The Taxi Service: and the Obscure partner
The Taxi Service -
And the Obscure Partner
Wittings of
Dennis L. Siluk
March 2002
I want to tell you a story about my friend. It is not a pleasant one. And now that he has passed away it can no longer get him in trouble. His captors, or should I say, employer, well, like it or not, they can come up with their own story after they read this, or if they don’t and not a word is said, so be it. It’s been years since he has gone. But I have learned in my life, even if nothing is done about something, I must say something. It is the only way I can rest. Put a closure on it.
I met him in the l960’s while living in San Francisco. I was quite young back then. The year was l968. I was 22-years old. He was 27. His name was Rob. We met in a gay bar. Oh, I wasn’t gay; don’t go thinking what you’re thinking. He was. That is he was bisexual. And I didn’t know it was a gay bar when I walk through the door, or I suppose, I would have not walked through. Matter-of-fact, when my mother came down to visit me in San Francisco from St. Paul, Minnesota, I took her to one of the bars Rob hung out at, and I to, I call it the “Friendly Bar,“ in lack of not remembering its real name. But that is not where I met Rob. In any case, I introduced my mother to everyone in the Friendly Bar. That is how friendly the bar was. I really liked the people. I liked going in there also because they would have soup, and sandwiches, free, unbelievable. And a couple I knew, who were bisexual, which I didn’t know for the first six months out of the nine months I lived there in San Francisco, told me right after I introduced my mother, every time I came into the bar they [the patrons] all portrayed themselves as being straight, for my benefit. But the couple wanted me to know this, not sure why.
I continued to go to the bar a little less each week. Until I did not anymore go anymore I guess it just was hard on me to adjust: --although I got letters for a number of years thereafter from that couple. But the real story is Rob. He became my friend. He was the man who painted the pictures that hung on the bar walls all around the bar. They were beautiful; scenes of Alaskan waters, its wilderness, its beauty. He learned how to draw while in a hospital there--he once told me--, after a trying accident with a bear. He almost died.
Well, I had met him as I told you one night while I was finishing up some of my karate studies down in the Castro area of San Francisco. He was at this other bar, not the Friendly one. And when I sat down he offered to buy me a drink. “Oh well,” I said, “sure“. He bought me quite a few that nights. He asked me if I wanted to make love, and I said he was out of his head.
As I stood up, about to leave, he stopped me by letting me know he was bisexual. But I didn’t quite understand what that meant. Being from St. Paul, Minnesota, which was not the most informative capitol of the world.
Well, he was honest, and so I did stay a while longer, but I told him I’d buy my own drinks. He wouldn’t allow me to buy one for him, but that was the end of his buying mine. I added if he dare touch me I’d kill him, figuratively speaking, what I meant was he’d wish he were dead.
We talked to the wee hours of the night. He explained to me he loved a woman from Central America, and yet wanted to go out with an old friend, one he never had a sexual relationship with and who was merely a close and good friend, like I was becoming. They had a friendship going on several years he mentioned.
As he was telling me these things, I thought, now were into girls, a little while ago it was I, or guys. I guess that was being bisexual. You really didn’t know what you wanted, or whom. For those reading this, I could be really wrong on my prognosis, but it was as I seen it at the time.
I asked, “And so Rob you want me to give you advice on this.”
“Oh, yes, please if you can,” he commented.
I was being funny I thought. I new he wanted me to say something, but I was trying to get out of answering. Now he made me feel like a counselor. Who was I to give him advice? I didn’t care really one way or the other. It was his business. I didn’t like answering questions, or answering them.
“Well,” he commented again, “Are you going to give me your opinion, or just set there like a bump on a log, “said Rob almost a sad voice.
I looked at him, shook my head, and said, “If I must.” He laughed, and said, “I new you would, my dear friend.” I told him not to act that way to me, you know, that coming on way. I think he blushed I thought god help me.
“Well, Rob, I’m not sure how to answer your question, and I’m not sure what the question is; but let me tell you how I see things, for better or worse.”
“Oh, please do my new friend,” he said.
“From what you are telling me, you love this woman, like to play with guys, and have another woman who is a friend and you want to see if you can make it with her; maybe because you plan on getting married and you want to have said you made it with her, or maybe because you may not get married if you find you really love the other, and still maybe she will let you maintain your sexual preference, with guys, and the one from Central America will not. Is that what I hear you saying, Rob.”
“Ho, ooo, you should be a counselor, my friend, you are good. Yes, yes, something likes that. Matter-of- fact, you are real close to the truth. But I would not marry the friend; I think it is a one-time adventure. But I wouldn’t feel right to do it married. You understand.”
I nodded my head as to indicate I did understand, but really I didn’t.
“And so my friend, Lee [he called me by my middle name for some odd reason], go on and let me know your insight.”
“Well, you don’t have any real obligations to anyone, but once you make it with your friend, you will have. And that is to the Central American woman. You will have to let her know, or be haunted with the secret. And a secret either must me justified to live with, or put out, like a fire so the emotional part of it does not burn your insides.”
“Forget about the justifying and the burning, Lee, get to the part ‘I should or I shouldn’t’”.
I said with a sigh, “I just don’t see it as you do, so simple, I guess if I seen it like you, I‘d say, hell, where is she, and lets see what works. If the evening flows like water, we’ll get it on, if not, and there are some rocks in-between, why push it, stop and go back to the lady from Central America [at that time I didn’t even know where Central America was], and call it quits. If you do make it ask what you both want out of it, and deal with it from that perspective. But I wouldn’t burn any bridges yet.”
“You truly are a good friend,” replied Rob. And we both left that evening about 3:00 A.M.
A Week Later
It was about a week later when I met Rob again. This time it was at the happy bar, or should I say, the ‘Friendly Bar‘. We ate sandwiches together, had a bowl of soup, and washed it all down with a few beers.
“Well,” he said to me with a big smile, “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”
The first thing that went through my mind when he said that was, “He did it. He nailed that lady, oh boy, now what.” He was staring in my eyes with a smile from ear to ear.
“You got it my dear friend,” he said. “Oh, you are a counselor, you see right through me.”
How wrong can a person be? I saw what everyone else would see, if they knew. How obvious can a person be? I smiled; I didn’t want to bust his bubble.
“So Rob, are you going to share this secret information or not.” I asked.
“Yes, I am, and I need to know if I should go back for seconds. And I want some advise on the Taxi service I used,” he said with a kind of mysterious unknowing voice.
“Well Lee she invited me over to her house, on the pretense, I wanted to talk about us, and my girlfriend. When I got to her house we talked for a few hours. She was really looking good and I went to the second level of my plan, but it seemed she already knew it. I told her I wanted to kiss her and she let me. Then I asked her to lay down with me on her bed, and she did. And I started to play with her breasts, and thighs. And we played for awhile, then I took off her top, and she seemed to be unsure, and when I almost stopped, she let out a sigh, and I continued, and it came off. I played with her breasts then, and took her pants off slowly. She really didn’t put up much resistance. I wondered why.”
He looked at me for the answer. “Maybe Rob, she was testing you, as you were your own desires.”
I told him women seem to do that. As if I really knew at 22. But it sounded good.
“Yes, Lee, maybe, just maybe. Anyways, I wanted to go farther, but was really scared to. She sensed it I think. And then she opened her legs wide, very wide as I put myself into her. I guess the wider she spread her legs, the more excited I got. I never encountered that before. And we made love for hours. Oh I think two hours anyways. And she never said a word. After we were done, she smiled at me, I got up, told her I had to go home. She said, she understood.”
“And now Rob, you want to know if you should go back for seconds. Like it was a dinner,” I commented.
“How else can I say it,” replied Rob.
“My recommendation is, leave it as it is, you liked it too much, and she likes you too much and something tells me it just will not work for either one of you. You once were friends, and now your lovers.”
“Why can’t friends be lovers,” was Rob’s counter to me.
“Now your being defensive,
I’m not the smartest guy in town, but let me put it this way. The only thing different between a friend and a wife is sex. Once you add sex into the equation, that is, with a friend, you have two wives. And that is war”
“See, I told you Lee,” said Rob with a glowing smile now, “You are a counselor. I like this concept of two wives.” He didn’t get the message I told myself.
“Rob, let me explain my thoughts clearer, I mean, women don’t forget. I know I got a scare on my forehead because of just that. I was dating a woman and left her to go to Omaha, and didn’t tell her. When I returned she invited me up to her apartment, in the hallway door she kissed me tore her blouse off and screamed rape. When I slammed the door on her to get away, and walked down stairs, a man hit me with a pipe, it was a duplex, and he was from the bottom apartment. I suppose thinking he was saving the woman. Well, I left well enough alone because she could say whatever she wanted. The man’s wife came out crying and asking what was going on. I told her, and she looked dumb about everything. And I just wanted to get out of there. And so what I am saying is, be careful, what may seem to be apple pie could be bees in it.”
He smiles again at me with that little boy grin, and said, “You answered my question, and I will try again.” I thought, now he’s feeding it back to me. There will be a price to pay, there always is.
The Taxi Service
Well, we talked again the night away. And Rob didn’t go back for a month or so, and then one night he did. And after he had made love with his friend the second time, he got into the Taxi service vehicle. But it didn’t take him home, it took him to an obscure place called Hanna’s, down around Mission Street. There is where you would find, and yes, I know, prostitutes. He was taken up to the 6th floor of a building, and tied to a bed. He was left there for three days, without water, conversation, or food. He was tied to a bed that the window looked out into the sky. No higher buildings to look at across and no trees to escape to, only sky.
During this time, his Central American girlfriend came to the Friendly Bar, and asked me if he had seen me. Rob had evidently talked to her about me. I said yes, but I didn’t know where he went. She asked me if he had another woman. I couldn’t look her in the eyes on that question; I tried to avoid her stare. But I think her new.
His woman friend never came around to ask anything. I was never sure if she betrayed him or not, but I would put money on it that she did.
When the third day passed, his captures put a tattoo on him, right above his groin area. It read
‘Property of the Prostitute Profession,’ the Taxi service as I call it, became the owners of Rob, as they had with stealing babies, and sending them to Texas for sale, or so Rob told me. You didn’t cross this organization, he commented, not without realizing you were a dead person, if you didn’t go far enough and change your identity. And if you didn’t have the money, you couldn’t go far. And so Rob stayed there. Like in an open prison that had invisible walls.
We met twice thereafter. He had told me he was still on that 6th floor, but now doing tricks; that is, making it with whomever they sent to him. And if he didn’t please the buyer, they would do what they had done to him the first time he had entered that third floor attic of sorts.
He looked bad, sores on his mouth, eyes as if they were pink. He had a few tears he was trying to hold back. He was dying.
Once just before I went back home to Minnesota, I told him I was drafted and was most likely on my way to Vietnam. I was right; I did end up in Vietnam, about 17-months later last conversation with Rob.
I kept getting letter from my two married friends from the Friendly Bar. They talked about Rob a little, never knowing quite what happened to him, only that he came around, now and then and stayed only for an hour or so, and was very nervous. He never was seen with either the woman from Central America or his woman friend.
In l973, I received a last letter from my friends, the married couple, saying Rob had died. He was 32-years old. They say he died of some kind of neurological disease. I can’t even remember the name now. And that was it. No more, no less. All for the love of what I told myself, adding to my many thoughts, what a price to pay. And so I to Vietnam, never returned to San Francisco.
Copyright, 2002 Wc/2801
And the Obscure Partner
Wittings of
Dennis L. Siluk
March 2002
I want to tell you a story about my friend. It is not a pleasant one. And now that he has passed away it can no longer get him in trouble. His captors, or should I say, employer, well, like it or not, they can come up with their own story after they read this, or if they don’t and not a word is said, so be it. It’s been years since he has gone. But I have learned in my life, even if nothing is done about something, I must say something. It is the only way I can rest. Put a closure on it.
I met him in the l960’s while living in San Francisco. I was quite young back then. The year was l968. I was 22-years old. He was 27. His name was Rob. We met in a gay bar. Oh, I wasn’t gay; don’t go thinking what you’re thinking. He was. That is he was bisexual. And I didn’t know it was a gay bar when I walk through the door, or I suppose, I would have not walked through. Matter-of-fact, when my mother came down to visit me in San Francisco from St. Paul, Minnesota, I took her to one of the bars Rob hung out at, and I to, I call it the “Friendly Bar,“ in lack of not remembering its real name. But that is not where I met Rob. In any case, I introduced my mother to everyone in the Friendly Bar. That is how friendly the bar was. I really liked the people. I liked going in there also because they would have soup, and sandwiches, free, unbelievable. And a couple I knew, who were bisexual, which I didn’t know for the first six months out of the nine months I lived there in San Francisco, told me right after I introduced my mother, every time I came into the bar they [the patrons] all portrayed themselves as being straight, for my benefit. But the couple wanted me to know this, not sure why.
I continued to go to the bar a little less each week. Until I did not anymore go anymore I guess it just was hard on me to adjust: --although I got letters for a number of years thereafter from that couple. But the real story is Rob. He became my friend. He was the man who painted the pictures that hung on the bar walls all around the bar. They were beautiful; scenes of Alaskan waters, its wilderness, its beauty. He learned how to draw while in a hospital there--he once told me--, after a trying accident with a bear. He almost died.
Well, I had met him as I told you one night while I was finishing up some of my karate studies down in the Castro area of San Francisco. He was at this other bar, not the Friendly one. And when I sat down he offered to buy me a drink. “Oh well,” I said, “sure“. He bought me quite a few that nights. He asked me if I wanted to make love, and I said he was out of his head.
As I stood up, about to leave, he stopped me by letting me know he was bisexual. But I didn’t quite understand what that meant. Being from St. Paul, Minnesota, which was not the most informative capitol of the world.
Well, he was honest, and so I did stay a while longer, but I told him I’d buy my own drinks. He wouldn’t allow me to buy one for him, but that was the end of his buying mine. I added if he dare touch me I’d kill him, figuratively speaking, what I meant was he’d wish he were dead.
We talked to the wee hours of the night. He explained to me he loved a woman from Central America, and yet wanted to go out with an old friend, one he never had a sexual relationship with and who was merely a close and good friend, like I was becoming. They had a friendship going on several years he mentioned.
As he was telling me these things, I thought, now were into girls, a little while ago it was I, or guys. I guess that was being bisexual. You really didn’t know what you wanted, or whom. For those reading this, I could be really wrong on my prognosis, but it was as I seen it at the time.
I asked, “And so Rob you want me to give you advice on this.”
“Oh, yes, please if you can,” he commented.
I was being funny I thought. I new he wanted me to say something, but I was trying to get out of answering. Now he made me feel like a counselor. Who was I to give him advice? I didn’t care really one way or the other. It was his business. I didn’t like answering questions, or answering them.
“Well,” he commented again, “Are you going to give me your opinion, or just set there like a bump on a log, “said Rob almost a sad voice.
I looked at him, shook my head, and said, “If I must.” He laughed, and said, “I new you would, my dear friend.” I told him not to act that way to me, you know, that coming on way. I think he blushed I thought god help me.
“Well, Rob, I’m not sure how to answer your question, and I’m not sure what the question is; but let me tell you how I see things, for better or worse.”
“Oh, please do my new friend,” he said.
“From what you are telling me, you love this woman, like to play with guys, and have another woman who is a friend and you want to see if you can make it with her; maybe because you plan on getting married and you want to have said you made it with her, or maybe because you may not get married if you find you really love the other, and still maybe she will let you maintain your sexual preference, with guys, and the one from Central America will not. Is that what I hear you saying, Rob.”
“Ho, ooo, you should be a counselor, my friend, you are good. Yes, yes, something likes that. Matter-of- fact, you are real close to the truth. But I would not marry the friend; I think it is a one-time adventure. But I wouldn’t feel right to do it married. You understand.”
I nodded my head as to indicate I did understand, but really I didn’t.
“And so my friend, Lee [he called me by my middle name for some odd reason], go on and let me know your insight.”
“Well, you don’t have any real obligations to anyone, but once you make it with your friend, you will have. And that is to the Central American woman. You will have to let her know, or be haunted with the secret. And a secret either must me justified to live with, or put out, like a fire so the emotional part of it does not burn your insides.”
“Forget about the justifying and the burning, Lee, get to the part ‘I should or I shouldn’t’”.
I said with a sigh, “I just don’t see it as you do, so simple, I guess if I seen it like you, I‘d say, hell, where is she, and lets see what works. If the evening flows like water, we’ll get it on, if not, and there are some rocks in-between, why push it, stop and go back to the lady from Central America [at that time I didn’t even know where Central America was], and call it quits. If you do make it ask what you both want out of it, and deal with it from that perspective. But I wouldn’t burn any bridges yet.”
“You truly are a good friend,” replied Rob. And we both left that evening about 3:00 A.M.
A Week Later
It was about a week later when I met Rob again. This time it was at the happy bar, or should I say, the ‘Friendly Bar‘. We ate sandwiches together, had a bowl of soup, and washed it all down with a few beers.
“Well,” he said to me with a big smile, “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”
The first thing that went through my mind when he said that was, “He did it. He nailed that lady, oh boy, now what.” He was staring in my eyes with a smile from ear to ear.
“You got it my dear friend,” he said. “Oh, you are a counselor, you see right through me.”
How wrong can a person be? I saw what everyone else would see, if they knew. How obvious can a person be? I smiled; I didn’t want to bust his bubble.
“So Rob, are you going to share this secret information or not.” I asked.
“Yes, I am, and I need to know if I should go back for seconds. And I want some advise on the Taxi service I used,” he said with a kind of mysterious unknowing voice.
“Well Lee she invited me over to her house, on the pretense, I wanted to talk about us, and my girlfriend. When I got to her house we talked for a few hours. She was really looking good and I went to the second level of my plan, but it seemed she already knew it. I told her I wanted to kiss her and she let me. Then I asked her to lay down with me on her bed, and she did. And I started to play with her breasts, and thighs. And we played for awhile, then I took off her top, and she seemed to be unsure, and when I almost stopped, she let out a sigh, and I continued, and it came off. I played with her breasts then, and took her pants off slowly. She really didn’t put up much resistance. I wondered why.”
He looked at me for the answer. “Maybe Rob, she was testing you, as you were your own desires.”
I told him women seem to do that. As if I really knew at 22. But it sounded good.
“Yes, Lee, maybe, just maybe. Anyways, I wanted to go farther, but was really scared to. She sensed it I think. And then she opened her legs wide, very wide as I put myself into her. I guess the wider she spread her legs, the more excited I got. I never encountered that before. And we made love for hours. Oh I think two hours anyways. And she never said a word. After we were done, she smiled at me, I got up, told her I had to go home. She said, she understood.”
“And now Rob, you want to know if you should go back for seconds. Like it was a dinner,” I commented.
“How else can I say it,” replied Rob.
“My recommendation is, leave it as it is, you liked it too much, and she likes you too much and something tells me it just will not work for either one of you. You once were friends, and now your lovers.”
“Why can’t friends be lovers,” was Rob’s counter to me.
“Now your being defensive,
I’m not the smartest guy in town, but let me put it this way. The only thing different between a friend and a wife is sex. Once you add sex into the equation, that is, with a friend, you have two wives. And that is war”
“See, I told you Lee,” said Rob with a glowing smile now, “You are a counselor. I like this concept of two wives.” He didn’t get the message I told myself.
“Rob, let me explain my thoughts clearer, I mean, women don’t forget. I know I got a scare on my forehead because of just that. I was dating a woman and left her to go to Omaha, and didn’t tell her. When I returned she invited me up to her apartment, in the hallway door she kissed me tore her blouse off and screamed rape. When I slammed the door on her to get away, and walked down stairs, a man hit me with a pipe, it was a duplex, and he was from the bottom apartment. I suppose thinking he was saving the woman. Well, I left well enough alone because she could say whatever she wanted. The man’s wife came out crying and asking what was going on. I told her, and she looked dumb about everything. And I just wanted to get out of there. And so what I am saying is, be careful, what may seem to be apple pie could be bees in it.”
He smiles again at me with that little boy grin, and said, “You answered my question, and I will try again.” I thought, now he’s feeding it back to me. There will be a price to pay, there always is.
The Taxi Service
Well, we talked again the night away. And Rob didn’t go back for a month or so, and then one night he did. And after he had made love with his friend the second time, he got into the Taxi service vehicle. But it didn’t take him home, it took him to an obscure place called Hanna’s, down around Mission Street. There is where you would find, and yes, I know, prostitutes. He was taken up to the 6th floor of a building, and tied to a bed. He was left there for three days, without water, conversation, or food. He was tied to a bed that the window looked out into the sky. No higher buildings to look at across and no trees to escape to, only sky.
During this time, his Central American girlfriend came to the Friendly Bar, and asked me if he had seen me. Rob had evidently talked to her about me. I said yes, but I didn’t know where he went. She asked me if he had another woman. I couldn’t look her in the eyes on that question; I tried to avoid her stare. But I think her new.
His woman friend never came around to ask anything. I was never sure if she betrayed him or not, but I would put money on it that she did.
When the third day passed, his captures put a tattoo on him, right above his groin area. It read
‘Property of the Prostitute Profession,’ the Taxi service as I call it, became the owners of Rob, as they had with stealing babies, and sending them to Texas for sale, or so Rob told me. You didn’t cross this organization, he commented, not without realizing you were a dead person, if you didn’t go far enough and change your identity. And if you didn’t have the money, you couldn’t go far. And so Rob stayed there. Like in an open prison that had invisible walls.
We met twice thereafter. He had told me he was still on that 6th floor, but now doing tricks; that is, making it with whomever they sent to him. And if he didn’t please the buyer, they would do what they had done to him the first time he had entered that third floor attic of sorts.
He looked bad, sores on his mouth, eyes as if they were pink. He had a few tears he was trying to hold back. He was dying.
Once just before I went back home to Minnesota, I told him I was drafted and was most likely on my way to Vietnam. I was right; I did end up in Vietnam, about 17-months later last conversation with Rob.
I kept getting letter from my two married friends from the Friendly Bar. They talked about Rob a little, never knowing quite what happened to him, only that he came around, now and then and stayed only for an hour or so, and was very nervous. He never was seen with either the woman from Central America or his woman friend.
In l973, I received a last letter from my friends, the married couple, saying Rob had died. He was 32-years old. They say he died of some kind of neurological disease. I can’t even remember the name now. And that was it. No more, no less. All for the love of what I told myself, adding to my many thoughts, what a price to pay. And so I to Vietnam, never returned to San Francisco.
Copyright, 2002 Wc/2801
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 9:13 PM
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