STRANGER THAN FICTION

A writer looks back at his youthful adventures in 1990s America through its grimy but pocket-friendly hostels

- ZAC O’YEAH

MY SUSPICIONS SHOULD HAVE BEEN AROUSED ON THE STAIRS WHICH, DESPITE THE RED CARPET, HAD AN AIR OF SHABBINESS COMBINED WITH THE ODOUR OF STALE BEER. THE RECEPTIONIST WANTED TO BE PAID FOR A WEEK STRAIGHT-UP, but I was just glad to have somewhere to crash; it was midnight, and shady characters hung outside the cocktail bar on the corner. My hostel was centrally located in San Francisco’s seedy North Beach area, which was, in the late ’90s, dotted with bars that once served as old beatnik hangouts—there’s even a Kerouac Street named after the famous ’50s’ vagabond writer—but now doubled as porn clubs that attracted a whole different clientele.

The night manager reeled off rules, handed me a bed sheet and directed me to the third floor, last door. But it’d have sufficed if he’d told me to follow my nose. Despite the window being wide open with flapping curtains, the room was filled with the bitterest cannabis fumes I’d ever smelled. A tattooed Australian with drooping moustache leered: “A newcomer.”

I thought for 10 seconds whether to stay or leave. But I was writing a travel book and needed to justify the publishing advance, and the scene was priceless. Besides, he probably did not mean to sound malicious, I thought, as the five lads were busy drugging themselves—smoking, snorting, drinking ...being happy.