Fred the Basset Hound walked into The Double Play like he owned the place. He pumped his short legs up the bar’s three cracked tile steps, strided through the open door, and sniffed along the barstools. He went all the way past the end of the mostly-empty bar, made a loop around the pool table in the next room, and then came back and went under the plank and right up to Burt, the bartender:
Where’s Warren? He asks.
“Try over in North Beach,” said Burt. “I heard him say something about stopping at Cookie’s. Or was it Gino’s?” Fred asks Burt to call him a cab.
Burt calls City Cab, Warren’s taxi company of choice. Dispatch is familiar with his dog, his bars, and his timescale. Fred is waiting outside when the cab arrives. The driver looks and looks at the bar door, sees no one, and honks his horn. Burt comes out and points down at Fred. The driver puts the cab in park, comes out and opens the back passenger door for the dog, asking Burt “Why didn’t you say it was for Fred?”
Take me to Cookie’s in Portsmouth Square, Fred says. I’m looking for Warren.
“I just heard dispatch say they dropped him at The Dovre Club,” the driver tells Fred.
The cab turns left instead of right and heads for the Mission. The cab makes a u-turn on 18th Street at Lapidge and pulls up to the bar, which is nestled in the eastern corner of the Women’s Building. The driver opens the door and Fred hops out.
Thanks Mac, Fred says and uses his long nose to push open the heavy wood swinging door. Inside there is Irish music playing on the juke box and a sign over the bar that says “Toast to the final defeat of the British in Northern Ireland.” Fred shakes from nose to tail in the center of the bar, which is empty except for one patron dozing on his stool and Paddy Nolan, the owner & bartender.
Where’s Warren?
“Fred! Good tah see ya. Warren just left. He said you’re going to the opera tonight, is that so?” Fred spreads his caramel-colored ears like an elephant chasing an impala.
First I’ve heard of it, Fred says. But I believe it’s La Boheme tonight. I love Puccini.
“Well, you best be gettin’ your tux and hat,” says Paddy. “Come on then.” He shakes the man on the stool awake and tells him to take over the bar.
Fred and Paddy walk down 18th and across the street and stop in front of a pale green two-story building. Fred follows Paddy up the steep steps into his flat, which is painted entirely green on the inside. They walk through the hallway (Emerald Green) and into the spare bedroom (Hunter Green) that Paddy uses as a storage space for the bar. On the wall is a poster showing a dinner plate with piles of dog poop, each with a mayoral candidate’s 1987 campaign button stuck in it. The headline is
TIRED OF THE SAME OLD CRAP? HINCKLE FOR MAYOR”
Paddy starts opening cardboard boxes and rifling through them. “Now where the feck is it…”
Fred stares at the taxidermied corpse of Odhran, Paddy’s terrier that passed away last year, now standing forever at attention on a piece of oak with wheels and currently residing on top of a chest. “Ah, here it is!”
Paddy pulls out a dog tuxedo in black felt and it’s matching top hat. Pieces begin to fall off and both of them can see that it’s full of moth holes. Fred arches his brow and looks distastefully at the disintegrating suit.
“Well you can’t very well wear that, can you,” says Paddy and sits with a sad slump on an old chair.
What about Nancy? Fred suggests. Nancy the seamstress can sew anything. Warren had profiled her once in his newspaper column.
“Grand idea Fred!” Says Paddy. They leave the house and walk up 18th towards the Castro, stopping in front of a little shop on the corner at Hartford. In the window, there are fancy costumes, tall red patent leather lace up platform boots, and a nun’s habit reworked as a rainbow. The door makes a little bell ring as they open it. Nancy looks up, sees Paddy and Fred and jumps up from her chair.
“Fred dahling! Where have you been? Paddy, what are you wearing?”
Paddy explains Fred needs a new tux for the opera tonight.
“Do you have time to do it love? For Fred?”
“I’ll make time.” Nancy picks up the phone and calls Sister Boom Boom and tells them that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will need to wait an extra day for their latest habits. She measures Fred, pulls out some bolts of black satin and gets to work. Fred lays down on a nice soft rug in the corner and closes his eyes.
“Come back in 2 hours,” she tells Paddy, who heads back to the bar.
Fred is standing in the middle of the shop with Nancy on her knees next to him making adjustments when Paddy comes back through the door.
“Jeez, doesn’t he look swell,”
“It’s really some of my finest work,” says Nancy.
They stand back as Fred models his black satin jacket, tails, and a top hat. Nancy snaps a polaroid. Paddy tells Fred he has tracked Warren down at Gino & Carlo and a cab is on the way. The cab arrives and Nancy opens the door and Fred hops in the back seat. She and Paddy wave goodbye as Fred looks out the window with his brown eyes shining under his black top hat.
But when Fred walks into Gino’s, Frank the bartender tells him that Warren just left to buy the papers. “That’s quite a suit Fred, you look real sharp.”
Fred heads down Green Street to Columbus Avenue, turns left and walks four blocks to Broadway, then crosses the street to City Lights Bookstore. He passes the front desk, where no one even mentions his outfit, and heads to the periodicals section.
“Fred, you know I can’t have you in here,” says a tall man with a short grey beard and a wool cap.
Where’s Warren? Fred asks in response. Lawrence yells to the front desk and asks if Warren has been in. Fred hears someone yell, “Yeah, he just left with a pile. He was headed across the street to Tosca. Slick suit Fred!”
“OK, Fred, move it along please.” Lawrence shoos him outside. Fred waits a beat then takes a leak on the edge of the tiled doorway. The man may be a great poet, Fred thinks, but what an asshole.
Fred looks both ways then lopes across Columbus and pushes open the swinging glass and brass door into Tosca. Opera is playing on the ancient jukebox and Fred recognizes an aria from Gounod’s Faust. Fred can smell Warren from the door. He trots, tail high and wagging, straight to the end of the bar and jumps up on his pant leg. Warren is standing behind the massive cappuccino machine, having a drink with Jeannette, his high school friend and Tosca’s owner.
“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Jeannette says to Fred, exhaling smoke from her cigarette. Does she have to say that every time, Fred wonders and rolls his eyes.
“Fred! You’re late! What obtains?” Warren says and stoops down, giving him a loving caress. “You look terrific! Hey Christine, can we get a burger for Fred? His usual?” Warren asks the waitress.
I’m late? I’ve been looking all over town for you! Don’t we have to be at the opera house by 7 for the curtain? You know I hate to miss the opening scenes.
“That’s right Warren, I don’t want to miss the red carpet,” Jeanette adds. After Fred’s plain hamburger and Warren’s next two drinks, the three of them get in a cab and head for the Civic Center.
But the red carpet in front of the War Memorial Opera House is already empty.
At the door to the opera, the clerk is confused as he checks their tickets. He looks down at Fred and says. “I’m sorry but there are no dogs allowed in the Opera House.”
“Why? He meets the dress code. Can you show me where it says no dogs allowed?” Warren says. The clerk points to a sign behind them that says NO DOGS ALLOWED.
“Let me talk to your manager.”
Fred feels embarrassed and wants to leave but Warren insists, citing chapter and verse about freedom of assembly, discrimination and such. “This is my seeing eye dog,” Warren says pointedly to the manager, pointing to his eyepatch and then pointing to Fred. “He is my necessary companion. Do you want to take it up with the ADA?”
“Are you Warren Hinckle the writer?” The manager asks, suddenly putting together the eye patch, patent leather shoes with bow ties, and, of course, THE DOG. “Well, if he’s a service dog, I suppose we can make an exception.”
The manager leads them to their box and lets them in as the second act begins. Fred asks Warren to put two chairs together and hops up, turning his head towards the stage and settles in as the orchestra strikes up the sounds of La Boheme’s “Arranci, datteri!” Warren falls asleep in his chair almost immediately.
At intermission Warren awakes. “Let’s go get a drink downstairs,” he says.
Fred heads backstage to congratulate the artists and meet with the cats that keep the rats out of the opera house. Frisco the tabby tells him that he’s heard better sopranos. Fred heads back to their box.
Warren is gone. On Fred’s chair there is a note written with a red felt tip marker on a cocktail napkin: MEET US AT TOSCA.
Fred gets to enjoy the rest of the opera in peace.
Fred was inspired by Bentley and Melman, two of my father Warren Hinckle’s real life Basset Hounds. They had many adventures including going to the opera and being picked up in cabs and brought to bars to wait for Warren.
Great descriptions of SF. Can't believe the Double Play is gone. Used to watch Giants games there on occasion. My grandfather took my uncle to see a young Willie McCovey play in 1958 across the street at Seals Stadium before the 'Stick was built.