The Chain Saw Story

A true story witnessed and written by Lynda Williams

One Day I was walking down Fern Alley in the lovely Tenderloins of San Fransisco when I saw a scavenger going through a dumspter pull something out. Curious, I went over to inspect.
It was a bloody chainsaw.

It was pretty fresh. We pondered why someone would throw away what looked to be a very new but bloody chainsaw in a dumpster on Fern Alley. He was pretty panicky about the whole thing, like it was a bad omen. My mind was reeling with images from The Chainsaw Masacre, as I tried to fathom a story. The scavenger, quick to realize a definite "score" convinced himself that the chainsaw was involved in a construction site accident and that, as an offering or something, the colleagues of the wounded worker took the chainsaw and threw it away so that no one else would ever get hurt by it again. He wanted that chainsaw. He said, "I left my chainsaw in New York. I could really use it."

I said, look, maybe this thing was used in some kind of crime and we should notify the police about it. He was against that idea. No, he argued, the cops would just throw it away themselves and he would get nothing. The fresh chunks of flesh and bone and the stuborness of the scavenger started to get to me. "Look," I said, "I know this is going to sound crazy but I am an artist and I would really like to shoot this thing before you take it. It's not everyday you come across a bloody chainsaw and I just live around the corner. Do you mind just waiting for a few moments while I run and get my camera?" He grudgingly agreed - on one condition - I had to bring him a peanut butter sandwich.

I ran home, made a sandwich, grabbed my camera and called the cops, hoping I would have enough time to shoot before they got there. It took them forever. The scavenger got real antsy as he wolfed down the sandwich. "How many pictures are you going to take?" he asked. Finally the cops showed up. They took a look, called a backup and snapped on their plastic gloves. Odd enough, rather than being upset over my obvious betrayal, the scavenger took command, explaining everything to the cops. Finally I approached one of them, "Excuse me," I butted in, "don't you want to talk to me? I'm the one who called." "Oh," he said, giving me a quick up and down, "I thought you were with him." A few days later I read in the newspaper the story of the chainsaw.

I was furious that the cops took credit for finding the chainsaw. So I wrote Herb Caen. He wrote me a note saying how humorous the truth was but he never mentioned it in his column. A year or so later he wrote in his column that the couple were back together again, living happily in the Tenderloin. But me, I never get credit for nothing!!!