Tartufo and Titties

Just got back from a trip to the bay area with Jake. It was his first time to San Francisco and I did a pretty crappy job of showing him around since my family can't get it together and out the door by early afternoon. I took him to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is neither golden, nor a bridge. Talk amongst yourselves. No, wait, it is a bridge. But it's red. Or rust. Or a more descriptive color whose name I would know if I had more gay friends. Anyway, we looked at it. Paused for as long as what felt appropriate to mimic reverence, then spent a few hours trying to find parking in Chinatown. The Chinese New Year parade was going on and that was really cool. For as long as we've lived in the bay area, none of us has ever been to this parade. My mom kept saying that just hearing the beat of the drums makes her heart quicken, thinking about her childhood. It's amazing the way we'll miss the things we leave behind.

We had dinner there and then went to meet up with Aubrey and Candice in North Beach. My mom only drove the wrong way up a one-way once. We had my brother with us and since he's 19, he can't get into bars, so we planned to meet at a restaurant and grab dessert and wine. As we drove up the main street in North Beach, with huge neon signs advertising strippers and XXX Adult Movies- The Nastiest You've Ever Seen, my mom started mumbling somewhat jokingly but very anxiously, what is this?...where are you taking us?...is this the right place?...are those strippers?

Walking up the street to meet Aubrey and Candice, we lost my mom and my brother in the crowd. We waited and after a few moments, my mom hurried up with my brother in tow. She grabbed me and whispered, He was standing outside the strip bar and wouldn't leave. [Story follows: my brother so wants to hang out with the "big kids," that he's really conscious that there are a lot of places he's excluded from because he's under 21. So when he walked by the titty bar and saw the "18 and Over" sign, completely missing the towering photo of a near-naked woman straddling a pole, he vehemently insisted on going in there because he was old enough. He had no comprehension whatsoever of what this place was. Yes, friends, car alarms are indeed, very sensitive.]

We met up in a quaint, intimate little Italian restaurant decorated with such classical aesthetics as a topless Mona Lisa on the wall and a seated female statue wielding an American flag with the flag stick propped up in her ceramic crotch. And Candice enjoyed an unobstructed view of the men's room toilet from her seat. We were real low key...just had desserts and chatted. I really wish those two lived closer because they're such beautiful people and I miss them so much.

This morning, I met my mom in the bathroom and the conversation went as follows.

(I don't remember what she was saying right before this conversation because I wasn't listening).

Mom: ...yeah he was so excited to find a place that would let him in. [pause, then wistfully] but one day we'll need to let him go.

I stop rinsing off my face and look at her in the mirror, cleanser dripping into my eyes.

Me: Go where?

Mom: He's going to need to find out sooner or later.

Me: Are we talking about the titty bar?

Mom: The place where women dance.

Me: He needs to find out sooner or later that women strip?

Mom: No! You know. What men do.

Me: That men watch women strip?

My mom is already gone, having gotten distracted and left the room.


I think what she was trying to say was that someone has to take my baby autistic brother to the titty bar because apparently, that's a male rite of passage. That's not a dysfunctional notion at all.