Tuesday, January 22, 2008

BFFs

Looks like it’s going to be the bus stop story, in honor of anyone who’s visiting from LitPark where I am doing a guest post today about noticing stuff, especially on public transportation.  This isn’t really something that happened on the bus but I’ll try to sneak by with it.  I’m sneaky that way, you know.

It was one of those special beautiful days. The sun was sunny and I was out with the boy.  We’d been shopping together – itself, a rare occurrence – and had arrived at a bus stop whence we might soon and swiftly be spirited home again, goody-laden and glowing with consumer confidence.  It was late in the afternoon and we were having a grand time together, there at the bus shelter outside the 6th and Geary KFC.

Though my hands were full of bags and parcels, the boy is still small so I had him hoisted on my hip. We chatted quietly together, wiling the time till our ride arrived.  Z often attracts attention from random folk we encounter, and the small group with us at the bus stop that day was no exception.  It included a couple of ethnic grannies, who watched Zach with delight and me with conditional approval of my apparent parenting chops.  There were also two of the high school kids who habitually patronize the adjacent chicken-biscuit refectory. 

The grannies were in their traditional stretchpants and babushkas; I noted to myself how interchangeable they seemed to be, even across cultural lines.  Less noteworthy to me was the parallel interchangeability of the high school kids – the melting pot of public secondary education blended all but the most integumentary distinctions between racial groups.  Euro, afro, sino and latino – they all dressed pretty much alike, sounded pretty much alike.  One thing I do love about this town is how all the kids I see intermingle across ancestral lines.  The grannies gather in homogenous groups, but the kids are substantially hetero – at least, so far as their choices of friends are concerned.  Race seems to have nothing to do with it.  It looks like it’s mostly about the clothes. 

This was what I thought as the two high school kids watched me with my two-year-old son: a white girl and a yellow girl, both in jeans as tight as plastic wrappers on hard candy, one in a hoodie and the other in a fur-ruffed jacket, both with long glossy hair and bright clear eyes and rosy cheeks and enticingly glossed lips.  Two cute kids, I thought, but my little boy’s cuter. My heart swelled with both pride and joy.

As if on cue, Z turned to face me in my arms, took my face in his hands, puckered all the way up and planted a big wet kiss on my chapped lips.  It was a solid one – extended and bilabial, ending with an audible smack. 

I could see the grannies – they grinned a little, or maybe they were smirking.  Then I saw the schoolgirls.  They were smiling at Zach, at Zachy and his daddy; then they turned their smiles on each other.  One put her hands on the other’s shoulders; the other, reciprocated with her hands on the other’s hips.  They gently drew together and kissed, lightly, then with more intensity.  It seemed like an excessively friendly kiss.  Hell, it was passionate. 

I guess I was staring by this point because one broke off for a moment to flash me a smile that I would otherwise have found innocent, but now seemed much more knowing. Then she returned her attentions to her friend’s oral area, and they earnestly osculated till the bus arrived. 

When it did shortly show up, they separated and loaded on with the rest of us as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  Zach was, as always, delighted to board the big vehicle.  The grannies were devoid of apparent emotion, as is their usual practice and affect.  The girls seemed to be just girls again, freshfaced and forward-looking, sharing a giggle and a plastic bench like any other kids might.

I, however, with my toddler on one arm and my shopping bags on the other, felt distinctly unsettled.  I was pretty sure Z and I hadn’t started anything between them, but we seemed to have encouraged it.  I was okay with that, too.  Maybe I was too okay with that.  Maybe that’s what I found so unsettling.

up next: I’m thinking, something a bit more wholesome and heartwarming.  Let’s see what I’ve got in the notebook.  Thanks for stopping by and please keep your hands and head inside the blog at all times.