City Lights, City Sights

I never thought I would love this city. Growing up, I was always convinced that I was a country girl, then and forever. But maybe... I'm an "everywhere" girl. Because with every day that I walk these sidewalks and look into these faces, I am more and more convinced that for now at least, this is where I belong.

What follows is a little account of one of the reasons why I love this place--the unique, sometimes comical, and (maybe for the first time in my life) real presence of the people who live here.

Carrie comes through the front door chucking. “I met that weird guy again today.” She throws her backpack on the floor, slides onto the couch, and kicks off her shoes all in one semi-fluid motion. That “weird guy” was the same one that she had met on the COTA bus three weeks before, and had gotten off a stop early because she was afraid that he would try to follow her home. He had sat next to her and drilled her with personal questions about who she was, where she was, and where she was going.

            “He seems less creepy, though,” she says. “I know now that he legit gets off at my stop, and he didn’t recognize me. Maybe he’s just super friendly?”

            One week later, I meet the “weird guy.” I sat in an inside seat near the front of the bus on the right side. A girl with a purple sweater from Old Navy sits down next to me.

            “I have that sweater,” I say.

            “That’s cool! It’s the time of year for it.” She smiles. I smile back. We both face forward. The bus lurches over the uneven pavement as car sounds, music sounds, and dim people sounds drift through the bus’ stalwart walls. But we are silent.

            A small man with grey hair comes on the bus, muttering to himself as he fumbles with his bus pass, shoving it into an old wallet covered in a random assortment of torn and dirty stickers. He looks at me. “Hello girl.”

            “Hello.”

            He nods to the girl sitting next to me. “How you doing?”

            “Fine.”

            He sits in the seats in front of us, his head angled just slightly more toward us than it should be. After 30 seconds of silence, he turns around. “How old are you?”

            “Twenty.” I say.

            “You?” he asks the other girl.

            “Twenty.”

            “I’m fifty-five. What’s your major?”

            “English.”

            “What’s yours?”

            “Italian and the Classics.”

            “Where do you live?”

            “Close.”

            “Oh my brother he treats me like shit like shit I have to live with him you know what I mean?”

            “That’s too bad.”

            “You live with people?”

            “Yes.”

            “Oh.” He turns around and sits in silence as the bus lurches into motion again.

            The girl and I look at each other with raised eyebrows and shrugs. Suddenly, we are no longer two strangers sitting together on a bus. “So,” I say, “your major’s Italian and the Classics?”

            We near North Broadway, and I pull the cord. The man in front of us stands to get off. The girl next to me looks at me in alarm. “I can get off with you, if you want.”

            “No, I think I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.” We smile and nod a goodbye.

            The man and I wait together at the crosswalk. A lady jogs past us. “Hello, lady!” He turns to me, “she’s good she’s running I like girls some guys they like guys but I like girls you know what I mean?”

            “Yes, I think so.”

            “My brother he treats me like shit some girls are mean you’re not mean?”

            “I sure hope not.” It is taking a long time for the light to change.

            “Some girls they think I’m weird but I’m just being friendly just being friendly know what I mean?”

            “Of course I do.” The light changes. We cross High Street in silence, and, without a word, he turns right at the opposite sidewalk as I turn left.