Monday, September 03, 2007

drumhead

He really looked like a very normal dude, with a grey sweatshirt, understated blue jeans and clean white sneaks.  He was tall - six-plus, and big in the arms and wide across the belly; his big plain face was cleanshaven and unmarked and his hair was cut too short beneath his white ball cap to reveal any personality one way or the other.  He was white, in so many ways.  And at his feet sat a robustly-carved drum, a foot across the head and standing nearly a yard tall, a well-tamped patina glowing off its hide drumskin. 

He settles down with his incongruous drum at Montgomery and nestles it between his feet.  Before we reach Kearney he’s already starting to rub his fingers over it, tickling it to the rhythms of the street and the riders around him.  He is beginning to tap it, subconsciously, reflexively, before we reach the stop at Stockton, but he cuts himself off as he senses he’s becoming generally audible. 

For a moment, anyway.  His restraint leaves him almost instantly; within a few seconds his fingers are once again seeking out that smooth taut drumhead.  His thumb comes down with unintended vigor and a sharp report rings out in the cabin of the bus.  His hand stops moving, hovers uncertainly over the drum.  The bus stops at Union Square.  He grabs the drum and leaves without a glance behind him.  I don’t know if that was really his stop, but he clearly couldn’t sit on that bus one second longer.

And just to round things out, here’s a photo taken from my front window a few weeks ago.  Technically, I’m three floors up.  That water was geysering way higher than my roof.  Finest crystaline Sierra Nevada water a city would want to drink.  Excuse me while I spritz the sky....