Whore Baths & 7-Up
Written by Wendy Newman
3AM:
“Come on, baby. Just climb into my bed. I’m lonely. Just lay here with me.”
“Fuck you, you fucking liar,” I said, pushing myself off the floor from beneath a small, round, wooden table in the center of a dingy, one-room Tenderloin SRO. I grabbed my pillow-roll of a leather jacket, my backpack, and my dignity, and was out the door.
That was week three of living on the streets. I was technically employed and had said yes to this guy’s invitation when he opened with, “You look really tired. Want a safe place to sleep?” Isn’t that how it always starts?
It was 1987. I was a 19-year-old punk rock girl who’d left Salt Lake for good. I wanted to move to New York, but I was smart enough to know I was too dumb to make it there. If I ended up homeless in NYC, I’d freeze to death. San Francisco, though? I could sleep on those streets for a minute if I had to, and I did.
I rolled into town with $550, a red, 1972 piece-of-Pinto, a truck filled with treasures, and a reservationist job ($8 an hour) at a boutique hotel chain in Union Square. The Pinto broke down on the Bay Bridge the first week—gear shift gave out; but I somehow coasted off at 5th Street and into the doughnut shop parking lot. A fog-soaked phone book pointed me to a garage with a tow truck, so my baby (and everything I owned) ended up in the Tenderloin.
A lucky break, as it turned out.
San Francisco was home now. Scary, unsafe, and untethered—but I knew one thing: there was nowhere to go but up.
My shift started at 7AM. By 3PM, I was free. I’d walk to the top of Nob Hill and look at where all the boughie people lived, then head back down to Union Square, throw down my backpack, and nap in the grass, praying I just looked like a tourist. When night fell, I’d bounce between Pinecrest and Lori’s Diner on Mason, nursing a 7-Up until they kicked me out. (I really wished I was a coffee drinker.)
After they tossed me, I’d sit up in the alley beside the King George Hotel. Not too close to the street where I’d be noticed (God forbid anyone think I was homeless), and not too far back where things got dicey. I’d sit cross-legged, pretending to draw. I can’t draw. I’d journal. I’d do my best to look like a moody art student, not a girl sleeping rough.
At 6AM, the car repair shop opened. They let me swap clothes from my trunk and reminded me (each time) that my car was ready and they wanted their money. (Spoiler alert: that car and I were never reunited.)
I’d walk across the street to the one-hour drycleaner, get those clothes pressed for $1.50, then carry them carefully to the Westin St. Francis (where I had no business being), and take a whore’s bath in the fancy public women’s room.
Long hair twisted up. Fresh makeup. Pressed clothes. Back to work in the reservations room like nothing ever happened.
Three weeks in, I scraped together enough cash to march my broke ass up to Roommate Referral in the Upper Haight. Remember that place? Tiny storefront, shelves of three-ring binders filled with ads, sorted by price. I grabbed the cheapest one "$210 and up" and called the first listing.
That night, I unlocked a door that was mine. A real door, with chipped paint and a sticky knob and an empty bedroom the size of a walk-in closet. I dropped my backpack and jacket on the floor, and exhaled like I hadn’t in a month.
Within a year or so, I had the life I’d imagined: a place of my own in the Lower Haight, a circle of friends, and an adorable, irreverent guy who would become my husband. He had a giant record collection and a thing for late-night burritos. The bars were ours: Toronado, the Albion, Nightbreak were all the places that made the city feel like it was ours, too.
For the modern-day punk rock kids fleeing their towns to save their lives, it’s not that simple anymore. There's no grass in Union Square to fake-snooze on. No chance anyone could stash a car full of belongings at a shop on Turk without getting everything repossessed. No $1.50 pressed-shirt miracles. Try taking a whore’s bath at the Westin St. Francis today—good luck, friend. And Roommate Referral? Long gone. I had it rough, but it was an easier time.
I’ve left San Francisco a handful of times. But I always come back. The re-entry’s always brutal, financially, but always worth it. When I leave, I don’t just leave my heart here. I leave my self here.
These days? I sip good coffee, smile at the memory of getting married at the Westin St. Francis, sell fancy SF homes, and live at the top of Nob Hill.
Nineteen-year-old me? She never dreamed this big.
Wendy Newman is the author of 121 First Dates, a Workshop Leader, and a realtor in San Francisco and Nevada County. Follow her Insta @wendynewmanrealtor
