A Writing Group · San Francisco
Writing by and for working people since 2005
Memoir & Fiction
Keith David Cooley (1950–) is a writer of fiction and memoir. He grew up in London, England, and attended Abbotsfield Secondary Modern School, where he took O-level plumbing and passed with grade 1. He later took a degree from the University of Nottingham — the first member of his family and his school to go to university.
In 1981, Keith escaped the Thatcher years in England by moving to the USA — where, as a result, he had to endure the Reagan years. In 2002 he moved to San Francisco and now lives within earshot of the foghorns on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Keith has written four novels: Initiation into the Secrets: An Adventure, Scutchamer Knob: A Sixties Mystery, Comatose: The Stuff of Nightmares, and The Virgin and the Sorcerer; and two nonfiction books: Redlands Bust: When the British Establishment Tried to Get the Rolling Stones and King Dave.
For more information visit www.keithcooley.com.
Reality is never uniform. It's woven from many voices.
The phone rang. Answered to a woman's voice: "Hello I am responding to your ad for a one bedroom apartment on 17th in the Richmond." "Yes. Do you have any questions about the apartment?" "No. I want to arrange a time to come and look at it." "OK. But first I need to ask you about your employment and income." "I am a teacher and work nearby at the Middle school on 18th." "I see. I want to let you know that we require that applicants have a monthly gross income of at least three times the monthly rent." "Oh. And what is the rent?" "2500 dollars." "So I would have to make 7500 a month. I don't make that." "Well I'm sorry there is no point in me showing the apartment to you. These are our requirements." She said, "Thank you." She hung up the phone.
At the Senior Center seated at a square table, next to me, sat Martha, a dignified black woman in her late sixties, born here but with parents from Arkansas who were brought to the city to work at the shipyard at the time of the Second World War. She told me, "I live in a SRO on 6th south of Market. And I've got a Western Addition voucher. Been waiting 7 years for affordable housing. I want to stay in my South of Market neighborhood." I asked, "What about the Tenderloin?" She shook her head. "No I would never live there. I'm worried cos my voucher runs out next year." "What will you do then?" "I don't know."
Performed at Bird and Beckett, LaborFest, July 21, 2015 · © Keith David Cooley 2015
Once upon a time there was a Venture Capitalist named Otto Cantu. Otto looked after quadrillions of dollars of other people's money but he always had his own skin in the game. Otto handed out money to those who would perform for him by jumping over the bar he set.
What Otto liked to do most was to have parties for his friends. They came up to his house on Skyline Drive. Jesus, Otto's manservant, ushered guests out to the deck with its view down into Silicon Valley and the concrete bunkers where engineers worked all hours, watched by MBAs, in companies that Otto funded. The highlight of Otto's parties was the game. Each game was different. The winners received a prize — a little gewgaw — perhaps a Lexus or a Rolex.
At one party Jesus laid a cotton sheet on the floor of the deck. He then placed a tower of flour on top of the sheet. It loomed above everyone twenty feet high. On top of the flour tower was perched a little model aeroplane. The guests took turns shaving pieces off with a machete — whoever made the plane fall had lost.
A year later Susan crashed the plane somewhere in the Pacific and was never seen again. Freddie became a monk. Kevin opened a successful Burger King franchise. While Dung bought a house in old Palo Alto. Otto lived happily ever after — at least until the NASDAQ crashed, again.
LaborFest Reading, 2011 · © Keith David Cooley 2011
A blacktop road on the ragged edge of the city, on one side an industrial park of tatty low-slung concrete buildings, on the other fast food joints, vacant stores, a low rent motel and dilapidated buildings of uncertain utility. It was one of those gunmetal days typical of the Bay, the sky heavy with clouds pressing down. Everything drenched with grayness, it was a slow motion video of perpetual twilight.
Slumped in the front seat of the black car was a pale-faced man wearing jeans and windbreaker. He hummed an unknowable tune. The car had its sunshades pulled down — between the door metal and the shades there was a glimpse of black plastic, a camera with the telephoto lens a foot and a half long.
"I've been here in a twiddle since 5 this morning, staring at the same spot: a wall, a door, a parked car under this gray sky. I feel like I am living in a poorly lit movie set. Nothing has happened for hours. I've eaten three belly-burgers and drank too much sickly sweet soda."
As the black car sped away, visible on the back shelf was a knit cap emblazoned with the letters U C A T — the Union of Carpenters and Allied Trades.
LaborFest Reading, 2010 · © Keith David Cooley 2010 · Voices are fictional, inspired by the Federal Writers' Project 1936–1940
My dad was a plumber, my great uncle George Henry was a plumber, so was my grandfather — so it was in the family, but still I was not expected to be a plumber. But this was after the Great War. Men in my family and many others were killed in the war. My Uncle Len was killed; my dad came back with shell shock and could not work for twelve years. At first I did a little bit with my dad helping me. He said, "Come on Hilda you can do it." My dad could not hold a wrench what with the shaking hands, but he could tell me what to do.
I found I had a natural facility for it. I did not mind the muck and all the dirt; I cleared things up and got the water running. I felt good! Then my dad's friend Mr. Percival Quinton needed a plumber to fix a clogged drain. Nobody could come except me. Mr. Percival said, "Who cleared that?" I said, "I did." He said, "Who helped you?" I said, "I did it alone." He was gobsmacked.
I believe I was the only woman employed as a plumber south of the river. I read in the paper the other day that when they did the census there were only 28 woman plumbers in the whole of England.
I like plumbing because you relate to people in a straightforward way — you see their shit, and smell it, whether they are rich and educated and work in the city or work in the docks. Everyone has to go to the toilet. It's all the same stuff that comes out.
LaborFest Reading, City Lights Bookstore, July 13, 2008 · © Keith David Cooley 2008