I worked as a hay waddy at the age of 14. It would take way more words than my monthly allotment here to discuss all the work I’ve done since. As my railroading dad used to put it, I bounced around like a BB in a boxcar, but I’ve been lucky.

The following tale illustrates how lucky I was.

It was a Thursday in late October. Pennywhistle Rudy and I were busking a block off Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, fresh from herding hamburger on the hoof in Idaho, fleeing the snow. He was an accomplished tootler, who played Irish tunes and kept an inventory of cheap tin whistles that admirers could purchase. My hat was our cash register. We had slept the previous night in the red dirt of Napa Valley, casualties of too many wine tastings. I was hungry, pulled five bucks from our earnings and went to find a late afternoon lunch.

Ten power poles from our corner I found a poster advertising the First Annual Hooker’s Ball, to be held in a couple of days at Longshoremen’s Hall, $30 a ticket, sponsored by COYOTE, (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), an organization working to decriminalize sex work in California, with a phone number. The Pointer Sisters were to headline. I didn’t have $30 to spare.

When I brought the baguette, cheese and beer, I told Rudy about the event. He reverted to his Utah upbringing and said that he wanted nothing to do with a bunch of whores. We ate lunch and split the day’s take. Last I saw of him he was in his van, headed toward Provo. I found a pay phone.

Margo St. James, founder of COYOTE, answered the call. I explained to her that I was fresh from the Salmon River Mountains, could not afford a ticket to the ball, but I was willing to work. She told me to be at the hall at noon on Saturday and to ask for Lottie Dah. I walked to the ferry terminal and slept the next two nights on the couch of a pal in Sausalito.

The Longshoremen’s Hall resembles a high school gym. Lottie was dressed in sweats and Margo had told her to expect me. I asked what she wanted me to do. She said that the San Francisco Fire Department was arriving in five minutes to hang a screen for the ball’s light show, but that the screen was coming in half an hour. My job was to stall the fire department for 25 minutes.

The hook and ladder truck and captain’s car were right on time. I strolled slowly out to meet the captain, figuring that every second I could waste would help. He was in full dress mode, epaulets, badges, everything neatly creased and scary. As I was winding up to pitch the truth at him, I heard a hissing noise coming from the front of the truck and saw, fully imbedded in the driver’s side front tire, a big shiny square-headed tar paper nail.

When I pointed it out to him, the captain said a few things not appropriate to recount in a family newspaper, then radioed for the maintenance guys to come and change the tire. Ten minutes later the screen arrived and three union firefighters hung it on the stage while they waited for the tire repair. A sloppy roofer helped me earn my ticket to the First Annual Hooker’s Ball.

I met Margo at the ball. She wore a pheasant feather mask and evening gown. I wore a fresh pair of Wranglers, light blue snap shirt, White’s packer boots, and my tan Resistol with the Roy Rogers crease. While we shook hands she asked if I wanted a little more work, then peeled off three $20s from a roll and pointed across the hall to a woman reading a book. “That is Dorothy, my mother. Keep her entertained for the evening.”

The ball contained everything strange and kinky about San Francisco. There were three cross-dressing Raggedy Anns, a functionally naked Tin Man in silver, plenty of beautiful women in and out of fairy gowns, and a person of indeterminate gender painted and garbed exactly like the Boston Terrier he/she/they kept on a leash. The Pointer Sisters were powerful and wonderful. Dorothy and I were the least outrageous humans there, both of us wallflowers, but we did manage to dance a couple of tunes.

At midnight, Margo found us, handed me a paper sack and asked if I had a car. I told her I had a stock truck. She said “Perfect. Take mom over the bridge to an apartment in Sausalito.” I asked what was in the bag. She smiled a coyote grin and said, “$60,000. Put it on the kitchen table.” Dorothy and I became buddies that night. I still wear her name in ink on my left shoulder. I slept on their couch.

Margo cooked breakfast, thanked me for taking care of her mom, and said if I ever needed work to look her up. That was the beginning of a three-year stint as her “Big Cowboy,” a part-time gig that was a combo between bodyguard and pack horse. She was the best boss I ever had and the strongest person I have ever known.

She died in January. You can Google her.

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J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer and jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena.