J'ai besoin d'aide

As the great Canadian punk band SNFU puts it, "Reality is a ride on the bus." It's true that a bus ride is a glimpse into the rainbow of humanity, and the more rides one takes, the more shades one can see. From an afternoon on the job hunt:

Riding the bus in the afternoon
Where are we all going?
With fast food lunches in tow
Pangs for the group of misifts
Rushing to the other curb
Young and old, all tones of skin
With tank tops or hard hats
Or bags too heavy, too bulky to carry
Some even without limbs -
Where are we all going?
If we work, we're in the shit
Whether for Capital or the State
Only the degrees of compliance vary
Others, the "lucky" ones...
Live off the trans fat of the land

Now that I have a job, I see the same people every morning on the #5 bus - something I never experienced with the subway in Boston. (That's not a diss; they're just different.) So I try to make up back stories for these people: the cute strawberry blonde with hip glasses who always looks straight ahead while listening to her Ipod before getting off at 14th and Lavaca, the older woman who often wears a skirt and sneakers and some times talks to other older regulars before getting off at 4th and Congress, the guy with the mutton chops and baseball cap and cargo shorts who some times smells of body odor and often seems to be studying diagrams of a sort and gets on at 8th and Congress... where he gets off, I don't know. I'm off at 18th and Lavaca.

The ride home is always different. Some times I wait for the 5, some times not. Two days in a row last week, I broke my iron rule of not giving out change (the principle is that if you give it out to everyone, you'll be broke, and it's too complicated to make evaluative decisions on the spot), while waiting at 17th and Guadalupe, because I felt some kind of urge. The first guy, a mid-30s dude with a shaved head and baseball cap, asked for 65 cents. At first, I said I didn't have it, but then I had that strange change of mind. Obviously feeling like he needed to entertain me, he told me about his high school club lacrosse team, who played against other schools, but weren't officially sanctioned, so they could drink and smoke on the sidelines, and host keg parties as fundraisers. Then he told me about going to his senior prom full of 10 beers and codeine (for lacrosse pains), how his date had to drive, and he couldn't remember where he'd made reservations. On Tuesday, the order reversed: a middle aged guy started asking me about this camera he had found, since he wasn't good with electronics. I realized it was, in fact, not a digital camera, and the roll of film had already been shot. We decided he should go develop it and see what was shot. Then talk turned to punk rock, and the old clubs on the strip, shows with the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, etc. Then he asked me for 56 cents. I only had 55, but he seemed okay with that. Since then, I've either needed to walk further downtown first, or have felt too antisocial to give out change and hear stories, and have been going to other bus stops.

Today I wait at 14th and Guadalupe. Sit down on the grass, let the smell of recently cut green waft into the inviting proboscis. Wait for the #5 to come and end this hell-forsaken work day. Honey, I'm coming home... please have either a fruit and cheese platter or an apple pie waiting for me on the kitchen table. Workeatsleep. Dreams of putting documents in order and endless trips to the copy machine. No time to play. On the contrary, the alarm on my internal clock goes off every day at 6pm - like a foghorn - and the hours between 6 and whenever are quite happy, happy hours. Apple pie is a metaphor, you see. Fruit and cheese platters are not.