Random Reunion

[I won't even go into the chain of events that led me to be drinking pints of Sierra Nevada at the Cinch shortly after six this morning with Leah, Travis and Hank. Your wildest imaginings are probably in the ballpark, so let it be. At any rate, the four of us were there, smiling and chatting woozily, when I saw a friendly-looking bald guy sit on a wet bench across the patio. I called to him to be careful; he stood up and grimaced at the wet seat of his 501's. He came over, said hi, and said his name was Bill. Well, gee, so's mine.]

[It took less than a minute of doing the reciting-our-full-names game that I seem to do with all other Williams for us to remember each other. Bill Kern was an Angeleno I met during that year I was single in Santa Barbara, post-Ben and pre-San Francisco. We hit it off so well, and he came back up to S.B. for one sleepover visit before we lost touch. I found out he moved to San Francisco around the same time I did, attempted to make contact, and failed. I never really forgot him; we made a creepy kind of connection on the few times we saw each other, and I always wondered what happened to him.]

[He lives in the city, is single, and says he remembered me as fondly and as well as I remembered him. I was clear up front about John, and dang if there wasn't a glimmer of disappointment in his eyes. We talked about what's gone on during the last five and a half years, and cleared each other of any blame for our drifting apart. When I was ready to walk home, I gave him a sincere hug, and said what I think will be a pretty final "goodbye." What a random bit of closure at the end of a very long night.]

[Another hint for you single S.F. guys looking for a sweet, intelligent, eligible cutie who won't fuck you over: he bartends at a gay bar in a neighborhood not usually labeled as gay, and I believed him when he said that finding him at a dive bar on Polk Street at that hour of the day is very out of character. Go find him!]

[Later: Sifting thru early entries, it turns out I wrote a paragraph or two about him over a year ago.]

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