The Bus Stop

The Bus Stop Stop is the very first thing I do when I get to my spot at the stop. I have one. It’s a specific spot that I’m intrinsically drawn to due to its intangibilities. My spot has a daily standard deviation, but it’s certainly negligible considering I could successfully catch the bus while standing anywhere on the block. It’s a long block. But I’m there. Some days it’s sunglasses and some days it’s Sunday. Hat and scarf or depressingly tired, I spend time on my spot at the bus stop like a television being on in your apartment. I spend less time in the shower than I do at the bus stop. Not that this is mind-boggling, but it’s an illustration of the fact that the bus stop is more routine than the gym.

And still I find that impeccably placed inch on the square of concrete to do my bus-stopping. Standing there on that supremely preferred concrete slab – that one – is measurably and increasingly more preferable the further away I’m forced to stand. The others do it to. Them. The people I loiter in anticipation with. They choose their spots too, these strangers.

What is stranger than strange is the odd strangers-among-familiar-faces feel and reality that the bus-stop purveys. I’ve seen them enough to at least know their names, though I don’t. I’m with them enough that I know if I’m out the door at 8:00, I’m seeing group A. If I’m out at 8:10, I’m seeing group A stragglers and group B. If I’m out at 8:15, it’s the core of group B. And if I’m out the door at 8:20, I’ll be getting a nice nap, because traffic is going to you screw you.

I’m thinking that everyone has to realize, perceive, notice. I’ve pretty much deduced where at least 10 people live from their bus-stop to-and-fros. Most definitely I would certainly freak out this lucky group with the information that I know this person is roommates with her, in that building, likes to get to the bus-stop at 8:10, even though the roommate tends to trail behind by five to ten minutes. Oh, and how about the girl with the guitar? I know she works on 43rd and 5th. And the other bald guy, I’m 100% sure that he’s the type of guy that would complain about your ipod blasting too loudly next to him in a cab, even if it was five a.m. on a Saturday morning. I’m 100% sure.

I can’t possibly be the only one who is aware. Surely, someone is pretty sure that I live above the Indian restaurant. They’ve seen me through the nail salon window as I fumbled with me keys and disappeared. They know that I carry two bags once a week or that I can quite often be inappropriately dressed for the weather. They must realize that I’m thoroughly inconsistent with my shaving, face and head. They must be able to place me when confronted with my face in out of context situations, because I can them.

They should. We’re bonding. We bond as our days begin the same. We bond as we handle the morning’s hurdles with differing levels of patience. We bond as the morning’s circumstances toy with us equally despite our day’s unique set of pressures because late is late, early is early and the bus is anything but consistent.

We bathe in inconsistency like our pants and shoes bathe in a torrential down-poor, even the guy with the obscenely large umbrella and floor-dragging trench. As a unit we fend off the seasonally adverse weather conditions that challenge us on all but the top percentile of comfortable days. Uniformly compacted and intimately coalesced under the bus-stop-weather-shelter-thing dodging the dodgy weather. Under that shelterish apparatus which almost blocks a dramatically-small fraction of the wind that bears down upon the one or two square inches of skin brazenly and nakedly facing it. The stalwart blockade-like structure that nearly successfully protects you from upwards of ten to fifteen potential pant-sopping rain drops. The cauldron of warmth that valiantly shaves at least a tenth of a hair of a degree off the temperature, more or less. We’re under it and thankful!

Mostly, I opt for my spot in all but the most inclement of days. It’s where I pause and crane my neck, staring relentlessly above the line of parked cars hoping to catch sight of the rolling rectangle lumbering uptown. Still, whether it’s directly or peripherally, my vision isn’t distracted by the tracks of tunes playing in my ear. I see without looking. I notice without observing. It comes to me even as I read my book, a morning rarity that must send a beacon announcing – he actually got to bed at a decent hour – loudly to all that notice such things. I sense I might be the only one.

Our stop is interesting. It’s interesting in the way the Spanish Channel is interesting when holed up in a hotel room in Podunk, Kansas. It’s also comfortingly haphazard. We all find our spots and stand there anxiously still, then move methodically towards the arriving bus in a first-come first-serve arrangement where internally you’re dying to get on and secure a seat while your outward appearance belies anything near that notion. You’re cool. You’re calm. You’re the BMOC where C = B.S. and B.S. is not equal to bull-shit. I’ll be honest. The difference between securing a seat and standing is roughly equitable to those extra fifteen feet Evil Knievel could have used as he flew over the Caesar fountains. That’s why I like my spot. It gives me a good angle of entrance.

Catch a glance as it approaches. Is it empty or full, or is it near capacity and a sit-or-stand gamble. Are there more on the way? Are you late or early? Were you late yesterday or any time this week? How tired are you? Many considerations made in a matter of moments like a batter deciding whether to swing at a ninety mile an hour fastball, because once you’re on and standing, you’re on and standing.

I’ve seen other bus stops; the next couple on the route. Lines rule their stops. Those people, they stand in line like bunch of cold war communists waiting for some t.p. for their a-s-s. That’s not my style. That’s not our style. We’re more like cows grazing in a fenced off area. We’re just looking for the greenest grass, man. And a seat. Just one fabulous seat with an armrest and reclinability so we can all deal with the traffic in the way traffic was meant to be dealt with, laid back. Chilling. Cold chilling. Hopefully, because being hot on the bus is as frustrating as taking a standardized test on a Saturday morning after about 12 drinks the night before. I should know.

It’s not about the stop or my spot at the stop. It’s not about the bus or the commute. It’s about them, my cohorts, my gang. We’re neighbors. Why else would we choose 13th street? It’s not lucky. It’s not preferable since the number of seats available in the course of a morning is in inverse proportion to the count of the streets. Still, we’re there because we’re neighbors. A fact confirmed as I literally ran into one girl on my way out of the voting booth. Not the one who read Bergdorf Blondes. Not the one who loves to yak it up with the Asian guy who is always in a suit. The one with the killer collection of high-heels and the mole on her face. The one with the cute little wire-haired puppy. I don’t know her, but I know her, you know?

Does she know me? It’s tough to tell considering the communication is less than forthcoming at the bus stop. The Bergdorf girl, we’ve talked. It was about the bus, but still it was a break through. She even defended me by calling a driver a dick as he callously left me despite my arrival at the door in ample time. I agreed he was a dick and she is cute, but she read Bergdorf Blondes, and while I don’t know what it’s about, I can assume. So that is that.

It must be really hysterical to an outsider to see when the block is barren of buses. Sometimes, indiscriminately, busses cease to appear. Like ghosts in ghost-towns they just don’t show. Caravans of busses are soon replaced by a sinking feeling in your stomach as your earliness regresses, your lateness is delivered and you become more frantic than the mother of a lost child. It’s like keeping calm on a plane that’s experiencing brutal turbulence when the person next to you is sweating like a pig at the butcher and losing control of his emotions like a chemically-imbalanced brain. At first, everyone is curious. Some people just take a seat on the bench. The trips to middle of the street, a better vantage to see six to eight blocks down the avenue, grow more frequent and furious. Heads shake and palms turn up. Annoyance is displayed through communication. “What’s going on?” Anger actually grows like a plant from a pot of dirt. From a seedling to a stem to a furious fern of combustible frustration and anger.

I watch the action like I watch a fish tank of territorial and tenacious Sicklets. It would be more entertaining if I wasn’t emotionally invested in the trauma and drama. I’m in the middle of it like a belly-button. Sure, someone died in an accident corking the traffics’ flow, but none of us know. If we did, I’m sure we’d be calmer or look for alternatives. Alternatively, we feed off each other like an army going into battle. He grows impatient and paces next to her who now fishes fiercely for her phone and shouts recklessly into the receiver. The energy is transferred like the word in a game of Pass It Down the Line. This proves that we are a group, a community of neighboring bus-riders who are united by the universal oneness of a morning commute and geography.

We’re tied together by the bus, the bus stop, our spots at the stop and the ever increasing compendium of knowledge that we passively compile while standing there daily trying to do what comes naturally. And what comes naturally is the collective state of being that causes that odd strangers-among-familiar-faces feel and reality that the bus stop purveys. Oddly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Roundus Amongus

Up the stairs released from the subterranean bob-and-weave, I’m fresh off a middling six hours of sleep, trudging along. The sun leans between the buildings, stares squarely into my eyes. I squint like a motherfucker. I’m not in the hurriest of hurries, but still, I like to move at a good pace; even when I’m navigating against a wild rush of oncomers rolling shoulder to shoulder at least twelve deep.

I use the subway grates as an express lane. It eliminates the chicks with the shoes. Dodging his and her suits galore, my bags swing widely if I cut hard right or left. And I do. Smokers eye me as I maneuver circles around a fair portion of the commuters herding right at me. I think moo-ve when one clogs an opening or beats me to it.

I wade through the initial onrush catching a respite after reaching the second level. With a few more strides the stream switches and I’m walking with the flow of foot traffic and against the flow of car. I slash across the street at an available opening. I’m making solid time, nothing to write home about. Still, I’m always looking to steal a tenth of a second wherever I can. Often I can with a quick skip or a corner cut.

I use guile when walking to work. I tap into agility. I’ll lean into turns. I jut off the balls of my feet. I’m not O.J. in a Hertz commercial, but I have moves. Combine that with shiftiness and some yoga classes and you have yourself a professional marketer walking to work professionally. For that reason, I’m shocked that I’m consistently foiled by a waddling round person.

They appear like a chess piece suddenly dropped with expert precision. They waddle like a penguin sporting a winter coat. They are rotund and a tough pass. Their clothes are comfy and their shoes are of the good walking variety.

Roundus Amongus, they seem to damn the flow by forcing both directions of traffic on a collision course as we all try to pass. My pace is such that I’m on top of them before I can react. Braking like a speeding driver approaching a red light, a blink and I’m engulfed in back-flab, searching for an off ramp. This morning I tripped right over the top of the little waddler as she dodge my line of sight for just long enough to damn near cause a pile-up.

We walk in lock-step. I’m smushed into her back like Wile E Coyote sliding down a tunnel-painted rock wall. Peaking, I peer and crane my neck. Under the armpit, over the shoulder, I’m scouting opportunities like a model scout in a mall. I edge out to the right but scurry back like a prairie-dog with hawk-fear. We seep down the street trailing a molasses glaze. I escape to the left skirting a meat-filled arm. Quick choppy steps speed me around and one long stride leaves the waddler fading in the distance like an astronaut jettisoned from her ship. Freedom.

As if unified by army technology, another one crystallizes and plugs the traffic as I reach the corner. Like a robot dance party, we shimmy mechanically sorting out the congestion ourselves. The orderly interchange disperses as does the round person. Whoosh.

Long-striding, the foot-parade is thinner than Grandma’s hair as I approach the final leg of my trip. I can see down the long avenue to the horizon far in the distance. I can also see the unmistakable visage of yet another Roundus Amongus dawdling down the street. Like the Maverick on a mig, I have a bead on him half a block away.

Shoulders like ham hocks. Neck like an alligator. The fact that he can’t see behind him is as much a strength as a weakness. His arms rest on his side-boobs as if he was hiding a football in each armpit. His legs don’t bend as much as he tilts onto one side and rotates his hip-socket to move forward and his movement barely outpaces the earth’s rotation.

Like a stallion down the stretch, I’m getting the whip and storming the final furlong. I’m bearing down on the waddling wide-man like and officer in hot pursuit. A stride behind and I realize we’re fast approaching my building and my building’s entrance. I contemplate a pass around the wide side. I contemplate a sharp cut to the inside. My indecision costs me like a tell at the poker table. From full speed to full stop, my window of opportunity vanishes like sock in the dryer.

I call off the dogs and go into coast, positioned to the posterior of the round person. As I wait for him to pass, I realize he’s heading where I’m heading. We share a destination on this day if not most days. With a quick calculation, I think it’s worth the wait. I lay back and scope him work the revolving door. I’m early anyway.

In Line to Hell

I slosh in the sweat induced sock puddles covering my feet. My watch ceases as a time piece; succeeds as an antagonist. Boredom shifts my weight like a four-foot gymnast anxiously working the balance beam. I beam a supple rouge from my flushed cheeks. A toe-tap. A sigh. The alternate stick and unstick of my rubber soled shoes placates my mind, then annoys. For fleeting seconds I can visualize time passing. I can see it clearly, clownishly standing before me. Clowning me like a birthday clown. The type of clown whose routine causes instant wonderment as to the person’s background and means. It’s the type of wonderment that occupies my inner dialogue a second, seemingly minutes, breaking me from the negative cycle of dwelling on my current linear realities.

We move forward as a collective. Guide ropes usher us through systematically meandering corridors. We creep at a crawl’s pace. Awkwardly leering at the various creeps crawling by at their creep’s pace. I hear a cough behind me, a sigh elsewhere. Frustration echoes like a scream in a guano-filled cave. I shout internally. It reverberates. The sharp sound pings my ears like the high pitched tone of a wayward fax send. I grimace. The line groans, moves forward.

The fact that the beginning of the line, the end of my wait, is within sight counter-intuitively adds to the anxiety a stagnant line can create. Now that I can see the front of the line, movement is a measurable and quantifiable data. If one foot, mine, equals nine-inches, and I’ve moved three steps in the last thirty minutes, then it would take four days to stand in line for a mile.

I’m with someone. She stands to my left and leans in intermittently flashing puppy-dog eyes. I respond with sympathetic face gestures. Her experience is the same as mine. She stands in the same line. We’re both tapped into the current of frustration that is pulsing up and down with the electricity of the third rail. However, the collective experience is trumped by the interminable inner experience ruling my every breath. She stands alone. As I do. Together.

Ding! Or was it Ting? I analyze the next-bell feverishly. I watch the light, light – a secondary announcement curtly preceded by the Ding! The light-bulb above the attendant’s cage catches my gaze. Line-lulled, catatonic, my thought process has an outward manifestation like a book with the first chapter on its cover. No reaction. Delayed reaction. Action. Next. Ding! Shuffle. Shuffle. Wait.

I peer behind me at my peers. They’re peers in the way traffic school students are peers. They’re peers in the way that a condo association is comprised of peers. I peer back over my shoulder but my view is obstructed by light. The front of the line is lit like a late night talk show or a play. The illumination of the front of the line is at expense of the back. I shade my eyes relentlessly and do a double take. It’s chin-scratchingly perplexing. As far as I can tell I’m at once in the front and the back of the line. Those ahead of me have been mercifully moved through the way-station between where they are and where they’re headed. Those behind me have been shaded out of my waking life. I’m next, standing both at the front and the back of the line. Bing!

I approach the attendant. She is behind glass. Her movement is like watching water evaporate. Her features are horrid. She’s waist deep in indifference. She wears a nametag inscribed clerk. She doesn’t look a day younger than eighty. Neither does her cleavage. My toe cracks. My knee aches. My back howls. I walk toward the attendant like I’m walking to my coffin with a pillow in hand and a night-cap on my head. I’ve waited in perpetuity; perpetually pushing towards the completion of my to-do list. A list of one. A lengthy line of many.

I feign a smile. She doesn’t look up. Her gum pops. Her glasses sit at the end of her nose like a basketball sitting on the end of the rim. She is still life in action. A painting in motion. I make eye contact only to instigate some recognition. She raises a brow and flips a palm. That was as much of an inquisition as I could expect. She would wait for me to state my business until the cows came home, assuming they were traveling by line. Finally, after a lifetime passes, I lean in and say, “I’d like to send this certified.”

Me Problemo

It’s astonishingly clear. I’m a drooler. I’m currently sitting on the couch that I absconded from my grandparents’ old home. At their place, once, I was awoken from a nap on this very couch. My grandmother, the culprit, woke me while shimmying a towel under my chin. At the time I thought; must be an expensive couch. Now I think; nobody wants spit on their couch.

The alarm sounds on mornings and sometimes startles me. I come to and sense the soppiness. I think; I’m a drooler. Next I think; must have been a good sleep. Finally I think; I now correlate a good drool with a good sleep. Then I shower and get on with my day.

Intermittently I’ll toss from left to right and right to left. I play a strange game falling asleep. Start on one side until I’m damn near asleep. Then react to the overwhelming urge and roll onto the other. As I roll, I wipe the corner of my mouth. I wipe not to remove drool. I wipe to remind myself that I drool.

Quite often I fall hard asleep immediately. It’s probably the forty-five best minutes of sleep I get on most nights. Consistently, I’m thrown awake by some REM-fueled happening. As I gather myself, I readjust my pillow to offer a new corner for fouling. Fresh turf.

It’s not an epiphany. I didn’t just realize. I’ve simply accepted the challenge at this point in my life. I fall asleep nightly with my mouth shut, breathing through my nose. No prob. I awaken nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand with my mouth closed. I lack a good seal, clearly. And it’s not every night. That’s as far as the analysis has gone and as far as the analysis has gone is probably as far as it can go since I’m asleep the while. I focus on not drool during the times I don’t drool. I drool when I can’t control my focus. A conundrum.

Have I ever drooled while sleeping on someone else’s bed or couch? Sure as shit I have. Have I ever done it while sharing the very pillow I’m pumping full of my unique brand of saliva? You bet your balls I have.

I realize that nobody cares if I drool. I’m well aware that it’s not as dramatic as wetting the bed. I understand it’s the least imposing of all the bodily fluids. Still, leaving a trail of spittle like the oil trail left behind a ghetto jalopy isn’t something I want as my calling card.

The curiosity is not on the mornings when I turn my pillow into a down puddle. It’s on the mornings when I awake on a pillow as dry as the Martian surface. It’s when I wipe my chin dry and my chin needs no wiping. It’s when I wake, mid-morning, to flip that soaking corner I’ve covered with spit. Only, there isn’t any need to flip.

Is it position? Is amount of time asleep? Does it occur during different times of the week? Is there any consistency to the seepage?

I wrestle with this problem like a dog wrestles with a bone. I chew on it for a while, then I forget about it. But when I see it, or feel it, I remember it’s there and chew on it some more. There are worse problems in the world. I have a few of them. So, I probably shouldn’t dwell too long my drool problem. Not when I could dwell on my egregiously small penis.

It’s the teeniest.