no longer felt the same way about her. I had made a vegetarian stir fry earlier that evening. I took out what was left from the refrigerator, she ate all of it and was still hungry so I sliced a baguette and some brie and poured her a glass of wine. She told me that she was having family problems and needed some place to stay. The small wedding ring on her finger forced me to think about Marcus again, the man she had married so that she could become a citizen. Did you get into an argument with her? Let's not talk about it, Bill. I knew Marcus from way back. He used to live down the street from me. His father, Mr. Hughes, owned a barber shop on Fillmore Street where my father used to take me to get my hair cut. In fact, Mr. Hughes and my father had been good friends until my father passed away from a heart attack when I was in my 20s. Marcus was a year older than I was. People changed, but my friends and I thought of Marcus as something of a bully when we were growing up and a bull shitter, the kind of boy who would try to sell you a bag of oregano claiming that it was pot or punch you in the chest if you embarrassed him playing the dozens, verbal sparring. Ayanna asked me to marry her after her uncle died. She was facing deportation and didn't want to return to Eritrea. Call me a coward, but I didn't want to marry her even though she had offered me money if I agreed to her proposal. I told her that there had to be another way, but she insisted that there wasn't and that her time was running out. She had met Marcus through her uncle. The two men drove taxis for the same company. I don't know why I was angry when Ayanna told me that they were getting married. I certainly had no right to be. I was agnostic when it came to concepts such as calmer or fate, yet it did feel as if someone was playing a malicious joke on me when I learned that her intended groom was Marcus of all people. Ayanna and I remained friends until Marcus, portraying the jealous husband in a marriage of convenience, told her not to see me anymore. I've forgotten how much she paid him for the privilege of staying in our screwed up country. Yes, I know, USA, blah, blah, blah, spare me. After their marriage, she moved into the old house that Marcus shared with his father on Golden Gate Avenue in the Fillmore. I kept my distance after that, not wanting to jeopardize her dream of citizenship. She looked exhausted after she'd eaten ill, so I didn't press her or ask what she'd been up to the last couple of years. I figured she would tell me the next day after she had rested. I knew that she used to work in a coffee house in the Tenderloin, cashier, cook, barista. She did everything really except sign her own paycheck. The Syrian who owned the joint did that. I used to be a regular there. It was close to my job and Ayanna was good at hers. She could get the food out when you didn't have a lot of time on your break. She also made the best Turkish coffee I'd had since I taught English in Istanbul. I hate to use cliches, but one thing led to another, drinks, including that bar where I got my ass kicked, the movie's dinner. If I were to describe our relationship, I'd say that it was more than sex and less than love. Even so, she had met someone who agreed to marry her. The close relationship that we once shared was pretty much over after that. What got my goat was learning that she might have been sleeping with Marcus while she was still seeing me, rumors I know, but what the hell? I offered to sleep on the sofa, but Ayanna wouldn't have it. She was already asleep there by the time I retrieved a blanket from the closet. I slept fitfully when I went to bed, disturbed by a dream of a racehorse with rabies chasing me through a grassy field. I hated the jarring sound of the alarm clock. I was not a kid anymore and felt as if I was just going through the motions, work, sleep, a weekend that was too short, hashish, a little wine to ease the ennui that had taken over my life, then more work over and over, not that I didn't like my job. I worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Dealer, a non-profit newspaper in the Tenderloin. The dealer, like the people I wrote about, was barely getting by and rumored to be on its last leg if more funding didn't come through. The thought of losing my job frightened me. I had about enough money in my pension for an Army surplus tent under a bridge somewhere. Before I was a reporter, I had been a lab assistant at a hospital that went out of its way to make anyone who wasn't a doctor feel like an indentured surf. I worked 10 years there before deciding to attend junior college for a journalism certificate. It was not an associate's degree, but was enough to get my foot in the door at the paper where I now was employed. Ayanna was still asleep after I showered. I wrote a short note telling her where the coffee and tea were and that she was welcome to whatever was in the refrigerator. I didn't have the heart to wake her. As for the spare key, well, no. She could leave the apartment without the key or stay until I found out what had happened. I trusted her that far at any rate. I was off my game that morning, annoyed by the crowded bus and the passengers that leaned against me every time the driver tapped his brakes. It didn't help that my shoestring had become untied. The woman in front of me was so close that the only way to retire it would have meant bending down and jamming my nose into a razz. Someone's loud perfume left me feeling woozy and mildly nauseated. When I got off at my stop, I walked down Market Street to the old office building where the newspaper was. I phoned the apartment during my lunch break but no one answered. Where was she? Did she find another place to stay? That would have been the best scenario or perhaps she thought it was rude to answer my phone. I left a brief message on the answering machine telling her that I'd be home after six. We'd talk and find a quick resolution to her domestic situation that didn't involve her living with me for an extended period of time. Larry's books and records was on Eddie and Taylor two blocks from the newspaper. I walked there after work weaving my way past the addicts and drug dealers on the street. In fairness, most people who lived in the Tenderloin were decent and hardworking. A great many of them actively involved in their community. Rent was still relatively cheap there although that too was changing as it was in other parts of the city where poor and working class people lived. I had known Larry for most of my adult life and had been roommates with him once in a rundown apartment in the Mission District when I was in my 20s. I looked back on those years with great nostalgia even though we drank and smoked too much and should have taken better care of ourselves. Larry was playing some muddy waters on the old record player behind the counter when I entered the shop. The old wooden speakers in the room providing the kind of acoustics one rarely heard anymore. He was a short, retunned, bearded ex hippie who had seen his share of things including a stint in prison for selling acid at a grateful dead concert in the early 70s. He was wearing old overalls and a white T-shirt. His uniform pretty much since I'd known him. He had aged over the years. His long hair as white as the Coke we snorted a few times in our cheap apartment on the corner of DeBose in Valencia. We were too broke to make a habit of it and were when all was said and done we'd men even growing a couple of plants for our own stash before the electric bill caught us by surprise. The lighting was expensive. He smiled when he saw me reaching into a large box to appraise the merchandise. What's up Bill? Where you been? He asked inspecting the old book in his plump hands. Working like you. Like me, hell man, I'm just trying to survive. If I don't get more customers I might start going to Glide Memorial Church or St. Anthony's to eat. Is it that bad? I asked. Right now it is. But I'll be all right. He said, opening the book. I told him about how Yana's visit the previous night. Just showed up at your door, huh? He said, laughing. You used to be close. That was a long time ago. I guess, seems like she really needed a place to stay, he answered, writing the price. He thought the book was worth on the top right corner of the first page. Yeah, for a couple of days, I said. Well, can't you put her up for a while? For a while, you know, for old times. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, I said. What was I supposed to do? Kick her out on the street? No, that's not you. Wanna bet? Why don't you let her stay for a while? Rest. I mean, a woman doesn't just up and leave in the middle of the night for no reason, Larry said. I shrugged. Does she have kids now? He asked. I don't know. Man, when you cut someone off, you really cut them off, don't you? When they cheat on me, yes. I'll just read a little bit more of the second chapter and I'll end it right there, okay? The second chapter, by the way, is called Wolf Tickets. A tall, attractive woman with short wavy hair was sitting on the stairs outside my building. She had full lips and a dark chocolate complexion and appeared to be in her early 30s. I sensed trouble when I saw her. Are you Bill? Were you expecting someone, I asked? You're Bill, right? She asked sharply. I smiled like a dunce who didn't understand her question, cocking my head to the side. She stood up, a flicker of annoyance in her eyes. I didn't get your name, I said, extending my hand. She rejected the friendly gesture. Is Ayana here, she asked, without giving me her name? Is she your friend, I asked? My smile is frozen as the old kabuki mask hanging on the wall in my den. Stop the bullshit, she said, menacingly. Is Ayana up there? Who are you, I demanded. She crossed her arms like a parent facing an unruly child. Lady, I don't know you from Adam. That got her. You don't have to know me. Now, I'm gonna ask you again, is Ayana up there? She was selling me wolf tickets, but I'd be damned if I was gonna get into a fight with a woman. I wondered how fast the police would come if she did do something stupid. There was no doubt in my mind who would be arrested. I took a breath to call myself. Is Ayana expecting you, I said, trying to de-escalate the situation? And I didn't get your name. What does it matter to you? I'm gonna go upstairs. If Ayana wants to speak to you, no problem. You can stay outside, I replied. I walked past her into the building. Ayana wasn't home. There was a note on the dining room table next to the one that I had left for her that morning. The note's brevity was a mild rebuke to anyone sensitive enough to read between the lines. Thanks for your hospitality, Ayana. I walked back downstairs. The woman was standing impatiently outside. Sorry, I can't help you. She's not here, I said, disowning the whole affair. Is that what she told you to say? She asked angrily. No, she left, I said, holding my temper. I turned around and walked back into the building. When I reached the second landing, I heard the outside door open and the woman run upstairs. What the fuck I thought turning around? Wait, she shouted. I wanna see Ayana. Hey, I told you. She bull rushed me, like a sumo wrestler trying to toss a slower, less experienced opponent out of the ring. I braced myself, surprised by her power as she pushed toward the door. I'll be damned if you get into my apartment, I thought, grabbing her around the waist. We tumbled down eight stairs, her body bouncing off mine when she reached the bottom of the landing. Not good, I thought, not good at all. I staggered to my feet, but she was kneeling, her fist cocked. I instinctively backed up, her fist landing into my groin, but not with enough force to hurt me. I'm not proud of what I did next. I'd been conditioned since childhood to never hit a woman ever. Technically, I didn't. I kicked her instead as violently as I would any man who tried to sucker punch me in the family jewels. She parried the blow with her forearm, rose into a fighting stance, and hit me three hard times. Two devastating hooks to the liver and a right to my jaw. I dropped like a sack of potatoes and wanting no parts of her. Fuck it. I was on my knees, unable to move or defend myself. Stunned. She was standing over me like Olly overlisting, her fist raised, daring me to get up. You tell Ayana that I thought she was my friend, she said, tears in her eyes. I heard someone shouting from the top landing, threatening to call the police. It was Jeff, my next door neighbor. The woman marched past me and out the door. You get into a fight, Jeff asked incredulously. The two blows to my liver had rendered me speechless. As for calling the police, it didn't take much of an imagination to know how that would end. So you got into a fight with a woman, kicked her. I could already see them taking me down for more questioning. Jeff, help me to my feet. You all right? Yeah, I gasped. God damn, who was that, he asked. Man, I don't know, I said, catching my breath. But if she comes by again, leave her the hell alone. Now, end it right there, okay? And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Yes, Patrick. Patrick, by the way, is the owner. Sorry, Patrick, I have to say this is a great bookstore, The Green Arcade, which is right down Market Street. What's the cross? Is that golf? Golf. And golf, yeah. Yes. Thanks for the shout out. Heywood. Heywood. Wood. Heywood. Heywood. Heywood. Heywood. Yes. Are you working on a third one? I am. Yeah. Where is that? I'm about a third way through. I'll put it that way, so. And I don't know if I'll continue so the Bill Haywood mysteries, but it will at least be a trilogy. So anyone else? The character is someone who was raised. Yes. So Bill Haywood was raised in the Fillmore group. So you just wrote the underbelly. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of internalizing as a view because the distance between the narrator and the main character is almost very complicated. How did you make that foundation mental? Well, I grew up in Southeast DC, which is a black neighborhood, basically of transplanted Southerners. And in fact, my mother and father were from the Carolinas. And so I was raised in that environment. When I moved to San Francisco, I spent a lot of time in the Fillmore. I used to visit the Fillmore all the time, go to a popular jazz club that used to be there. I don't think it's no longer, that it's there any longer. And so I guess you could say that my vision of the Fillmore and Bill Haywood in it is sort of an amalgam of my experience in Southeast DC and then coming to San Francisco. So, yeah. Although the Fillmore used to be much more vibrant as a black community. And so Bill Haywood was sort of raised at the tail end of that. So that's kind of his perspective on his life in San Francisco and life in the Fillmore. He's seen changes. He's seen a lot of changes and he's not happy with all of them, but you know, tremendous, tremendous. Also in Washington DC as well, not just in San Francisco. I mean, just like San Francisco has been gentrified, so has Washington DC. So I definitely wanted to put that in the book. I thought that was really important, just how a city changes and how people react to those changes. It's very important to include that. Well, a lot of things. First of all, from DC, there's a huge contingent of Eritreans and Ethiopians who live there. In fact, people call DC the Little Addis Ababa. There's so many Ethiopians and Eritreans that live there. And when I came to San Francisco, I actually worked for an Eritrean. And the jazz club, Rosalis, that was the jazz club on Fillmore Street, was actually owned by an Eritrean, I believe. So I tried to interweave those two things into the book as well. And I did research. And Eritrea is a horrible place. Some people call it Africa's North Korea. So I mean, there's force consignment in the military, torture. You name it, the whole works. And people are fleeing in droves. You hear about Syria in Iraq and Afghanistan to a certain extent in Libya, but you rarely hear about the mass wave of Eritrean immigrants that are also fleeing their country as well. In fact, when I was in college, I went to, and I'm a college dropout, by the way. I went to Texas Southern University, which is a traditional black college in Houston, Texas. I first went there in 1976, the Bicentennial. And there were a lot of Persians, Iranians and Eritreans who were protesting on campus. So at that time, the Shah was still in power. And I learned about the brutal secret police Saabak at that time from the Persians who talked about it. They actually chased the CIA off campus one day. And the police had to intervene. And also the Eritreans were protesting because it was all Ethiopia at that point. And it had yet to become Eritrea. And so I learned a lot about them as well at that time. Texas Southern University at that time, I don't know now, had a huge foreign student body. It was a good place to be at that time if you wanted to learn about the world. Anything else? Yeah. This book seems to, but I mean, is it meant to stand? Both. But there are some things that are unavoidable. First of all, Bill Haywood, that character. I got that name from Big Bill Haywood, who was the great socialist labor organizer in the teens and 20s and 30s. He was over the Wobblies, which is the W-W-I, I believe, isn't that right, Patrick? He was a very interesting man in his own right. So that name really spoke to me as far as naming my character Bill Haywood. Big Bill, by the way, was arrested by President Woodrow Wilson. And when he was on bail, he fled to Russia and spent the last remaining years of his life there. So in fact, I think it was the Alien Sedition Act of 1917 that President Woodrow Wilson tried to get Big Bill Haywood under because he was trying to destroy the Union at that time. And he did a, he came close to doing that. Okay, thank you. Yeah.