A White Kid’s Guide to the Soup Kitchens of San Francisco

A White Kid’s Guide to the Soup Kitchens of San Francisco

“Ten cents a cigarette...

“Three for a quarter...

“Dollar a pack.”

This is Linus’ cadence: Linus is making some money, hawking cigarettes up and down the line of folks waiting for a table. We are in one of the longest lines in town—two blocks long, longer than the line for sushi at the No-nayami on Church Street, longer than the kosher line for the Marrakesh on O’Farrell. St. Anthony’s doesn’t take reservations. Instead, you take a number from the man with the blond beard around the corner. He gives the little red ticket to you in silence: no questions, no words—all you do is reach out your hand.

Then you can wait. Or walk off, if you have someplace better to spend twenty minutes or so. If you are like Linus, you can sell cigarettes, holding up your soft pack of Newports, or Dorals, or Larks. Linus says Newports move the best, Camels the slowest. “No one likes a Camel,” he says, “‘cept the old GIs.” He keeps moving. “Ten cents a cigarette...”

On a rainy Monday, I had come to San Francisco to do a cuisine comparison, sort of a tour guide-cum-restaurant review, covering the soup kitchens that I remembered from my time in SF—my two years of living on the fringes. Those years seemed distant now—I am a university student, and I feel suddenly distant from my old days. I am hipper now, I thought. I felt the smugness of a wise-ass. I had thought before I made the trip: here’s a twist on the old restaurant review. I can talk about worn-out things: the bouquet of the food, the ambience of the place. How original. I had felt like slapping my own back.

I returned to my old digs in The City’s Tenderloin, dressing pretty much...

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...; I finish my coffee and truck on up the steamy staircase. I do not need to be here. I am not truly in need. To take more would be wearing on the conscience. Need sweetens the heart. Hungry people were getting fed; in this, a First World country, the system was working.

Sure, it was crowded: it was the only gig in town. I look at the yellow Franciscan statue, gaily painted, redolent of Mexico. As I glance back, the piano player has changed his tune and is swaying his head to something like Brubeck-does-Muzak. Exiting, I see the line is still wrapped around the corner. The rain has stopped, and four more people are trudging up the hill to get in line. Linus had finished his food before me, it seems, and is swapping three cigarettes for a quarter. He starts up again:

“Ten cents a cigarette...

“Three for a quarter...

“Dollar a pack.”