Hellhouse tales #6. Random is as Random does.

 So, you should know that were not troublemakers.

Well, we were involved in trouble from time to time, but not in the sense that we ever set out to hurt anyone. Well, obviously other than ourselves. Well, and of course, willing accomplices. But we did enjoy from time to time making the lives of others just a little more surreal. Weather intentionally, or as an effect of our regular comings and goings. Sometimes people just happened into our path, and were swept up in the madness. I remember at one of our street sales, while we were trying to raise enough to pay the rent, Dave was trying to buy things from people passing by. 

"Hey! how much for your shoes?"

"Dave, we don't need thier shoes"

"But look at 'em, I could could turn those around for double what ever we pay for them"

"Dave, We need rent, we don't need thier shoes"

(to the passerby) "Common, how much for your shoes?"

Klutch chimes in:  "How about a dance? How much would you pay to cut a rug with this handsome gent?"

I suppose I should mention, as a part of full disclosure, that was usually after consuming a box of wine. "The silver bag" we called it

It was a sort of tradition during street sales that, although, as I said, we were trying to raise rent money, sometimes the first profits went to buying some drink. The preferred drink of the street sale was a box of wine. However, we would tear away the cardboard to reveal the mylar bag, which we would throw to each other like a drunken football. When the wine was gone, the bag could be inflated, forming an awesome pillow to pass out on.

Sometimes I wonder. Did someone buy that house, and if so, did they happen upon our old storage area...

"What the hell is all this crap? Whats with all these wine bags? ... Hey, bet I could get a couple bucks for those shoes..."

I can only hope. Those are the questions I must ponder. 

We left our mark, that is certain.

Another passtime was to go to golden gate park and try to get tourists to take pictures with us. Dave was very good at this. It would start with finding a group that was rotating the photographer. Dave would approach very casually and ask: "Hey, do you want me to take the picture so you can all be in it?"

Then after a few snaps, he would say, "Klutch, you get in there. oh, thats beautiful! click, click, click...Tiki, come on, get in!"

People would seem dubious, but would more often than not,  just let it happen. Then we would rotate Dave into the session. But, then came the coup de gras. Dave would get one of them to take pictures of just the three of us. 

Not just one, but as many different poses as we could get before they stopped clicking. 

There was once when we even got another random stranger to snap a few of us with the whole group.

And this was in the days of actual film cameras. They could not simply delete us, We were there for the duration. 

I wonder. Did any of those families put our pictures in thier photo albums?

"Who are these people?"

"I don't know. We met them in San Francisco, they were very persuasive"