I’d escaped the ancient civilization of trees and headed to the nearest patch of wild, San Francisco . My income over the past several months had tapered to the leaky drip of a farmhouse faucet—that’s what happens when the drama of other people’s lives unfolds across your workspace. I rented the quiet solace of an urban hotel room with a large desk and a fast internet connection.

Ninety-three languages are spoken in San Francisco , a city of seven square miles. Understanding comes hard and people are often angry, causing spectacular behavioral displays. Vegetarian shoes are a hot item. Metrosexuals are old news. The newly rich clash ideologies with the old rich, but they live and shop in the same places; in a small city it’s impossible to avoid people you don’t like. People who remind you too much of yourself—where you’ve been, where you’re going.

This whole human and geographic mess is a breeding ground for more potential National Eye stories than you can shake a stick at. A gold mine of heroism and lunacy, it was the perfect place to plant myself and collect interviews.

I’d inherited an office building, and I’d put it on the market before San Francisco ’s real estate bubble burst. One sucker bit, offering a ridiculous price. Two others jumped in, creating a bidding war. When the battle ended, and the last bloodied warrior was left standing, I was told escrow would close in thirty days. I planned to celebrate by blowing money I didn’t have yet, and doing it in a big way. I rented the fourth-floor studio at the Bay View Hotel on Fisherman’s Wharf.

It wasn’t just my premature and hopeful millionaire status that got me moving to the city. A phone call from Madame Mina precipitated my exodus from quiet culture to urban chaos.

Nobody who works for The Eye gets an award, maybe an egg splattered on their windshield, but no award.

Mina said, “You know my new place in Chinatown ? There’s a neighbor kid here, Jimmy. You won’t believe this, but the boy tones.”

The toy bones… Now what had Mina gotten herself into?

I heard the prrring of an old-fashioned doorbell, the kind that lets a shopkeeper know when a client has walked in.

She muffled the receiver. I heard her, bossy, telling someone to take a seat and wait.

Not bad. If I could make this sound anywhere close to the truth, Jimmy would make good copy. With luck, he had a winning smile. If Jimmy looked like a kid who tortured bugs, the story wouldn’t wash.

“Hao, an herbalist. Jimmy’s uncle. They live up the street. We’re happy to be in TheEye with Jimmy. You know,” Mina said, “the smiling grandparents?” She hung up the phone.

There it was. Mina had been trying to weasel her way into The Eye ever since she’d weaseled her way back into my life. I was more than skeptical, but after some quick research I discovered that toning was real. I dug up a house sitter, packed my bags, and drove south. I’d spend money, I’d earn money, and in between I’d dig up a few great stories. I did not expect Jimmy to be one of them.

I was wrong. Jimmy was twelve years old, almost, he’d said, and he was happy to report that he could blow up my car in ten minutes flat using a book of matches, red dye from a pack of cigarettes, and the lead foil from a wine bottle. Then he smiled. He was dazzling, I was hooked.

Margo and I sat outside, a bottle of Jack Daniel's between us, deck lights catching the amber and spinning it.

She said, "Annie, you want to split the last corner?"

I said she could finish it off. Margo poured herself a slim line of bourbon while I riffled through the pages of a 140-year-old circus route book detailing the towns and troubles, marriages and affairs of circus artists long gone.

Margo's 21st-century version of the circus was about to open-a phantasm filled with human creatures morphed into beings as primal as uranium punch, with bodies tuned and toned to the max. We talked about her Cirk, both of us busy ignoring my front door lying flat on its back a few feet away.

There was a stretchy silence and then Margo stood, holding onto the edge of the table. She gathered her wobbly dignity. Arms opened wide, she told me to keep the rare route book. Forever if I wanted, she was lightening a life filled with too many possessions. Theatrics. When the Jack wore off, she'd forget the grand gesture.
She leaned across the table, balancing on the edge, nailing me with eyes deep and strange and wise.

"Annie, do you ever think about the big stuff?"

"Not if I can help it."

"You know what I ask myself every day?" The bourbon on her breath blew my skin warm, but her words were a chill. "How much is my life worth? How much will I risk to stay alive?"

"Margo, maybe you should sit down."

"Ignore me." Margo smiled, shaking her head. "I've had too much to drink," she said, glancing at the door, freshly decimated by a raving madman in her honor.

Margo laid a sloppy good-bye kiss on my cheek. She wandered up the hill, fumbled with the latch on our mutual gate, and disappeared.

I blew her shadow a kiss, and I blew a soft prayer to the moon, one to ease her bare and beautiful heart.

Detective Lawless pulled into my driveway, his old Suburban packing the moist ground. He parked, thrashed around the back of his truck, tossing junk left and right. He pulled out a dark roll, stuck it under his arm, and found a toolbox.

I searched for a witty hello, but Lawless cut me off. He put his arm around my waist and walked me into the kitchen. My feet were cold. I poured him a cup of coffee, and he went to work filling the empty doorway with visquine and duct tape. I started to protest. He told me to be quiet, and I was.

Madame Mina ambled in and waved a careless hello to Lawless. She was wearing the XXL t-shirt I wear to paint and clean. It had been hanging on a hook near the dryer.

"This is pretty colorful," she said, scrunching her face at the t-shirt. Mina studied my walls, lightly touching the trim, and peered into my living room. "You know something? I've never been dressed like a wall before."

She turned in a circle as if she were standing in front of a mirror at Macy's deciding whether to blow two hundred bucks on a dress.

"Mina," I said, "you're the only woman I know who'd think about clothes when a crazy nut is on the loose."

"Look, you've got a gun, I've got attitude and glamour. Between the two of us, that nut doesn't stand a chance."