Old-Timey

It was Friday night and the bus heading downtown would be packed. Capacity was one-hundred and four riders, and every one of us got a good look. I was in a line on the sidewalk in the cold wondering why this was taking so long. I was one step up when some idiot didn’t have their bus pass ready. I was two steps up as that sour-scented man fumbled for enough change. When I soldiered onto the crowded bus not quite consciously sliding my bus pass against the scanner is when I noticed her. A stunner of a woman before me. Her dress was this old-timey, 19th century Little House on the Prairie look, speckled with powdered greens and blues, complete with bonnet. My eyes traveled to her face, and my grimace must have been noticeable.

Disfigurement. One half of her old, sandpapered face was caved in. It was a long, drawn out moment that I could only wonder by what means.

But as I filed along to the back of the crowded bus, I noticed an unexpected feeling take hold. I found a smile sauntering across my lips.

“You see that?” I asked my roommate.

She looked up from her cell phone. “See what?”

“Nevermind.”

That costume was such a queer sight, and it had really affected me. Instead of the usual pity, the sympathy and injustice, I was grinning over that anachronistic flair and the curiosity of the whole encounter. That costume just screamed contentment. And self-confidence. And oddity.

I felt good. Something had happened. I still notice when it does.

Chris

Though we never talked, I had been curious about Chris for quite a while. He’s a mousy young college student with a whispy moustache that it seems only certain Asians can accidentally grow. I used to see him once a week in the evening for drawing class, and sometimes I’d wonder if I had what he did, would it make me better at drawing?

Chris can’t hear or speak.

I heard once that those who are deaf from birth are the mute ones because they never heard what vocalization sounds like. Well Chris never spoke except through signs to his interpreters, two women who dutifully came to class and switched off every twenty minutes.

But if he ever wanted to interact with any of his classmates he’d never be able to speak directly to them. One of the women would have to do the talking, and the other person would have to make a mindful effort to maintain eye contact with Chris. Naturally people would feel they were chatting with the interpreter instead. It was awkward. Anytime he wanted to talk, this is what Chris went through.

If your ‘words’ go through someone else, then can you still enjoy that simple pleasure of conversation? One day at the college bookstore I found out.

Instead of ‘hello’ he gave me a quick glance of recognition and engagement, an over-before-you-know-it dilation of the eyes and opening of the mouth, and though I didn’t mean to, I automatically exchanged that same glance. It reminded me how much of communication is nonverbal and subconscious.

He then started scowling, and I couldn’t be sure but figured it was because of the long line to get textbooks. I realized I couldn’t give a quick “hey, how you doing?” If we were going to “talk” it would take some investment and effort. I pulled some post-its out of my back pocket and we dialogued.

What is your name?

My name is Christian, but you call me Chris.

Me, Tony.

Nice to meet you. I know you familiar in Bcc LoL.

I gave him a smile and looked around wondering what to “say”. He gestured to his phone and started punching out a text message. It took him some time, and as he punched in the text he kept waving his finger in the air as if to say, “wait, wait, it’s coming!” I imagine this was an attempt to keep my attention. It was already his.

Do you know how much for books?

I looked at his class list and replied on a new post-it.

I want to know too, but different class.

Maybe these books? Two names, same class.

He flips my paper over and responds.

Its different. I show you exactly.

Technology has been a wonder for the disabled. With his cell phone he showed me the book he needed on Amazon, but I couldn’t find it in the bookstore catalogue. I wrote back.

That register has a shorter line,

you can ask questions.

but I don’t have money tomorrow anyways.

Hmmm... Well, doesn’t seem like there’s much either of us can do. He furtively glanced about, plotting his next move. I was already down to my last post-it and figured about this time would be a gracious exit. How to do it?

It was a bit overkill. With brows raised so high you could tell my eyes were spheres I cocked my head back like I was going to swing it right into the conversation. My nostrils flared. My right palm rotated upwards, the fingers dangled, the lips puckered to prime him for what was coming. I leaned into his field of vision, and then...

Well, I said it out loud.

“I’m going to get out of here...”

He nodded.

He smiled.

Yeah, we talked.

Ray

Guy goes up on stage and kills it with these other two women in his band. Odd moment afterwards, he's all bathed in glory and starts packing up his guitar next to me.

Telling... what? What was I trying to say?

Written at the scene.

me: I told him, really awesome... no... when I... well, I just started playing and that was so beautiful! I didn't know that kind of music was possible, so amazing, and when I look back on my life, when I look back I'll always remember listening to you play man, right there. ( I point)

him: Thanks man.

We're also selling CDs...

When are you on?

strange encounters I

I know why people are sometimes hesitant to talk to strangers. Oh my god, what if you have nothing to talk about? What if it gets awkward? I feel like this sometimes too, but if someone you're with does all the talking, takes all the risks, well I'll stand back and observe...

I was waiting outside of a bar in Oakland with my girlfriend and her girlfriends, and they had to pee. All of them. We were all caught in that awkward space right outside the bar's doors where you're just inviting people to creep up on you. An older black woman approached us. She was obviously drunk and asked for a cigarette.

Everyone fumbled around, some excuses were made, but one girl Meagan, easily the sweetest of the bunch and not much of a smoker, she struggled to get a cigarette out of its pack. First a crumpled one, not polite to hand that to a stranger so she shoves it back in. An awkward urgency set in just then, that anxiousness which precedes social rituals that aren't going as planned. With nervous fingers Meagan plucked the next cigarette from the package and hurriedly handed it over to the woman. It was half-smoked. It hurt to watch.

The woman wasn't reacting at all to this. Her eyes were glazed over, she was hunched over, but our encounter wasn't over. She started with some obligatory small talk, which everyone quickly tried to turn away from and ignore. We were just leaving, nobody wanted to get sucked back in…

One girl listened, said a few words to the woman, engaged her. I can't remember the last time I saw a woman dressed with that kind of timeless 70's class. A nice shiny blouse, bell-bottom pants, and a matching afro made me realize that this woman was time-traveling. That's why I watched and listened.

The woman leaned with a serious hunch in her back and her hips pressed to the wall, truly needing the support as she took slight puffs of the cigarette. She appeared to move in slow motion. She was that kind of drunk where anything can happen, where you're surprised a person can still talk but you listen because you know anything can be said. Barely standing, barely able to keep her eyes on us, barely able to get the words out of her lips but she had something to say to us, a bunch of young white college students. Her words need little context.

"EDUCATION" she said, "we've got to educate ourselves, so the educated can stand up for the rest. Elsewise nobody's even gonna realize what's going on."

We were already on our way out, people were looking to have a good time and nobody was going to "waste" another minute to listen to this woman. As we were leaving she asked us to remember something.

She summoned strength, pushed off from the wall and found her balance. She raised one arm.

"Together we stand… and divided we fall."

Her eyes lost their focus, her knees trembled, and she fell.

What I write in my journal.

What happened today? I heard a friend talk a lot about how important friendship is to him. “What’s one of the best things about being alive?” he asked me. Right now I say some sex. He says friendship.

I saw people go way too lax on a person just because they liked him and thought he was funny. I saw that same person tell jokes instead of apologizing. This person let their own standards of how they should behave fall to what others expected. That’s shameful.

Looking back, that was one eventful day.

The Mission

Beautiful sunny day in the Mission district. High of 82 degrees, and it's the middle of October. I've been walking around all day. I ate so much Mexican food I can feel the extra weight in my knees. I stopped by an independent book store and read one of those homemade comics, not even stapled together, about how to survive as an artist. First page, FLOSS. Lot less expensive than a root canal or a vicodin dependency.

I'm starting to feel like I've got this whole thing figured out, the good life, long walks, refreshing water, beautiful art on the walls and nothing but my happy thoughts as I anonymously roam the neighborhood. I'm passing the corner store, just at that moment thinking that this neighborhood is too pleasant to have a liquor store...

Commotion.

"You…. GAHHH, MOTHERFUCKER!!"

Whoa. I turn and see a hefty white woman in a shoving match with a young black teenage, just at the store's door. I guess I should have expected it, but the woman nearly bowls the kid over. She was hefty. He stumbles away, clutching at his own backpack and bolts like lightning.

I've developed a physiological state I call crisis mode, and I feel it coming on. With a raised voice I ask her, "What's going on!?"

"Kid tried to reach into my pocket, trying to steal somethin'. Good thing there wasn't anything in there…" She's pissed, not scared in the slightest. She stares him down as he's running down the street, then turns and goes in the liquor store.

There are people everywhere, but only one other person gives a hoot. A white elderly woman wearing a BMX helmet bikes up. We share a look of mutual concern. She asks and I tell her what happened.

And that's it.

That's all that happened.

No cops.

No people coming up to console the near-victim.

Nothing.

I guess that was just no big deal. I guess people are used to that, but I sure as hell am not. All sorts of thoughts flooded through my head just then, mostly realizing that could have happened to me just now.

That crisis mode stayed with me for hours. I felt my anger, my pride, a feeling of DON'T FUCK WITH ME BECAUSE I'LL RUN AND CATCH YOU, YOU UNDERSTAND? I wanted to scream that at everyone.

I walked back to the BART with clenched fists. My thoughts were interrupted on three separate occasions by police sirens. Now I can imagine growing up poor and black. Poor and Mexican. No daddy, shitty teachers, no way out and no chance to even dream.

I'm coming to realize that this is just life on the streets. Scenes of incredible drama play out before my eyes ALL THE TIME.

Man tears his wife from her (their?) toddler child outside a day care center and shoves her into the car. "I TOLD YOU GET THE FUCK IN THA CAR!"

A cracked out woman cries, no, moans into a pay phone, "But why you never calling me! Why I's always calling you, don't you love me!??"

I never wanted the world to be a suburban fairytale filled with green grassy fields and strip malls. But right now I'm wondering why I choose to see the ugly. It's more than I can take some days. I mean that.

Flowers

I generally try to shy away from tight alleyways and other places that would be hard to flee.

That's not true. That didn't happen.

Up ahead was a narrow outdoor stairway. It bordered a creek which seemed to ascend into the trees. Piece of cake, "my day's workout" I told myself. Halfway up a shirtless, dreadlocked, tattooed black man noticed me coming and became noticeably more excited. I stereotype, so this didn't seem good.

He rushed up. He needed my help.

Now I felt the need to at least listen here, and when I slowed he held up his elbow. All I could see was blood and all I could notice was its size, swollen up. All he was asking was for me to wrap it up with this scarf, "you know, like they do in the hospital."

It was at this point where, curiously, my mind was worried about my defenseless self having both my hands tied up in a task, while I was somehow elsewhere. "How strange this is" I thought, and I smiled.

"Can you help me out man? Mah arm's all swolled up. Yeah, yeah." And a billion other only partially relevant statements flooded from him while I did my work. His name was Flowers, and pretty soon I knew what happened, where he worked, what he was doing the night before, and how old he was. And we still had to walk the other half of the stairs.

By the top I had a better picture of what he thought about things. He was a "doctor of the streets" but his wife worked at a hospital. I knew she was going to take care of him. And I knew he was on his way to take care of that 40oz beer in the plastic bag.

"You know how to get to Laney College?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm going that way, you can follow me."