I knew Bernie was fleeing a delusional threat, but I also knew it had to be huge and overwhelming, as big as the federal government, because Bernie’s physical courage was extraordinary, impressing me the more for my lack of it.
For instance, the night we were driving home from a movie, and while waiting at a red light at Masonic and Fell, Bernie suddenly yelled at me, “Get down! Get down!” and he dove to the floor. I was behind the wheel and looked toward him and saw in the car in the adjacent lane a cat my age with a long Beatle-cut and a crazed leer pointing at me something like the barrel of a gun with cloth draped over it. I dove to the floor too. Then waited. Nothing happened. The light changed and I raised my head to watch the loony drive off.
“I’ll bet that’s not a gun?” I said.
“That thun-of-a-bitch.”
“Let’s follow ‘im.”
And we took off. While our rage grew, we followed him down Masonic, across Oak and uphill, then across Page, and as we were about to cross Haight, he made a u-turn at Waller, a short block ahead, and came back toward us.
“Maybe it is a gun,” I said.
The light was yellow. I had a second to decide. I made a quick left turn, cutting in front of the loony, who then turned right, coming up behind us. I pulled to the curb and he went around us, leering and pointing something, like before, except on my side. Like before also, he seemed to be satisfied with our cowering on the floor. But unlike before, he did the same to a taxi double-parked in front of us, and I knew we had him. The taxi would have a two-way radio.
Bernie and I got out and, in the chilly wind, paced in circles on the sidewalk. Macho indignation was gone now and I just felt fear. Bernie was still muttering his outrage, showing no fear at all. After a few minutes, my knees suddenly became wobbly. I thought for a moment I wouldn’t be able to stand but recovered. Then a police patrol car came toward us and I ran into the street to stop it.
“The guy with the gun in a tan Chevy?” the cop in the passenger seat asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
And the patrol car shot down the street. I was impressed not only by Bernie’s lack of fear, while I trembled, but also his quick thinking when he first spotted the loony. This was during the emergence of the first celebrity homicidal maniacs like the never-caught Zodiac killer who preyed on random strangers in the Bay Area. When the City was being terrorized by the Zebra killers, a murder cult of black men, most of whose white victims were pedestrians, Bernie walked the nearly deserted streets with a pistol in his coat pocket. He saw this as a civic obligation as well as a personal challenge.
