THAT DAY

Evicted, jobless, living on savings, but determined not to be driven out of San Francisco by the yuppie horde flooding in for the Web goldrush... today I signed a check for a thousand dollars, the first step in buying a house with two friends--the only house out of a hundred we've seen that'll work.

THAT NIGHT...

My old housemate Lizzie just moved. I go see her new house. It's impossible--a cavernous space full of trees, sun, wind, and rocks--more a canyon than a house! Feels like the Sierra Nevada in summer--big saddle-shaped boulders and buttresses, glacier-scoured but warm and piny now. Lizzie climbs up the rocks, leading me to a V-shaped fold where you can wedge your body comfortably in (as we autistics like to do) and peer over the top, out and down the curving series of cave/room/glades.

I sing a bit, feeling safe wedged in privately up here, protected by stone.

Motion back under the trees, around the front door. A couple of men. Liz locked it, so I know they've broken in. They flash dim then bright as they walk from tree-shade into sunlight and back to shadow. Closer. They have guns! I pull my head down; it's unlikely they saw me up here. Not a natural place to look for the occupants--and burglars should only be expecting Liz, if anyone.

I crawl down the fold and drop to the ground when my intuition says they're gone.

Wrong! They're right behind me. They come up to me--not with guns drawn--and "Listen you deadbeat bastard--" then call me by a strange name-- "you better return that stuff or pay for it. You don't cheat our boss."

And then coolly turn their backs on me and walk out!

I get mad and follow them outside the apartment. Overtake them in the hall and snap "I'm not X---, I'm TIRED of being mistaken for him, and I don't appreciate being threatened by guys who break into my apartment, so whatever HE did and whatever quarrel YOU have with him, take it to him--DON'T come round here again." They don't believe a word of it.

I fish around in my left coat pocket and pull out a gun. "I'm threatening YOU now. TAKE YOUR QUARREL TO HIM. Leave me alone or else."

They bristle, but when they realize I mean it, they begin to slow down and think. What if I really am the wrong man?

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Trouble, break-in: Literal? Did Lizzie's house get burgled? Or does it mean trouble with the house we're buying? If so, stand firm--they're not listening, they think you're someone you're not.
• I feel secure hiding in the rocks, wedged in like an autistic: I do feel happier hiding in financial calculations, securely wedged in by numbers, than out house-hunting among those devious, unpredictable humans...
• The threateners: the seller's agent? Might he sabotage the agreement, to delay the sale and maybe get into a lucrative bidding war? But he's been very frank with us. His client's been difficult--not listening to him. I think he'll want to get her off his back by closing the deal as soon as possible.

A YEAR LATER

The dream's prediction of house-trouble was right. The seller was a flake, but her agent worked hard and closed the deal. Then, AFTER I put $10,000 down, the seller tried to weasel out of the contract she'd just signed! Decided she could sell it for more--after selling it to us! We had to sue her to comply with her own agreement. Her own agent and lawyer warned her "Quit this; you have no case at all," but for nearly a year she wouldn't leave--or listen. Some folks just don't--not even to their own hired guns.

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