busride: snapshot

I can't believe he's actually reading that, I said to myself.

A tall man with a scraggly, dark gray beard, his features made me believe he's one of the many Native Americans who live in Seattle. Besides the shape of his face, he had a couple of silver and beaded bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. I thought I noticed an embroidered pattern on the back of his leather vest, but I can't be sure. He actually reminded me of a regular at a bar I used to frequent, who would have 10 or 12 pints of Bud and then say he was going home to get drunk.

I watched him get on the bus and sit down right in front of me. I watched as, with only a little difficulty, he steadied his crutches against the pole in front of him, while holding a container of granola in his left hand. Once he steadied the crutches, he slipped his backpack off and onto the seat next to him.

Some may consider it impolite to stare at a man on crutches as he hobbles onto the bus. I don't, only because I hide my eyes comfortably behind my mirrored shades, confident no one knows where I'm actually looking.

Once situated, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a book: The Flame and the Flower, by Kathleen Woodiwiss. The cover is pink, and has a picture of a very muscular man with his shirt half off, about to kiss a dark haired woman, wind blowing their hair and billowing their clothing. Not only is this a romance novel, The Flame and the Flower is typically credited for being thee romance novel, setting the trend for paperback romances. Harlequin may hold the current distinction, but back in the 70's it was Avon who pushed the trashy paperback tales of lust and love into drugstores everywhere.

I drifted off a bit, hypnotized by the rhythms of the bus and crunching granola.

What's this dude reading a trashy romance novel for, I wondered, all-too-cognizant of the atrocious grammar of my thought-life. I did admire him, though; not for his taste in literature, but for the fact that he flaunted his atypical reading choice for the entire world to see. "Yea, that's right," this simple act says, "I'm a guy, I ain't gay (not that there's anything wrong with that), and I read romance novels because I like them."

Something hits my ankle and brings me back to reality. "Here you go," I say, as I hand the guy the half-empty water bottle that fell out of his backpack. He starts digging around in his bag for something, and not two seconds after I hand him the bottle, he lifts the pack up just enough so the container of granola falls out, opens, and spills all over the seats and the floor.

I'm torn: I'm typically more than happy to help someone out if they drop something, but this… I don't know. What do you do, offer to scoop handfuls of granola off the worn vinyl seats? What do you do with it after you pick it up? He already closed the container to keep the rest of the granola safe. The guy is on crutches, too, which makes me even more sympathetic. I mean – if he had dropped a bottle of medicine, or a folder of papers, or a bag of apples, I'd have no problem helping him gather it up. Somehow, granola is in a different category. There are about five of us in the front of the bus who watched this happen, and we're all doing our best to pretend we didn't see anything.

He turns and looks at the girl sitting next to me, and asks, "How long 'till we get to downtown?"

"We actually just came from downtown," she says.

"Oh. Where does this one go?"

"This goes through the U-District and up towards Lake City. If you wanna get downtown you should get off at the next stop, cross the street and catch one of those buses." She says this in such a kind, helpful way. I'm glad he didn't ask me, because I was still stuck on the romance novel and how this guy didn't know we weren't headed downtown, that I probably would have sounded condescending.

As he puts on his backpack, he twists in the side-facing seat so that he's almost facing front. His left arm misses the strap a couple times, but he gets it on the fourth try. As he's grabbing his crutches with his right arm, his left hand is pushing the granola in between the cracks of the seat, like a child trying to hide the cookie crumbs he spilled all over the sofa.

I watch him hop off the bus and shuffle towards the crosswalk. I turned towards the girl sitting next to me and ask, "Didn't he get on when we were downtown?"

"Yea," she says, "I was kinda confused by that too."

The Commute

I got to the bus stop earlier than usual. I normally work from home a bit in the morning, and then take a later bus to work. I hate dealing with crowded buses and traffic jams on 520. This morning, though, I was up early and decided to just head in.

As I expected, the bus was crowded. I felt lucky to find a seat in the back row, though, where we sat leg-to-leg, 5 across. Listening to NPR on my sanDisk, I was riding in my own little world, looking out at the birds on Lake Washington, oblivious to those around me. Commuting is weird like that: 100 people on a bus, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, each in a little bubble of existence; earbuds firmly in place, nose buried in a book, traveling in their own customized version of Life.

Then, I see her.

She was sitting in the seat just behind the rear door, the seat with the plexiglass in front of it that shields the rider from the wind and rain that invariably seems to leak through the cracks in the door. The plexiglass also acts as a mirror, if something dark is in front of it, like someone wearing a brown jacket. Like today. Soft, rounded cheeks, eyes darting back and forth as they stared out the window, lips curling every now and then into a gentle smile. I wondered what she was smiling about. She's one of the few with no earbuds, no book open; she's riding along, taking in life, or caught up in her daydreams or memories. Apparently she doesn't need outside assistance to customize her commute.

"Wow," I thought almost out loud, "she's gorgeous." I wonder why I had not seen her before. Sure, there are lots of commuters, but Seattle is a small enough city that you start recognizing people around town. Especially on the commute to the Eastside, and especially attractive women. I know I hadn't seen her before, but I was immediately captivated. More so than I usually am when my gaze can't seem to wander away from a gorgeous woman. There's something about her, something ethereal and mysterious, that though I can't put my finger on it; it's there, it's visceral, and it's god damned enthralling!

I stared for another few minutes. I was fascinated. Her expressions kept changing; she's got something major going through her mind. I want in. All of the sudden, she stared forward, into the plexiglass mirror, and looked right at me. Jolts of electricity shot through my heart and my head. I looked away, but couldn't help but look back from time to time throughout the rest of the commute. And she seemed to do the same thing. Was she catching me looking at her, wondering who that freak in the back of the bus is? Or was she feeling excited and nervous like me, thinking that I was catching her staring at me?

When the bus stopped, the long line of Microsofties filed out the front of the bus. She got off ahead of me, and walked the opposite direction I was going. When I got off, I moved out of the way of others exiting, leaned against the bus shelter, and just gazed towards her. When she looked over her shoulder, I waved and gave a little "hello" smile. She grinned, and walked back towards me.

"What's the deal?" she said as she came up to me. "Sorry, I know this stuff only happens in Hollywood, but your eyes sent sparks through me. I've only met a couple women who have done that to me, and they turned out to be very important in my life."

She smiled, and reached out her hand. "I'm Allison," she said