In the Hub just prior to this one (Survival In San Diego County, Part One), I describe my first afternoon through the first night in the city that would become my home for the next four years. That first night was spent curled up in a 1970 Ford Maverick from Rent A Wreck. Come the dawn, I was happy to be alive with wheels and cash in my pocket. A leisurely breakfast at Denny's, and look out Big Town, here I come!

Not that I had the slightest idea what to do or where to go, really. I was beginning to understand the main highway grid that got a driver from here to there, but I did not have a clue where either "here" or "there" might actually be. The next two days, including one more night parked in the ditchbank brush along the city's north edge, was enough to bring me once again to the end of my well traveled and somewhat raveled rope.

Bluntly put, before getting to sleep that second night, I lost it, crying loudly to my spiritual guide, "I've got to succeed. I've GOT to! For my wife's sake!"

Not for myself. Oh, for myself a bit. But by far my deepest fear was that I might disappoint my lady. Sure, blubbering like that was more than a little wussy. I've gotten tougher over the years...I think. On the other hand, I'm not completely certain I've faced an unsmiling fortress wall like the one looming over me that early December evening in 1985 in San Diego since then, so maybe I'm fooling myself.

What say I don't have to find out, eh?

Be that as it may, as darkness fell on my third day in the area, I had gotten exactly nowhere. I hadn't even managed to so much as line up one interview in my strongest field of city expertise, which was that of commercial insurance underwriting. Job Service was no help for a homeless dude with no local address and no prospect of getting one. The newspapers were useless.

AGH-H-H!

It was about 8:30 p..m. As it happened, I was once again rolling up 163 from the downtown area--a check of the F Street flophouses had shown them to be no more attractive and no less dangerous than the first time I looked, but I did have to look. My not-really-remote parking spot did not feel safe to use for a third night in a row, partly on the theory that a sitting duck is sooner or later a dead duck.

To add to my trouble stew, my week's rental of the Maverick would run out shortly, and I could not afford to pay another week on it. Finally, to add injury to insult, the gas gauge rather firmly announced that either it got some fuel soon or the entire machine was going on strike. Right then I noticed a Standard station was all lit up at the next exit.

With a sigh, I wheeled on in, parked, and went in to prepay. In a major city, you don't pump first. I still hate that. But you do what you gotta do, so I was standing in line at the counter, listening to the young Hispanic man in front of me complaining about his car breaking down. Then he was suddenly complaining about something else entirely. The manager was paying close attention.

So was I.

At my first opportunity, I began chatting up the man with the busted car. A few carefully chosen sentences and sympathetic noises later, I got to the point: He'd had a roommate leave without paying his share of the rent? (Yes.) Without someone in that spot, money was extra short? (Yes.) That roomie had been renting his front room couch? (Yes.)

Well, then...Would he consider renting that couch to ME on a short term basis?

Money talks. We had soon settled on terms: Forty bucks, cash, up front, and the couch was mine for a week. My new landlord rode to his own two-bedroom apartment in my Rent A Wreck, explaining that he personally used the main bedroom while another (long term) renter occupied the other. He showed me where to park the car, I dropped my bags next to my new home-for-a-week, and he handed me a key.

Then he headed for his own bedroom. It was getting on in the evening, and he had to work the next day. Twenty minutes later, the other renter walked in. He was Caucasian, about my size, 28 years old (I was 42). We hit it off and talked for hours. It turned out I was now a (very temporary) resident of Hillcrest, a largely gay neighborhood...and that my new roomie was, in fact, gay as well.

Twenty years earlier, as a rabid gay-hater, I would have freaked big time. But a cowboy friend of mine, back then, had once pointed out that if I had so much against gays, it probably meant I was afraid that deep inside, I might actually be gay my own cowboy self. This was in Montana, mind you, but long before Brokeback Mountain. I thought it through for six months, decided that no, I really didn't think I was gay, but somehow my prejudice had mysteriously dissipated. Gone. Poof. So to speak.

I shared that story with my newfound friend. He laughed. His most remarkable story involved street lights: He could be strolling down the sidewalk, sucking energy out of the lights like some sort of "energy vampire", watching them go dark as he passed them, one by one. Not all the time, but often enough.

The next morning, having waited until both men left before I took a shower, I was still nervous. I fully trusted neither of them, and the challenge was to make sure my billfold and return airline ticket remained safe as well as dry while I sluiced off the grime and stess sweat accumulated during four days of fearing the unknown.

By ten a.m., I'd gotten a moderate refund for turning the rental car in early, acquired a 30-day bus pass that covered all of San Diego County for $45, snagged a bite to eat, and even pondered the blindness of some members of my church. Having stopped by the only branch of our faith organized enough to have an actual building in San Diego, I had told a few senior members a little about my predicament.

Some of these people knew my name. I'd been a high profile member for nearly twelve years, having had my first full length novel published by the organization just three years earlier. I'd performed onstage at one national and numerous regional church seminars. These folks knew who I was.

Their response to my plea for help? "God will provide."

Paraphrased, that meant, "We are not about to get mixed up in your trouble, Buster!" I saw this as a sign that San Diego's branch of the church needed help more than I did. Still, I simply shook my head and left...until the weekend rolled around again. By that time, I was getting to know San Diego's layout pretty well...but...that was about it.

No, I had not just curled up in a corner and whimpered. Bussing all over the county, conserving every penny, I'd tackled numerous employment openings to find that they were really closings. In my face. Git from heah! Every time.

My week in Hillcrest was coming to an end. Though I'd never felt deeply in danger, it felt like putting the last of my coin out to stay there another week could be...fatal. Certainly financially fatal, if nothing else. I went to church that morning, hoping against hope for a miracle.

And a miracle manifested. That day, a married couple I really knew showed up for services. We had met when all three of us were living in Oregon, getting together at state level meetings, and the husband--when he heard of my plight--offered me a better couch. At their house. In upscale La Jolla. I'm not saying I jumped at the offer, but--okay, I jumped. Like a kangaroo-frog hybrid with a rocket launcher under its lily pad, I jumped.

My second or third day as a happy house guest, I was offered the use of the husband's silver gray Mazda RX-7. Wow. From hanging around bus stops and sucking diesel exhaust to running a sports car through the gears...wow. This family did own two RX-7 Wonder Machines at the time, and I'd never even been behind the wheel of one despite "always wanting to"...wow.

The reality exceeded expectation.

Driving from potential employer to potential employer that day, I chose routes that would let me stretch the marvelous Mazda out a little. Just a little. Nothing abusive. With a lifetime of respect for good machines under my belt plus extreme gratitude for my host's generosity, the last thing I'd ever have done would be to hurt his baby. I felt free, though, very much on top of the world.

Until the end of the day. I'd still accomplished nothing, and my hostess had been edgier than my host from Day One. I truly understood. From her viewpoint, I must have appeared more casual acquaintance than trusted friend, and days of getting nowhere can lead to years of getting nowhere for a whole lot of guys out there. She was (and is to this day) a stunningly beautiful woman, and any lady who looks like that is wise to wonder if any man other than her husband can be fully trusted.

She said nothing, but her increasing uneasiness had amplified to the point of rolling from her in waves. She might as well have shouted, "Get out, you lowlife intruder! You deadbeat! I didn't want you here in the first place, and if I didn't love my husband so much I'd--just GET OUT!"

Or words to that effect. That very evening, when I called my fourth wife in Portland, Oregon, I laid it on the line. Our marriage only lasted for one year, but that does not mean there was no love between us. Once she had the full picture, she said the most precious words of our entire time together, start to finish:

"Get on a plane and come on back. We'll move down together and take San Diego by storm."

Which we did. But that is for another Hub...or two...or more.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32