It was a long walk. I made it daily, I made it nightly. From high above the Castro, where rich homosexuals lived in opulence, to the dirty Mission, where my cave waited for me. I made the trek up and down to Raff's place several times each day. Sometimes in a cab, sometimes zig-zagging on a Muni-bus, but mostly on foot, up and down those stairs. Raff's place was the center of our world. It was where the drugs were. The daytime trips were rushed and exhausting. I always seemed to be pushing myself up the stairs because someone—a Mexican heroin dealer, a sick junkie, a scheming tweaker—was impatiently waiting for me.

But at the end of the day there was no one waiting for me. I took my time getting home because there wasn't much of one to go to, really. Home was a squat, an abandoned jewelry store I had to break into on a nightly basis just to hide in the dark with my needles and sleeping bag.

A clear night like this one was the best. You could never see many stars from the foggy streets of San Francisco, but the few you could see were out that night. The walk started fast as I came down the stairs from Raff's. The hill was actually a cliff with wooden stairs bolted to the rock. My tired weight would throw me from one step to the next before I was ready. Soon I was trotting down the stairs at a speed that hurt with each step. I had to pause often. My legs were stiff, swollen, and sore from walking the street, climbing the stairs; they were dotted with abscesses from missed shots in my calves and feet. I moved with a limp, a slouch, and a bit of a grunt.

Most of the time I didn't have any tobacco, so I didn't stop and enjoy the view. I looked forward to getting to the Castro. On a warm dry night like this one, the sidewalks in the Castro would be littered with cigarette butts. San Francisco had begun prohibiting smoking inside of almost anywhere and the gay bars all had ashtrays placed at their doors. They were always overflowing with long cigarette butts stubbed out halfway through their use. I'd scoop one up, start smoking, then pick though the rest, putting the best in my own empty pack for later.

If I showed up too late, and the other street people had gone through the ashtrays, there were always plenty more cigarette butts on the sidewalk and gutters of the Castro. I walked down 18th Street, ignoring the hustlers and hobosexuals, keeping my eyes peeled for tobacco treasures. I was invisible.

18th and Castro was always well lit, even at that hour. The 24-hour drug store expelled a few sad browsers every few minutes. There were busses and taxis and other signs of life, but the stores were closed and the people on the street seemed directionless.

As I crossed the intersection I spotted a brown prescription pill bottle lodged under a garbage can. Wedged under a piece of cardboard and barely visible, it would have looked like garbage to anyone walking by. To me, it shone like a gold coin in the sun.

I sped up my walk, got close, and swooped down to scoop up my treasure. I expected it to be empty, another quick disappointment, but when I gave it a shake, I could feel there was something inside. I kept walking. It was a busy corner, even at four in the morning. I wanted to play it cool.

I got a few more feet down 18th Street before my excitement got the best of me. I opened the pill bottle. The first thing I shook out was a little baggie of white powder. It fell flatly into the middle of my palm. Speed. There was something else in there, a big dark obstacle. Weed. I was looking straight into the bottle, wondering what else was stuck under the weed. I'd started to dig out the bud with my index finger when I heard the voice.

"Hey, motherfucker."

I ignored it. I didn't know anyone down here.

"Hey you, motherfucker."

This time it was harder to ignore. It was directed at me.

"Yeah, you, motherfucker." The voice was squeaky and effeminate. It didn't sound very threatening, so I put on a scowl and turned to see if I was the motherfucker.

"Give it back," the voice said.

Before me was a skinny blond kid no more than twenty years old. He looked the way all the runaways in the Castro look after they've learned to live on the street for a couple of years: mean and diseased with sharpened teeth.

"Give what back?" I said. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

We both knew what the fuck we were talking about.

"I watched you pick it up, motherfucker. Now give it back."

"Pick what up?" I was gonna make him say it.

"The pill bottle, asshole. I watched you."

I thought about precedence. Finders keepers v. losers weepers. I tried ignorance again. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

I thought we were going to have a little back and forth, a shouting match maybe. I'd use my loud voice—the one I used for scaring off truly dangerous hobos and psychopaths—and he would melt.

I didn't get the chance.

Instead he broke out with a hideous cry. It seemed at first to be an involuntary reaction, a soul baring yelp. Perhaps the idea of losing his drugs was too much for him to take and his mind had snapped.

But it wasn't a cry, it was a call—a signal, an alarm. I saw motion behind him. Shadows moved, came to life. From under stairs and out of door jambs there emerged bodies, animating on cue. In seconds there were a half-dozen zombie children running right at me. Gaunt, strung out young men, arms flailing, tattered shoes slapping the ground. Out of side-streets, from behind parked cars, they ran at me. Two abandoned their shopping carts to join in as though they were undercover agents that'd been waiting for just such a signal.

"Freeze. Don't fucking move, asshole."

They certainly sounded like government agents. They formed a semi-circle around me.

"He took Donny's shit. By the can, by the can. He grabbed it, I saw him."

"He's gonna give it back, or we're gonna kick his ass," the smallest one said.

"Or we're gonna fucking cut him," added another. This was getting out of hand.

"Cut me? For what? Picking up garbage off the ground? Look kid, you don't wanna throw something away, don't toss it on the ground." Kid was the most insulting thing I could think to say. It seemed to work.

"Let's cut him," the cutter said.

He reached into his pocket. There was probably something in there, but I couldn't know for sure. The semi-circle tightened just a little. I stepped back toward the building, the pill bottle clutched in one hand, the tiny speed baggie clutched in the other.

The smallest one spotted the pill bottle.

"It's in his hand. It's in his hand," he said with excitement.

"No, this is mine." I said. "I just found it in the street."

"Motherfucker, you're not going anywhere ‘til you give that thing back," the blond one said, pointing at my chest with his dirty finger.

It was time to use reason. We were all on the street here. We were all self-medicating to the best of our ability. I thought I'd try a plea, scumbag to scumbags.

"I just wanted the weed." I held out the pill bottle in supplication.

The blond one snatched the bottle out of my hand and opened it to check its contents. His skinny finger plucked out the bud easily. After the bud, a fat white baggie slid out, at least a gram and a half. He smiled. He gave the others a barely perceptible nod. I heard a couple of them letting out their breath, a collective sigh.

The skinny blond kid was so relieved, he said, "All you wanted was the weed, asshole? Here you go."

He tossed it into my hand. They were looking at me differently now. I was an old, pathetic hippie. Marijuana didn't even rate as a drug on their scale. They turned their backs to me and started up the street, returning to their respective perches.

I turned, too, and headed for the Mission, the smaller baggie of speed still clutched in one hand, the bud in the other, and about twenty long and tasty cigarette butts in my pocket.

Tom Pitts received his education firsthand on the streets of San Francisco. He remains there, writing, working, and trying to survive. His new novel, HUSTLE, and his novella, Piggyback, is also available from Snubnose Press. Tom is also a co-editor at Out of the Gutter. Find out more at TomPittsAuthor.com