Monday, April 14, 2008 at 11:47pm
It began as a quiet afternoon in the center of Vancouver as I walked with ease with a cigarette in one hand and a plaid fedora upon my head. I whistled imaginary tunes and squinted in the sun which was shining through the wispy clouds. My destination? A bus stop.
Minutes earlier I had left her house but not before I made everything look as it did before we had arrived when she first brought me there. Without a key, as I left, her front door remained unlocked, but she had told me it would be fine. Turning to the street a wave of unfamiliarity washed over me, my feet began to move but my focus was one step behind. Then I remembered she told me that her place faced the alley and as we did hours before; I went around her house to get onto the main street.
About ten minutes had passed from the time I had closed her door to arriving at the bus stop. I stopped a little bit beforehand and leaned against a pole as I finished my cigarette. Common courtesy for minimal second hand smoke for the older folk who were sitting on the bench talking. The bus pulled up quicker than expected and I snuffed out my cigarette and dug into my suit jacket pocket for change. My fingers met with the cold coins as I scooped them up and deposited them into the little box in exchange for a transit pass.
Sitting down, I quickly scanned the surrounding faces and none struck me as too interesting. With no book and no music to entertain myself I sat back and took a deep breath. As I exhaled, a gruff voice broke the silence. "Bombay! I wanna go back to Bombay!"
I turned to my left to source out who the voice belonged to and my eyes fell upon this older fellow. He had on thick glasses with clear rims, had an under bite and was missing four of his upper front teeth. He had on a grey blazer with brown trousers and brown leather shoes. His voice had that Tom Waitsy growl to it, one who's smoked too many cigarettes, but he appeared to be of Asian descent.
"I'm from Bombay!" he continued. "Bombay!"
He turns to me and sees me looking at him. "Are yee from Texas?" He asks me.
I shake my head no and then he gets up and goes to the back of the bus. After our few words spoken to each other I was left to question the situation and the reasons for his direct question.
As the bus stopped at another pickup point, I don't know what possessed me to go to the back of the bus and sit near to him. Let's say I was just intrigued. But if I had known what was coming for me, I would've stayed in the front.
He in the far corner of the back of the bus, I sit with two seats in between us. He looks at me with a toothless dopey grin from time to time. But the glances quickly turn to stares and the words start to tumble out of his mouth, "You're so beautiful!" I look at him and as politely as I could, said thanks. I turned and looked straight ahead of me, trying to block out his gaze.
Yet again he exclaims, "You're so beautiful! Why are you so beautiful?"
"Thanks," I mutter, trying to keep to myself, "I dunno."
"How much do you weigh? 280?" My eyes widen, my mind races, what is this poor old man on? At this point I realize that he's definitly not all there.
I tell him, "I'm a hundred and sixty nine---"
"That's none of my business!" He interjects.
Tired of all his questions, I decide to ask him one of his own. "Where are you from?"
"New Orleans! I'm half nigger! Are you half nigger? Is that why you're so goddamn beautiful?"
Shocked, I shook my head no.
"I'm a rock star!" he continues, "I make 40 million dollars a year!" He alternates seats and asks again, "How much do you weigh? 280?"
"Kilograms or pounds," I ask.
He yells, "Kilograms!"
Bewildered, I just sat there, quietly praying that he'll just shut his mouth, but there was no such luck.
"Why are you so goddamn beautiful? Are you on drugs!?"
"No-"
Interjecting once again, he slurs, "That's beyond the point!"
Perhaps fifteen minutes had passed since I had first gotten on the bus. By this time the bus had stopped about 6 times and a student boarded the bus, came to the back and sat two seat to my left, unknowingly placing himself as the peak in the triangle he had formed of himself, the old man and I.
"You're so beautiful!" The old man said relentlessly, but for once, it wasn't directed at me, but to the student. I felt bad for him.
I leaned over, and told him, "He's going to ask you a series of questions, he's not all there."
"Are you on drugs?" the old man asks the student.
"Heck no!" The student replies, very sure of himself.
The student looked to be about my age, maybe a year or two older. He had short, sandy blond hair and a shoulder bag with a bunch of what looked like university level school books.
For a time, the other fellow was bombarded with all the same questions the old man had once asked me.
"Hey," the old man says jerking his thumb towards me, "This here is my wife."
The student and I both look at each other. I suppress a laugh. Finally, some new material, I think to laughingly myself.
"I wrote my first song about my wife..." Then all of a sudden he starts with these short hoarse tortured yelps. He sounded more like he was suffering from a loss of a limb or impersonating a dog who was in great pain, with common sense we knew it was not singing, in any form.
"Hey, hey, quiet down," said the student, "Quiet down or you'll get kicked off the bus."
After he was finished, like a badly broken record he jerks his thumb toward me and exclaims "Hey, this here is my wife, I wrote my first song about her." And like before before he starts with his yelps, this time finishing with, "That was my first song for my wife."
Then I asked him, "Are you on drugs?" and he put his hand in his pocket, looked solemn and I shook my head up and down, then side to side, he then shook his head side to side. Immediately he got up and went to the front of the bus.
So I was joyed and told the other fellow that I'd got rid of him, but I was wrong. Sure enough, he made his way over to us after spending about five minutes in the front.
As he he sat down, he shuffled over to get as close as possible to the student who now had his notebook open and a pen in his hand.
"What course are you taking?" The old man asked.
"Criminology."
"Chemistry?"
"No," replied the exasperated student, "Criminology. I'm going to be a cop so I can bust your ass."
The old man grinned his dopey toothless grin and exclaimed, "I'm a whore! A whore! You'll find me in the basement! In the basement! ... This here is my wife, I wrote my first song about her." The old man opens his mouth and starts yelping again. "I'm a rock star! I make 40 million a year" Then he looks in my direction and says, "I'll give you 40 million if I can have your ---" He slurs over the last word making it absolutely unintelligible.
"Can you move farther away from me?" The student semi-pleaded, "Please?"
He shuffled one seat down, crossed on leg over the other and leaned in and asked for the umpteenth time, "Are you on drugs?"
"Are you high," the student fired back, "are you high?"
"Oh no, oh no, just beer."
"Do you drink every day?" I asked him.
He nodded vigorously.
"Oh.. That's really bad for you."
With this last comment of mine he got up and moved to the front of the bus again.
After a minute of luxurious silence I turned to the criminology student, sighed, and told him that I was glad he left us alone.
"Oh. He's harmless."
"I know tha---"
"I'm a whore! I'm a drug addict." The bespectled man starts yelling, violently stopping me in mid sentence. "I'm a whore and a drug addict. You'll find me in the basement! A drug addict! A whore! Down the stairs! I'm a whore and a drug addict!"
Then he got up and stood next to the driver holding the hand rail. The bus rolls to a stand still. Another bus stop. The door opens.
The driver looks at him, "Are you gonna stop, buddy?"
"Yes." He replies curtly and steps off the bus.
