Beirut comes to the Lower Haight

Sam and I were just getting home from the Restaurant. It was about midnight maybe a little later. We went up to the house to drop off our work shit and get Isaac all suited up for his nightly poo-walk. No sooner had we locked the gate to the front door, a strange industrial kind of smell wafted down the block. There were a lot of people hanging out on the street; some people were walking to their cars or walking up to Haight St. or visiting with their buddies (the drunken vomiting and brawling doesn't start until after 2.) At first I thought the smell was coming from the house of those no-good hippies that moved in last month bringing with them loud broadcasts of Widespread Panic shows and non-stop second hand pot smog. I actually cursed at them in my mind, "those no-good hippies..."

The smell was kinda sorta familiar, like burning electrical wires or melting plastic or that weird smell you fear you are smelling when you are driving miles from anywhere and the overheat needle shoots into the red. There was a lot of confusion suddenly and all manner of people were running in all directions. The smell got worse and stronger and suddenly I found myself coughing and struggling for breath. My eyes were burning and starting tearing up. My nose started running. Isaac was not reacting at all, which I thought was weird. (Maybe because he's low to the ground?) But then these three women in sweat-me-at-the-bar clothes came running down Fillmore Street screaming, "Don't go down that way, don't go down that way!" Other people were screaming, too. The smell got stronger and stronger and my eyes were streaming and I could barely see. My nose and throat were burning. Sam and I looked at each other, disbelievingly, "Pepper Spray? Tear Gas? Sarin?" No matter, we took off running towards Duboce Park away from Haight Street. Isaac was running, too. I was running as fast I could, but had to stop a few times because I could barely see. I heard feet pounding on all sides of us. I just couldn't believe what was happening. People were all yelling different theories of where and what was going on, none of which made much sense. I was crying and wheezing and then I just burst into laughter. A man who was running beside me starting laughing, too. I mean, what the fuck!?! We both looked at each other with tears streaming down our faces and kept laughing. He was a very cute little fag all dressed up for a night out. Down at Waller St. the air was clear again and we slowed down. He said that he had seen a "cloud of something" at Haight and Steiner but didn't know anything else. He took off towards the Castro. Isaac finally took a shit and we were standing down by the park, wondering if we should go back home or keep walking when fire trucks and police cars come tearing down the street. We didn't know how to react. It was bizarre to feel completely confused and freaked out and excited and helpless and angry and survivalist and curious and paranoid and surreal and random and scared and so alive and so corporally in the moment - extremely extremely human. I just kept thinking about the Twin Towers and that whole day of national shock. This how people live in the Mideast and Africa and Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. And that's how fast anything could have happened here or anywhere. And then what, you know? I was still tired and cranky from work, and wanted to take off my jeans and get into bed. Nothing changes, really.

We ran into a few more people who were headed down to Market Street, and we stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes. They said there had been some a bunch of kids running down Haight Street earlier on in the evening and the cops had come but didn't know if there was any connection. They said that they maybe heard someone had set off C4 outside a bar, but didn't know what that was. (I didn't either. The only info I could find implies that it's some kind of military-issued tear gas) . And then we headed home and the air was clearing and people were riding their bikes up Steiner right towards Haight and other people were getting out of cabs and had no idea what had just happened 15 minutes before.

We ran down our street quickly because the prickly stinky smell was still vaguely in the air and ran into the house and slammed the door and all the windows shut.

This morning I have a headache and my nose is still running.

I will freely admit this -- I want to buy some duct tape today.