I stand a bit hunched over behind my car—
A secondhand 2013 navy blue Tesla Model S
In an empty parking lot
Between two nondescript warehouses
Somewhere in the Port of Oakland
I’ve managed to tuck myself mostly under the open tailgate
To stay out of what has recently become a steady rain
It’s pretty late, cold, and dark af—
The only light provided by two nearly-extinct streetlamps
And a single incandescent bulb
Hanging haphazardly from a corrugated tin roof on a thick wire
That bulb I assume marks the entrance
To some sort of marina
But marina is way too fancy of a word
Maybe it’s just one dock
Anyhow I can see part of it behind a chain link fence
Topped with concertina wire
To keep the riff-raff off the rickety and birdshit-splattered pier—
I suppose
A shiver runs through my neck and spine but I quickly shake it off
Is that from the rain?
Or that my car’s 60KwH battery has only twelve miles of range left?
Or is it the creepy and decrepit parking lot?
It’s the first time I’ve ever been to this dreadful place—
And hopefully it’ll be the last
I don’t care for it at all
And I had a hell of a time finding it, too
But there is a reason:
See I’ve come here
After fourteen months
To get my wetsuit back
Because I let my friend Giulia borrow it
Friend is perhaps not the right word
I mean I thought she was my friend
At least I did—
Back when I loaned her the wetsuit
Somewhere in the bible
It says that after lending something
You should never ask for it back
I don’t know where in the bible—
And I don’t care
Because I’m not following the advice anyway
And the guys who wrote it?
They didn’t know Giulia
I mean she has some of the ingredients
When mixed together make for a pretty cool chick
She’s vivacious, always the life of the party, center of attention, you know the type
Tallish and fit, she works out, and rock climbs, and dances, though not well
She’s a long-time burner, one of the extremist freaks who spends ten weeks in the desert—
Instead of just one like the normal freaks
She’s got a few tattoos
And more than a few piercings—
But not too many to bring home to mama
Plus she rides motorcycles, shoots guns, kite surfs, wind surfs, paddles SUPs, and sails
I mean how cool is all that?
To seal the deal she even lives on a goddamn sailboat
Which at least partly explains why—
Instead of going dancing with my lovely new girlfriend
I’m stuck waiting in this dark and desolate parking lot
The rain drops wicking off my thick vintage wool slacks and argile sweater vest—
A dance-ready outfit
Did I mention we’re going dancing?
That’s still the plan at least
As my new girlfriend—
Also dressed to dance
Sits patiently in the passenger seat
I poke my head into the car
And turn on the exterior lights
So Giulia can find us better
I also shut off the climate control—
To conserve battery
Where the hell is she?
My new girlfriend asks
But after a few seconds of silence
The question becomes rhetorical
In fact I’m still not even sure this is the correct dark and desolate parking lot
I’d been trying find Giulia for weeks and weeks
So many missed opportunities—
To coordinate the return of this wetsuit
And now my new girlfriend and I are heading to San Diego—
The very next day
And I want my girlfriend to have a wetsuit
It’s a women’s wetsuit—
And not even technically mine in the first place
But that’s another story
For another day
Right now I’m getting more and more impatient
Fifteen minutes of standing in the rain
And doing an admirable job looking for Giulia
While wondering:
Was she even bothering to look for us at all?
Now I first met Giulia a few years earlier
Downstairs
At a very average hotel bar called Elephant & Castle—
Apropos of neither elephants nor castles
A local deejay hosted a regular Friday night dance party
It only lasted for a few months
The sound was shitty
The floor was sticky
The attendance wasn’t very good
But I went anyway, to almost every single one
It was just a few blocks from my office
I wanted to support the deejay
And anything was better than being with my dreadful wife
That relationship was just one long argument—
About a million different things
And none of them mattered
Anyhow I met Giulia downstairs at Elephant & Castle
When I walked over to her—
And asked her to dance
Now at most places in the world
Most of the time
This would indicate that I was hitting on her
But this was a swing dance
Which means I was definitely hitting on her—
But first I needed to dance with her at least once
I mean I wasn’t going to waste my time on shit dancers
Like I already said Giulia was a shit dancer
And I got to experience that for myself—
Like trying to wrestle a angry kangaroo
So yeah her dancing sucked
But her personality was way worse
After the dance—
By then I’d had way more than enough of Giulia
But she wanted to keep talking
And she got really irritated about my inability to pronounce her name:
Giulia
You mean Julia?
No! Gee-EWW-lee-ah
Like I said:
Julia
In spite of our rocky start
Giulia and I sort of became friends
By that I mean I kept seeing her at dances—
And we didn’t actively try to avoid one another
I realize that’s a pretty low bar
But then being friends with Giulia suddenly became super important
Especially after I finally left my wife—
Long overdue
And got engaged to Giulia’s best friend
What are the odds?
One night my fiancée suggested we have Giulia over for a dinner party
(I love dinner parties!)
So I whipped up a fantastic meal for the three of us
And my fiancée, her best friend Giulia, and I—
We feasted together
While watching the sunset over Mt. Tam
Everything was lovely at first
I tried so hard to be nice to Giulia
But she’d turn every conversation into a competition
Like I’d tell a story about surfing—
And then she would tell a story about how kite surfing was better
It was annoying—
In a disturbingly puerile way
So anyway this pointless debate about board sports
Led to a conversation about Giulia’s dire need for a new wetsuit
Conveniently I had a perfect-fitting women’s wetsuit to spare—
Imagine that!
And in spite of my generosity—
Which she graciously accepted
Giulia continued to be a total dick to me the entire night
Like suddenly she had to choose between me and my fiancée—
And acting like she’d already made up her mind
One way to know when to break up with someone:
When their friends start being assholes to you
You know, all the friends you’ve been tripping over yourself to be nice to?
When they turn on you for no reason—
And start being dicks
That’s how you know!
Of course I wasn’t privy to this helpful information—
Not at the time
So after an incredible multi-course meal
And two bottles of overpriced wine
Giulia spent the night in our guest bed
I assumed because she didn’t want to drive home drunk—
But it turns out this wasn’t the reason
Or at least not the only reason
Because when I got home from work the next day—
Half my apartment was gone
Poof!
Just fucking gone
Half the furniture
Half the artwork
Half the clothing
Giulia had hoofed it up and down two flights
Of Mill Valley’s most terrifying stairs
And without anyone noticing
She had moved my fiancée—
And all her shit
Right the fucking fuck out of our apartment
Which I guess now was just my apartment
With no warning—
Giulia didn’t even have the decency
To leave the wetsuit
I had so graciously loaned her
A mere 24 hours prior when I was trying so hard to be nice to her—
Which was a mistake
To compound that mistake
I also ended up spending many months
Wasting my time
Trying to figure out
How an engagement so good
Turned to absolute shit—
Without my knowledge!
Eventually I came to the conclusion
That I was never going to get my fiancée back—
But still
I didn’t give up on the wetsuit
And that is why I’m still standing
In this cold, dark, and deserted parking lot
By now it’s been almost thirty minutes
And after two dozen confusing text messages
Wiping drops of frigid rain off my phone to see them
Finally I notice a crack of light
As the door under the exposed bulb opens
And out comes what appears to be Giulia
Carrying the wetsuit!
She kinda tries to make small talk
I try even less
She hands me the wetsuit
The moment is over before it even begins
Unfortunately the story isn’t—
Because all this remembering
Takes its toll on me
And now I’m pretty sad and frustrated
I really need to dance this terrible encounter off of me
Also my new girlfriend
I’m feeling bad about dragging her into any of this
But if we hustle—
We can still catch the last hour of the show
Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums featuring Miss Carmen Getit
(I’ll never understand why swing band names have to be so long)
We arrive at Le Colonial
The rain subsided as we drove west over the sparkly new Bay Bridge
But it’s still damp and very cold
We have four miles of range left on the Model S—
Twice as much as we need to get to the supercharger in The Presidio
As I park
The car loudly displays several different warnings about temperature and battery performance—
Scary sounding warnings
But all I care about right now is dancing
My new girlfriend and I leave the wetsuit in the car
The all-electric car with four miles left on it
And jog up the stairs
Traveling back in time to French Colonial Vietnam
(Yes I know it’s weird but that’s their shtick)
The band lights up when we arrive
The smiles
The looks
The winks
Even sometimes calling us out by name—
All part of the magic of being a lindy hopper in San Francisco
So we dance most of the last set
And have a wonderful time—
We almost always do
And the whole affair lasted no more than 40 minutes, tops
But when we get back to the car we discover
To our dismay
That four miles had turned into just one
And as I inch out of the parking spot
One turns into zero
The car jolts to a stop
And all the angry warnings shake their heads at me in disbelief—
As the touchscreen display fades to black
We tried to tell you, dude
So now here I am
Me and my new girlfriend—
Who had politely warned me about the warnings, too
Stuck in yet another dark, cold, wet parking lot
With a 5,000-pound paperweight
And a fucking wetsuit
I bet Giulia peed in it, too
Anyhow some time later
A tow truck arrives
Featuring a four-foot-tall bright orange LED-illuminated crucifix on the grill
Driven by Jesus—
(That was really his name!)
(Nice guy, too)
On my recommendation Jesus tows us to a destination charger in The Presidio
But by the time we get there the poor dead car is so fucking lifeless—
Not even enough power to unlock the charge port
Can’t give the patient fluids if you can’t get the needle in—
Not even with Jesus by your side
So then we get towed to the Lucas Arts garage supercharger
But the rent-a-cop on duty won’t let the tow-truck in
Not in The Presidio—
Or Nazareth I guess
So the garage’s rule against tow trucks makes me wonder:
How do they manage to tow cars out of that garage—
But I put that thought aside
Choosing instead to grind my gears on problems like:
My suddenly deceased car
(In the end it’s always sudden)
People who suddenly pack up and move out without warning
Evil bitches like Giulia who help them
People who ignore all the warnings
And this wetsuit—
This stupid fucking wetsuit
For our third attempt to resurrect the deceased car
We ask Jesus for a tow to the Corte Madera supercharger
As we huddle three-wide in the cab of the tow truck
I’m pressed up against my new girlfriend
Jesus to my left—
Eyes on the road and two hands on the wheel
Crossing the Golden Gate bridge
The night now clear but still bitterly cold
My new girlfriend
A saint herself for her equanimity—
At a time like this
She mercifully hands me a stray vape pen from her bag
Thankfully it has power!
Believe it or not a Tesla battery—
As high tech as it may seem
Is merely thousands of vape pen batteries—
All squished together
And this is the first time I’ve managed to deplete all of them—
But not the one in my hand!
It has a strain of indica in it called Wedding Cake
There’s just a tiny bit left
A deeply relaxing high
But a fraught name—
At least for me
Perhaps also for many
Anyhow my girlfriend and I each take long drags off the weed pen
Cracking the window to let the vapor escape
It’s probably illegal—
But Jesus was alright with it
You know, two lindy hoppers—
Still damp from dancing
Wasting an evening chasing a wetsuit
Vaping top-shelf marijuana
While having their dead Tesla towed into Marin County
Across The Golden Gate Bridge—
By Jesus
This is some peak Bay Area shit
Now for what the evening’s shenanigans end up costing me
I could have bought six or seven wetsuits
Plus a new one for me
One for fucking Giulia
One for my new girlfriend
And mini wetsuits for our two imaginary kids
In three sizes each—
You know, because kids grow
(Even imaginary ones!)
So I learned my lessons—
And they ended up being rather biblical:
Never lend something if you ever want to see again
And never ever ask for it back!
Never try to get someone to stay if they want to leave
And never ignore the warning signs—
Not just the ones from the car
And if like me you’re a giver
Avoid endless takers like Giulia
I know it’s hard to resist an adventure girl:
She rides dirt bikes
Shoots guns
Climbs mountains
And lives on a sailboat
But do you know who else lives on sailboats?
Pirates