Thursday, May 29, 2003

Aint that a Kick in

Aint that a Kick in the Khakis?

Yesterday, it was my turn.  I was feeling all positive and proactive, having worked hard, gotten lots done, and then leaving early to go to my interview for assignment to an “adult learner” in my literacy program.  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and I was dressed unobtrusively in a standard but flattering ensemble.  I caught a bus north, rode it with a very mixed bag of denizens and some “deni’s” who weren’t so “zen,” disembarking at the same stop as several pushy youths, a few slowmoving tourists, and a young woman who was walking like she meant business - and not in the fun way.  She strode quickly and assertively toward the crosstown busstop that was my destination too, her light skirt swishing and bouncing, doing little to hide her manifold charms. 

We were both crossing Geary at Van Ness when I saw him coming.  He was older, dressed in regulation shabby pants, bulky coat, layers of dirt over layers of grimy old clothes over many more layers of dirt… he stomped toward me in the intersection like a man on a mission.  When we were about a yard apart he reared back and kicked at my gut, his decrepit old boot swinging purposefully but not really very quickly into my demurely tailored french blue (note: would prefer to call it “french blown” in honor of frenching) midsection.  I dropped back one step, lifting my hands in a posture of defensive disbelief, ready to catch his foot, remove it, and return it to him as a suppository.  He pulled his kick, grumbling, and shambled off across the street. 

As I got on the waiting bus the woman in the skirt was right ahead of me and seemed to be grumbling too.  She’s seen him try to kick someone else a few feet ahead of her in the crosswalk and was upset and a bit pumped up.  We got to talking about it.  She takes Aikido, she’d have been able to handle anything the old guy had tried to pull.  But then something interesting happened: a conversation.  We talked about proxemics, Cincinnati (she once saw an outfielder for the Reds at Skyline getting a coney), geology, education… that tough businesslike facade melted as she described her work teaching children, her excitement riding a motorcycle in thick fog… I kept thinking, if that whack job hadn’t been playing Jean Clod van Dank in the intersection I’d never have had this conversation.  I’d still be mentally toying with the idea of that little skirt flicking back and forth, instead of making genuine contact with a genuinely warm, interesting, helpful person.  So she happens to be wearing a cute skirt - so sue me. 

I take life as it comes, one random attack at a time.  This time it worked out pretty well.  Next time I’m in that neighborhood I expect that some hottie in Cesare Catinis and an Ann Taylor suit will probably pull a Billy Jack on my ass and I’ll have to sit next to a stinky weirdo on the bus.  It all evens out in the end.  Luckily, I got to have dessert first.