I Shit You Not

September 18, 1975

At the last minute, Onni had an inspiration that James should not go to New York, so he is still with us for now. Something involving some Salvador Dali paintings that he owns. He told me about it the first night I met him. He said he made a lot of money and invested it in Dali artwork. I was impressed, especially since he was living a fairly simple and spartan life like everyone else in the center. He also said he had a Shelby Mustang that he gave to Onni. That impressed me too.

It has mostly been an indemnity week until today. Kent and I went over to City College this morning to witness and find out some things about school activities that we can sort of infiltrate. It was very difficult to stay awake on the streetcar on the way over. Morning is Satan's time, Mitch says.

We sold a dozen roses for our fare.

City College seems to be a real gold mine of hungry souls. Kent and I sat in the cafeteria and witnessed to about four people without moving. Later, on our way to Powell and Market, I witnessed to a guy sitting next to me on the streetcar and he seemed real responsive, even though he was skeptical because he had been to dinner over at the Berkeley center before.

From that point on the day got more and more cosmic. There was one girl, Claudine, whom I saw coming down Powell, so I started chanting real hard on her. She came down and started to turn right around the Bank of America, but suddenly changed direction and came right over to me and we almost spoke simultaneously. She was most responsive. Our personalities seemed to be almost perfectly matched. But it turned out her VW bus had been stolen the night before, so she wasn't into coming to dinner tonight. But I have her phone number and address and will dog her until she comes.

Also witnessed to Janice in Macy's, and it looks as though she may finally be coming around to dinner, but I will keep after her. Also kept getting good responses from people all day, but it finally culminated on one guy, Steve.

First I asked him if he had a minute and he said no, but I started witnessing to him anyway. I don't even remember the things I said. Suddenly I felt a fart coming on, so I let it go. But instead I shit my pants. I couldn't believe it.

Then all of the sudden, right in the middle of my witnessing to Steve, this black guy appeared out of nowhere and said to Steve: "If the weather around here doesn't shape up I'm going to get a pair of long johns, the kind with the flap in the back so you can shit. Fuck this shit."

Then he poked me in the arm and said: "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

And suddenly he was gone and I went back to witnessing to Steve as if nothing had happened. I think he may respond.

Then I went to the restroom to clean up. I was fuming. Finally I went back out on the street, chanting harder than ever. I was really mad.

Then I met Nathaniel. He was the most open person I had met yet. It was almost like he was witnessing to me. It turned out that James had sold him a flower three days earlier. Then as I was witnessing to him, James showed up. He had not been there all day.

No one I witnessed to came to dinner tonight, but there was one guy there, Seymour, who I had witnessed to a week ago on Van Ness while I was waiting for the van to come. I had forgotten all about him until he refreshed my memory. Actually, now that I think about it, I also managed to get quite a few donations on that intersection of Sutter and Van Ness.

Where will this day lead?