Monday, November 08, 2010
Storytime Resumes: Big and Beefy on the Bus
It had been some time since I’d had a noteworthy ride, and I’d started to think perhaps I’d lost my focus. Could it truly be that nothing was going on around me amid those dozens upon dozens of co-commuters every day? Or was I just distracted, jaded, and inattentive? Reading too much? Sleeping too little? Where were the characters?
Oh, there they are. Hard to miss, really.
It was the 38L westbound, the key commute route at the key commute hour. I had my exiting little novel to read, a poem to edit, music chiming into both my ears - all my defenses against awareness were up and running. The bus was filled with blase art students and ancient Asian produce mavens and desk jockeys worn out from too much sitting and retail grunts worn from standing around too long. Everything to me was shades of grey and layers of dust, infinite variations of nothing worth paying attention to. But at the Polk-Van Ness stop, it was hard not to notice the big dudes getting on.
One was my height but stocky and muscular, a rugby player’s physique with broad heavy shoulders and thick meaty legs. The other was built identically but on a larger scale, easily topping six feet with heavy saucepan hands and a neck like a girder. They wore worn t-shirts from weightlifting gyms and well-seasoned cargo shorts; their heads were shorn and stubbly and both sported extensive colorful tattoos and tidy little chinline beards. One’s earlobes were plugged with thick tribal disks and both - though they kept to themselves - indisputably put off an imposing vibe. They boarded together like locals at a back door and stood with each other in the aisle. End of story. I returned to my notebook.
Around Fillmore a seat on the in-facing bench to my left opened up and the shorter bulkboy took it. The taller one stood companionably before him and they maintained a quiet conversation that did not interrupt my enjoyment of the funk-groove mix thrumming in my ears. But in a pause between songs I heard one sentence: the big(ger) guy was saying something about “not so many museums, not like Berlin.” His speech was softly accented. Germans. I raised my eyes to reassess - both were paying more attention to the passing streets than a local would have. They both had one-week Muni passports stuffed in the gaping pockets of their cargo shorts - tourist tickets. One held a rumpled map in his beefy paw. Oh, and now I could tell they were a couple, too - their massive legs were arranged in alternates, as the one stood facing his seated friend, each with one thigh thrust between the other’s legs. No contact, nothing flagrant, but an intimate familiarity that went beyond merely being European directly into snugglebuddy territory.
That’s cute, I thought: homoteutonic skinhead bodybuilders. Looks like they’re right at home. I went back to my writing and let the music drown out their presence.
What brought them back to me was a map-check at Divisidero - they were making sure of where they were and where they were going. Fair enough. Back to my book.
At Masonic/Presidio, another map-check - their massive brows furrowed identically as they peered at the crumpled grid of their map. I looked back again to my page of scrawls but by now I was too curious to be creative. The lumpy, phlegmatic Chinese woman snoring softly between them and me was surely not going to offer them any guidance but I thought it looked like they could use some.
At Arguello they went back yet again to their map, crosschecking against street signs. I’d written nothing for several blocks already, so I leaned over the adjacent snoozelump and asked, “Where are you trying to go?”
“Golden Gate Park. We will get off at 6th.” It was the less-big guy who’d answered, with a soft melodious voice.
“That’s the next stop, but I suggest going further, to Park Presidio. That will take you to a more interesting part of the park, and it’s a nicer walk.”
The less-big homoteuton looked skeptically back at his map; the taller one politely thanked me with a smile. I popped my earbud back in and listened again to my music with both ears as I approached my - our - exit.
A block or two from the stop I got my bag out from beneath my seat, packed up, gave the shavepates a nod. They nodded back - by now, both were sitting on the bench - and rose to their feet. The stop was on the far side of the broad boulevard; as we waited at the light I pointed out the bridle path that ran down the wooded greenbelt. From our bus window it peeled mysteriously away into the creeping murk of the Richmond District dusk, a thin brown line under shades of darkening green. “That’s your path,” I pointed out to them, ‘four blocks and you’re in the Rose Garden. Much nicer than 6th Avenue.”
Amusement sparkled in their eyes. “Looks like a cruising area,” the shorter one said, grinning. With his accent the word “cruising” sounded particularly lubricious. He turned to his friend and continued: “You’re not going to try to rape me, are you?” His articulation of the word “rape” trilled at the front and cut off sharply at the end. It was a playful word in his mouth and both men giggled incongruously.
We arrived at the stop and all of us doublecrossed the intersection to the catty corner. The burly lovers headed down the path; my own route took me to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. As we parted company I offered a brief farewell; they responded with appropriate understatement. For half a block I tracked them from the opposite sidewalk, watching to see if they grew emboldened by the seclusion and verdure of the path to hold hands, but in the end I reached my home before they expressed any such affection.
Their story ended for me without a clear conclusion, but I’m okay with that. It grants me leave to make one up for myself. Anyway, it’s not like there aren’t any more stories coming my way on that big crowded bus.
