My summer skirt kept flipping up in the wind. It was that current from the Golden Gate that goes right through that area round Hyde and McAllister. I was headed up to Polk Street to visit a few buildings and preach the word of lead paint remediation through mime to refugees from Bosnia and Iraq renting in the Tenderloin. I confess I never believed a bit of the dangers of lead poisoning. I mean, how did smart, healthy people come out okay, like Einstein or say, the baby boomers before they realized they could coast on the royalties from their greatest hits? So I didn’t really buy the lead poisoning hype, but I threw myself into the job with zeal.
I made my way with stealth, ringing every doorbell on the front of a building until someone buzzed me in. Once inside I diligently performed my gesture acting, showing newly arrived immigrants how -- hand scraping wall and into mouth-- makes a baby --- arms rocking an invisible doll--very sick--- tongue out like Mr. Yuck Mouth. That part was the most comical but not the most difficult to convey. To explain that we could remove the dangerous paint and make it safe was near impossible. I’d been working for several hours already that day and once I finished a building or two on Polk Street I found myself in front of a boutique with a man on display behind a gilded display window. He may have seen me stare, but he kept his lips pursed like a baby doll and didn’t budge as I announced my entry into the store with a jostle of bells on the door knob. The shop sold soaps and bath salts that were placed sparsely on the shelves behind the counter.
This was before Polk Street became French with Boulange de Polk and La Folie and before Polk Street became Mediterrean with the Mediterrean Deli (sic but great green beans). Before Polk Street had Moroccan imports, there were still working movie theaters with ornate old facades like The Alhambra, now a gym called something like Punch! or Snap! Back then, it was mostly porn shops, boy hustlers, lunatics, and outside agitators.
This soap shop had sprung out of nowhere. I’d never seen it before. It was a soft red inside, like a womb from which its proprietor prayed to be aborted. He was all comb over and tucked shirt and lips. After an awkward silence as I gazed around at what looked more like wartime rations than merchandise, he spoke to me at some length.
He wore his lips like falsies, to show how French language and culture had permanently changed his needs and attributes. From showing me a shabby carton of Valobra soap, he quickly moved to telling me his life story.
He was Daniel Dubois, you haven’t heard? Oh, well, he was used to the rife ignorance. People today are most ignorant of great art. The House of Dubois has operated from Alsace for generations. It has a most esteemed reputation for creation of perfumes. I didn’t know? He became instantly irritated and more so when a guy with dirt locks stumbled in and rang the bells before Daniel gave him a withering look and he left.
What followed was sort of a hurricaine of pretense and contempt for the prevailing taste for mass market perfume, not that I’d raised the subject. Dubois became increasingly agitated as he showed me his oeuvre that he kept hidden behind the counter. He didn’t need to ask me whether I knew of peony, he visibly assumed my ignorance and spun the tale of a Chinese princess that belonged to one of his masterpieces. I flashed on my grandmother’s peonies battened down with panty hose.
As he discussed each flacon, his speech became more and more frantic and nonsensical. His accent was not French. His speech was a scythe sharpened with spit. The phone rang. He answered. It was a bill collector who had the nerve to call. He slammed down the receiver. Talk shifted to his troubled business, his difficulty paying his phone bill and then turned back to the perfumes, which he jealously guarded and never let me smell. He made the motions of going over his whole repertoire, scent by scent, but in fact, he only made sounds or grimaces to fill in the whole explication. It was like seeing what a very detailed dream actually contains: a skeleton of a narrative whose motions give the facsimile of detail and reason. He continued, surely, his art was just too fine and elegant a passion for me to grasp. After some time, I began to shift my weight from foot to foot from fatigue. He kept talking.
I escaped from the Parfumerie of Daniel Dubois before quitting time. I had the idea to have all of my friends call him and ask, “Hey, is this Art’s Crab Shack?” but I wasn’t mean enough. He’s still doing business, but I think he’s moved north.
Photo Untitled by Caitlin Shortell
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