It was cold in that SF bus terminal
At 20 I was tiring of Atlanta where I'd been living for two years. It was a real city like San Francisco where I decided to go. I dimly sort of knew someone out there (I'd never met him but had spoken to him on the phone). I called him, told him I wanted to come and he invited me to stay with him.
Two hours later I was on the Greyhound bus. You could get a one way ticket to anywhere for $50 which was good I had little more than that. I don't remember the trip. I made it a few times. It might've been the time I sat next to a nutty gay woman. She knew the truth about the Kennedy assassination. She made it terrifyingly clear that if the secrets she knew were revealed there'd be a bloodbath. Whichever trip that was it lasted way too long.
When I hit the San Francisco bus terminal I had 69 cents. I didn't have my acquaintance's phone number. Or know his last name. Evening was coming on and by Georgia standards it was a bit nippy. I knew that even if I wanted to it'd be unwise to stay in the bus station. I didn't want to get arrested for vagrancy. If I'd know how liberal and humane San Francisco is I'd probably gone up to a cop.
An older gay man came up to me, said he guessed my plight and offered to take me home. I didn't have any illusions about what he wanted. But I couldn't think of anything else to do. (Nowadays I can think of exactly 32 other things I could've done.)
So I said OK. Turns out all he wanted was for me to take off my clothes and let him fondle me. Wasn't fun but it didn't disturb me. My recollection of it is fragmentary and fuzzy. I remember thinking of John Rechy's City of Night, a favorite novel of mine way back then.
When he'd was finished he told me that he had a friend I could go to. I was finally getting panicky. I didn't want to be an unpaid chain-whore.
Then I remembered the guy that I was going to stay with was a friend of the Rev. Ray Broshears, an eccentric publicity seeking gay activist. The founded The Lavender Panthers. I think they may have patroled the Castro with guns.
Broshears was in the phone book. I called him and explained. He told me to come over. I eventually got to the guy I was going to stay with.
Later I would sell my body for cash. Just once. And the people I'd left in Atlanta and the guy I was visiting in San Francisco are weirder, more colorful than any of the above. But those are stories for another day.
It was a great time to be young and do the damnest things.