I used to go see Brooks Penney, the man who took this photo, and do drugs, sing blues, talk about blues, and listen to the greats in blues . He was an intelligemt man, Brooks, really very well educated. All he wanted was to be "street' and to be a part of that "street thing." He grew up in some small farm town in Texas and came out here to go to school at UCSF--graduated in English Literature. While his friends were teaching and finishing up their disseratations, Brooks was walking catty up on those high beams where those men that stick the chrome and steel together roam. I heard another iron worker say that Brooks was "so catty"! He wasn't afraid to walk on thin beams in the sky--but he was afraid of other things.

Brooks was my first great fan--a true believer in my talent. I did everything that a human being coud do to Brooks Penney while an addict-- short of being malicious. He still stuck by me as a friend. Even after I changed my lifestyle, we still remained friends. Brooks was stabbed to death in a Tenderloin hotel in 1999. Probably a drug deal gone bad. I went to see him one morning and the Patel woman said that he had been murdered. No one had come to get his things--no one who had even inquired as to what should happen to the body. She wanted me to find his relatives. I said I would try.

Photo: Brook Penney