Page 24 - Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco

8 Jim Stewart

the lower half of a cardboard back from a yellow legal tablet. The
doodle was of a well-filled condom. He folded the cardboard in
half and set it on the counter. Next to the drawing of the used
rubber it read “Scum Bags Three for $1.00.”
“I like that sign,” I said. “Can I buy it?”
“It’s not for sale.”
He must have seen the disappointment in my eyes. He reached
into the waste basket at the end of the counter and pulled out a
cardstock ad for the Ambush. It had been printed with a script of
the word Ambush and an Arnett drawing of leathermen’s heads.
There was a whole stack of them next to the cash register. He laid
it on the counter. I looked at it questioningly.
“Turn it over,” he said softly.
I turned it over. On the back of the card were preliminary
doodles of several used rubbers, each slightly different. Scum Bags
was drawn in a couple of different scripts. Arnett made a little
mark in the corner that looked like some stylized zodiac sign.
“It’s yours,” he said as he slid it across the counter top toward
me.
As I picked it up, I noticed a stain of some sort on the left
side of the card. It spread across the drawings of the unrolled
prophylactics. Probably spilled beer, I thought. I put it carefully
in the inside pocket of my brown leather Harley jacket. I had just
acquired my first original Chuck Arnett.

Removing the piles of dirty clothes, assorted junk and broken
furniture that had been left behind in the Clementina flat was
daunting. Thank God for heavy-duty yard waste bags and my
pickup truck. There was a dump just out of the City in South San
Francisco. Going there proved an adventure. Since I was not a
professional trash hauler, most of the guys at the weigh-in station
waved me through at no charge. My load looked light compared
to the big-guy trash haulers and dumpsters that frequented the
place.
As a bonus, I was directed to an area for household trash, not
raw garbage. I love trash. What a treasure trove. Leftover building
scrapes were often available. These went back to the flat for future