Monday, December 29, 2003
You Are Where We Say You Are
The PA system plays a regular patter for each route, but on my way home a few nights ago that system wasn’t working properly. It sat silently as we rode from the terminal all the way down to Van Ness. At Van Ness, as usual, there was a wholesale reshuffling of the players, and this boy got on and sat not far from me.
I sometimes say of myself that I don’t know a pretty man from a homely one, and sometimes that’s true, but even I knew this boy was pretty - and so did he. Maybe 18, tall and lanky, with the classic A&F look - aroused, yet bored. He sprawled on an in-facing bench at my knees as I faced forward in the bus. The seat next to him was empty.
A few miles further along on the ride, among the many new riders boarding the bus at Fillmore, was one deserving of special notice: middle-aged and grizzled, skin toughened by the elements, wearing three coats - or was one a blanket? - and tattered houseslippers, possessed of a questionable knapsack and profoundly deferred prophylaxis… and all this was crowned by a certain ecstatic vapidity, a peculiar twitch at the corners of his vacant smile. The signs were clear to those ready to read them: he was a jabberer. He lit upon the vacant seat next to the beautiful boy, grinning like he’d just simultaneously won Powerball and fulfilled a dark sexual fantasy. The boy shifted slightly in his seat but held off actually demonstrating any discomfiture. He was in his pose and no freaked-out declasse’ homeless maniac was going to interfere with that.
The bus took off. Suddenly, the intercom came erroneously on line with the first announcement in the reel: “38 Limited, Point Lobos; first stop, Fremont and Market.” The homeless guy’s face beamed as if it were electrically powered: “Market and Fremont? Ha! We’re way downtown! We’re way downtown!” The tape loop continued with barely a pause: “Next stop, Market and Sansome.” “Sansome Street! Sansome Street! WAY downtown!” “Next stop, Market and Montgomery.” “HAW! HAW! HAW!!!” He seemed quite self-contained, wasn’t trying to share his joke even as he revelled in it with hooting mirth. “Geary and Kearney.” “Geary and Leavenworth.” The announcements came quickly on each other’s heels as the tape tried to catch up to the bus. The homeless guy was slapping his knees, giggling nigh unto incontinence. The skater boy shifted uncomfortably, glanced over for an instant at the loon gibbering beside him. “Geary and Van Ness.” “Way, way downtown!”
The unflappable voice of the intercom kept up, street after street, announcing stops that drew ever closer to our actual location. The bus was by now rumbling up the hill to the west side as the intercom rattled off “Laguna,” “Fillmore,” “Divisadero,” “Baker...” As we reached the top of the hill, the system finally synched and we got our first accurate announcement of the ride: “Geary and Presidio.” The doors slid open and the homeless guy leaned forward, leered at me. “Guess I’m here!,” he chortled, and, pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled his way down the steps and out of the bus.
The pretty boy hove a delicate sigh with an ineffable expression of nebulous psychic pain on his flawless face, and repositioned himself in a slightly more languorous slouch. I smiled at him. He looked at me, turned away, and sneered. I think I preferred riding with the homeless guy. He kind of stank, but he was fun.
