Faces look familiar, but names getting a little foggy

It was a late morning in midAugust, and Karlotta the Fog was still flirting with Frank the City. (Yes, I know that Karlotta used to be Karl, but in this city her gender is her choice. I’ve been calling her Karlotta for years, but in 2020, news outlets publicized the more informal Karla.)

Oh, Karlotta’s surely packing up her bags and getting ready to go wherever she goes for the fall, but on this day, she drifted downhill, leaving enough room for a glimpse of that bright cerulean blue sky.

I was walking along Van Ness Avenue and, it being a weekday, I was in my uniform. As I reached the corner of Market Street, a woman at the bus stop tilted her head, in the way people do when they’re trying to remember who you are, and then she broke into a wide smile and she yelled, “Tell me a poem!”

I’m at that age. In six decades, I’ve met more people than I can remember. When I get introduced at a party, I disclaim, “Please remind me of your name when next we meet. The neurons aren’t firing as quickly as they used to.”

When people recognize me, I don’t want them to feel bad that I don’t remember their name. I’m not all that important, after all, and I don’t want my poor memory to reflect on their self-worth.

And most of the time, I’m at a disadvantage because my name plate and badge are right there, but most people don’t walk around with identifying placards on their chest.

Most times I look for clues, like if they’re wearing a fanny pack they’re probably sworn and off duty. In leotards and leg warmers, they’re likely to have danced with my husband. If they’ve got a Chronicle in their hand, they recognize me from the back page (above the fold) and they wonder what I’m doing so far away from the outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior.

Sometimes I bluff: “I haven’t seen you since ... ” And I let the ellipsis sit there until they rush in with “Easter Mass” or “that meeting of the coven.” This at least tells me the denomination.

But the woman asked for a poem, so although I couldn’t say her name, I knew exactly where and when we met. In 2011, I was the lieutenant in the women’s jail downtown on Seventh Street, that large roundish building right off Highway 101, with the windows painted to look like the fog (Karlotta, by the way, doesn’t think it favors her). I worked swing watch then, Tuesday through Saturday, and on Wednesdays we had inspections. The tradition was that for whichever pod had won the highest scores, I’d recite a poem.

At first I’d spout limericks I had picked up on pub crawl, but as time went on, as I walked my rounds on Tuesday nights, I’d memorize sonnets and sestinas, working my way up to all 13 stanzas of “Casey at the Bat.”

When she gave me the context, I remembered her and her story. There aren’t many good tales about how people get to jail, and hers was sad. But today was turning into a sunny day, the way the dog day afternoons go in August, and the Giants were four games ahead of the Dodgers, which is how it should be, and this woman looked happy that she had run into the guy who used to run the jail she sat in.

For her, and the ladies of D Pod, “Tell me a poem” meant they had won something, even if it was only a haiku. So I tossed off a little Shakespeare (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day … ”) and asked how she was doing.

“Great,” she said, before talking about her children and asking about Zane and Aidan while the bus arrived.

A lot of cops carry their guns all the time off duty. They worry about meeting people they’ve seen in jail. But me, I only wear that Glock when I must.

I’m not worried about whether people remember me, as long as they’re not offended if I don’t remember their moniker. I barely remember Karlotta’s.

But I hope they remember me with kindness.

The woman asked for a poem, so although I couldn’t say her name, I knew exactly where and when we met. In 2011, I was the lieutenant in the women’s jail downtown on Seventh Street.