nathan26i

Almost a Love Story

Nathan Spooner

The last time I saw Annie, was nineteen seventy five,

she was going off with the bad bad boys,

it’s a wonder that she survived.

After sharing the day on a ranch in Sonoma County in the summer of 1974, we drive back to Berkeley and spend the night together on the roof of a shed in the back yard of 3005 Fulton Street. In the morning we make breakfast, walk to the Co-op. She makes some phone calls, and later that day goes off to somewhere: maybe New York, maybe Beverly Hills, maybe Europe. She never told me where and I never asked.

Annie lived in the fast lane, I made my living playing street music in Berkeley. Once in a while, she and her friend David would show up at the house and hang out for a while, invite me to an event in the City. Other times, she and I would go somewhere: swimming at Lake Anza, off to the country, to her apartment in San Francisco or to her sister’s house on Rose Street in Berkeley. Her kiss felt warm and sensual; her embrace, secure.

David seemed nice, he wrote articles for Rolling Stone magazine. Annie traveled around taking photos of musicians and other persons in the entertainment world.

I go one evening with my friend Gary to see her about something. We all drive to North Beach. After a while Gary decides to take the bus home and leaves me with his car. Annie buys a bottle of red wine and we walk up one of the steep streets on the north side of Broadway. We sit close together looking toward the lights of nighttime San Francisco.

A police cruiser turns off Broadway and drives toward us. Annie leans her head against my shoulder, laughs softly and hides the open bottle of wine as they drive by, the police cruiser straining up the hill in first gear. Later on, driving back to her apartment in Gary’s station wagon, as we approach the lower end of Lombard Street, she dares me to go up the world’s crookedest street backwards. I of course try to do it.

We run over the curb on the second left hand turn. So there we are, stuck in the middle of the night going backwards up the most famous street in the City. Laughing and joking we manage to get unstuck and drive back down, luckily before an unsuspecting vehicle comes crashing down onto us.

One summer afternoon I take the bus to her upstairs Marina District apartment. She sits next to me on the couch by the east facing windows. In the distance we see the spires of a Russian church. “I want to paint that one day.” She leans on my left shoulder as I feel her arm push against body.

So we gather a few things, she takes camera and film, I take some oranges and we drive off to my friends property just north of Guerneville and the Russian River.

After an hour’s drive we meet up with others at the communal barn and I play some songs with others on her guitar. We walk away and sit under a Manzanita tree and look southwest toward the Pacific Ocean.

“Look at the shades of grey on those mountains,” she comments as we lean against each other.

“Do you think a color or a black and white photo would capture it better?”

Always thinking in terms of light and color and never without her lens. I see the color of her flowing light brown hair touching my shoulder and the hint of a smile on her lips. Yes, it feels so serene sitting on the edge of the wilderness with this intense, fast-lane, self confident, beautiful person.

We walk back to the open air barn. Annie secures her camera on a tripod, sits close to me and just before the shutter opens, leans warmly against my right side and offers an embrace with her arms completely around my shoulders as we smile together into the camera.

Some months earlier Annie had taken me somewhere in the City to an art show of an older, well-known photographer whom she wanted to meet. We get separated for a while in the crowd. Later she finds me and in a quiet voice says; “I always knew where you were Nathan. I always knew you were here with me.”

We walk around together and I remember Annie extending her hand to some local celebrity and that person ignoring her gesture. I felt bad for my friend at that moment but she kept smiling to everyone as if nothing happened. Always admired her strength and social awareness.

Yes, she travels all over taking photos of people. Her work helps define some moments of the decade. Yet for some reason or another, we never talked about her adventures or all the celebrities. I don’t know, maybe that intrigued her; you know, her friend Nathan who graduated from Berkeley with a degree in philosophy, making a living playing street music, never asking her anything about her work. Whatever.

One night Annie and David came over to pick me up for a Randy Newman concert in the City. Her boss and his spouse (Jann, Jane) met us at the theatre, I believe it was somewhere near North Beach, might have been The Boarding House on Bush Street.

Anyway, there was a long line out front (the show was at midnight) so Jann went around the left side toward the back stage door. Someone let him in and the others followed. After Annie goes in, the stage person looks at me and closes the door. A moment later, the door opens, Annie reaches her arm out, grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me inside.

I remember before leaving the Bay Area in 1975 for Alaska, when I’d visit her sister Susan and Arnie at their beautiful little house on Rose Street, I would come over sometimes to watch their daughter Jennifer when they went out. Susan told me one morning that the little room just off the kitchen where I slept was the same room Annie used when she stayed. I guess in a way that meant we were sharing the same bed.

Later on we still see each other now and then, usually at her sister’s house in Berkeley but it’s closer to the time I plan to leave for Alaska and she’s preparing to go on tour with Mick Jagger and his crew and who knows what she’ll be like when that’s over. Even though I know we’re going separate ways, I still liked being in her presence and I think of her now and then. Some of those memories come out in verse and I pray she’s doing well.

So Anna Lou, how are you

I wonder where you been today.

You could have been most anywhere

chasing stars right through the air

but I don’t really care.

‘Cause when you’re standing

by my side, in my mind

I’m satisfied.

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