Friday, April 30, 2004

Don’t Talk to Strangers

The past two posts have been about being on the bus and hearing things, or not hearing them, as the case may be. This is the third and last of this series.  Cleveland elects to receive. 

And then sometimes words aren’t even necessary:

I was riding home on a shockingly crowded bus at 8:30 or 9 at night; I wore a dark suit and carried a worn-out brain.  I was tired of arguing, of talk, of words.  I sat quietly, a magazine warming my lap, my eyes scanning it without much comprehension.

We were mostly commuters so we knew the rules: keep quiet, eyes to your lap, thoughts peacefully inward.  But nobody told him, or if they had, he had forgotten.  He was young, looked to be in good shape, maybe even smart.  He wore a cheap suit with his collar open and his tie loosened.  He was lit up, flushed and drunken.  In a mass of people jamming the aisle, he stood mumbling to himself and weaving, engaged in an out-loud internal monologue - laughing at imagined jokes, responding to the questions of his own overtaxed mind…. People tried to edge away but there really was nowhere to go. 

I was about four rows behind him.  Naturally, he caught my eye, and consequently I caught his.  Thankfully, I was too far away even to have to think about talking to him.  He had no such inhibitions, though, so he cheerfully started a conversation with me, speaking to me over a dozen strangers’ heads.  “Hey, how ya doin’?” With my eyes I tried to brush him off.  He misunderstood it as a reply, rather than just a response.  “Yeah, long day.  Don’t have to tell me twice.” I scoffed silently, he responded vocally, and the conversation continued in this fashion for some time - him speaking, me responding silently. 

He was finely attuned to the tiniest facial gestures, picked up on the smallest non-verbal cues.  Without meaning to, I began to toy with him.  Then, when I saw how easy it was, I began to do it on purpose.  I listened to his rantings and raised my brow, or turned down the corners of my mouth a millimeter or two, or looked away in a delicate gesture of mock rage; I made whatever minuscule changes of expression I thought would feed his randomly-firing neurons.  As a result, I somehow convinced him that: he’d been spied on, but wasn’t currently under surveillance; that I was with an intelligence (!) organization, but not working on his case directly; that I was, in reality, a mole working to destroy a corrupt system from the inside; and that our communication was not only unauthorized but dangerous for us both. 

Realizing how powerful an ally I was, and how exposed he was for fingering me in public surrounded by all these who-knows-whos, he suggested he’d better get off the bus for our mutual safety.  I agreed, closing my eyes with serene resignation.  When I opened them again, he was gone.  I tried to go back to my magazine but it seemed pathetically two-dimensional.  I was a double agent, after all.  There had to be something more gripping to read.  And in the end, nothing is so good a read as another person’s face. 

Thursday, April 29, 2004

What He Told Her at the Door

This is the second story about hearing and not hearing on the bus.  Where’s the first story, you ask?  Immediately below this one.  Like hell I’m going through the trouble of making a link for that.

And sometimes I realize that I’m missing something with the headphones....

She got on in the theater district with a bunch of art students who toted bulky portfolios and well-honed ennui; she glimmered unmistakeably among them despite her clear avoidance of any effort.  She carried a small plastic shopping bag with a box of cereal in it, wore a long plain grey coat and no makeup - except a French pedicure revealed by her delicate sandals.  Her hair hung straight and unstyled, pure gold.  Her face was the classic scandanavian ideal: small perfect features, icy blue eyes.  She sat across from me and kept to herself.  As other riders boarded and swarmed around her - art students, tenderloin drunks and hustlers, concertgoers heading home from Davies in the suits they wore to work - she sat like rock candy, a fructified gemstone, eyes on the road or in her lap, hands demurely folded.  She spoke to no one and no one spoke to her.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Not Overheard

I’m a bit brain dead this morning but that doesn’t diminish my residual and retroactive enjoyment of my evening yesterday.  It was a lovely banquet, and a great, though much too short, visit with my dad and connie and the family as well.  While I was there I thought dad would actually like to see some of the stuff I’ve been going on about to him for so long, so between the main course and dessert I fetched out my iPod and showed it to him.  “Well look at that,” he declared, “is that your TiVo?” They’re just so darn cute when they’re this age.  Turns out that I don’t think anybody at the table had ever seen an iPod and I got to do some basic demos two or three times over. People were pretty surprised by it. 

Already, for me it’s become the operating standard, the minimum mandatory requirement.  iPod, therefore I am.  However, that is such a shallow sentiment that it really makes me take stock of how much lately I’m sitting around surrounded by people - interesting people, even - and my ears are plugged with headphones, cutting me off from the throng of which I truly am a part.  I’ve been doing some thinking on this lately and it seems that sometimes hearing what’s happening is important and sometimes it’s not.  And this distinction is the basis for three short transit tales about hearing and speaking in their various permutations.  Why, here’s one now!

Sometimes I can see it all from the bus and I don’t even need to hear a single word:

They sit on a low concrete bench set into the sort of corporate plaza that blunts the vitality even of this city’s nerve center at nine a.m.  She is young and lovely with straight black hair, honey-tea skin, big almond eyes, and an ingenuous round face on which she bears an expresion of paralyzing tension.  She huddles in her down jacket holding her slim jean-clad legs tightly together. 

He sits next to her, young and hunky, tousled blonde locks and a square jaw, plaid shirt jacket, faded jeans and worn sturdy boots.  His eyes are on her as she stares out at the street; his body is turned toward her and his arm encircles her shoulder.  Their faces are close together, he’s speaking softly to her.  Her knees begin to bounce, small movements getting faster.  She doesn’t seem to be in control.  He turns her toward him and kisses her, tenderly, deeply.  Halfway through the kiss her knees stop shaking.  Their lips part; she rests her head on his chest and and he lays a quiet hand on her quiet leg.  The bus pulls away, taking me with it.