FlamingText

3 Bus Stops: Stop #3

“You are driving me fucking crazy.” She tells her companion as he unpacks the contents of their three grocery bags and methodically checks each item. He is looking for his lost baloney and cheese. The Tent City people gave them some vouchers for food at the QFC earlier in the day and these grocery bags were filled with the spoils from this excursion. Somewhere along the way the two wayfarers lost their bearings and spent most of the rest of the day trying to find their way back.

“We shoulda never left Tacoma.” She says with a gravel voice that sounds like forty years worth of cigarettes. I notice a jailhouse tattoo on her hand as she roots through the bags, putting back the items her companion has just taken out and strewn across the sidewalk. I look over what they’ve purchased from the store: Ding Dongs and generic Froot Loops and various types of cookies and candy bars and some cans of soda. No sign of the missing baloney.

FIVE MINUTES EARLIER:
At 9:30 on a Friday night I’ve been waiting at the bus stop for the last five minutes. In about an hour and a half I’ll be playing for the Spin the Bottle crowd with my bandmates in the Half Brothers. Normally I would’ve begged a ride from one of them because hauling the guitar case around on the bus can be kind of a pain, but tonight is also a performance of No Signal , so Doc and Johann are indisposed and there’s nobody else I can think of to mooch a ride from. So here I am: Sitting on my guitar case at the bus stop in front of the corner market and the pizza shop, waiting for the 49.

   It’s a pleasant early May evening. The air has cooled just enough for a jacket, which I now wear unbuttoned. I settle in for a wait of indeterminate length. Approaching from my right I see two people walking downhill towards the bus stop where I sit: A man and a woman, both probably fifty years old, the man black and the woman white. They are laden with grocery bags and are dressed in layers of worn and weathered clothes. They have “hard times” written all over them. They stop and ask me if I know where the Tent City is. I’m embarrassed now because I really should know this. The problem is the Tent City moves around a lot, and so even though I know where it has been, it may have moved since then. What was it I heard about it recently? Some bit of information just on the tip of my tongue that I can’t conjure just now.

“I think it’s up at St Mark’s?” I offer. St Mark’s is just four blocks away back the way they came. They tell me they just walked all the way down Tenth and they didn’t see it, and they think it must be farther along up this way. Maybe near a park, or a church or something. They are not from Seattle – they came here from Tacoma, hoping for better social services.

“That was a big mistake. At least in Tacoma, we knew our way around. I hate Seattle.”

   They settle themselves in the metal chairs placed outside of the pizza place and begin to wait for the bus, which will be fifteen minutes late. I tell them, the first of many times, that I think they’re looking for St Mark’s which is just a few blocks back the way they came. This is partly because I know that they would get there quicker walking than they will waiting for the bus, but also because I am certain that they don’t have the money to pay for bus fare.

   They introduce themselves to me as Cissy and Ron. Cissy does most of the talking, owing to Ron’s severe stutter. It is extremely hard to understand what he is saying. He also habitually repeats the same points over and over again, prompting his companion to bury her head in her hands and mutter "Jesus Christ" more than once. Calloused hands root through bags of groceries. Still finding no lunchmeat, still no cheese.
“It’s not there! I told you, you must’ve left it at the store.”

   They have traveled together for years. The topic of jail comes up at various points, both as a past residence and a future hazard to be avoided. It is obvious that Cissy is to some extent taking care of Ron, who besides his difficulties in expressing himself also seems to be prone to debilitating confusion, evidenced by his searching again and again in the same bag for the baloney and cheese he remembers purchasing.

“I’m not going to tell you again!"

   He turns to me and asks me how I’d feel if I got home from the store and found out that the items I’d purchased had disappeared. When I finally understand his question, I allow that I’d probably be pretty upset. Who wouldn’t be? I try to relate, even as I realize that the loss of a pack of lunchmeat means less to me than it does to him. He’s going to have to survive on the Hostess snack cakes and generic breakfast cereals he’s got for now. I am acutely aware of how privileged I am to have a house to go home to and enough money to buy food when I want it. They are not trying to make me feel guilty and they are not asking for anything from me (except cigarettes, which I don’t have), but mostly they are sitting here next to me because they’ve been walking all day and they are tired of walking. They tell me they left their packs at the Tent City.

“If we find our way back there, I swear we’re not leaving again.”

   Ron tells me he’s sure that the Tent City was “right past the store.”
I think he is describing a convenience store, which of course is not much of a landmark in the middle of the city like this. I am struggling to figure out what location he is describing, but they are so unfamiliar with local geography that they can’t tell me much. Still, I know St Mark’s has been the site of the Tent City and I also know that the direction they were headed can’t possibly be the right one. There is nothing like what they are describing for miles in that direction. I tell them again that St Mark’s is just around the bend from here but they show no interest.

  When the bus finally arrives I get on first and swipe my card. I turn around and they are right behind me, ignoring the driver’s request for bus fare and lamely pretending to look in their pockets for money that even the driver knows just isn’t there. He’s not going to make an issue of it, he just sniffs with an air of a disgusted resignation and the bus starts moving. I ask him if he knows the location of Tent City and he returns a rather clipped “No.”

  Three blocks and two stops later we are closing in on St Mark’s and I tell them I think this is where they want to go. They say “I can’t believe we just walked right past it” and thank me and get off. I am not sure if I have just done them a good deed, a bad turn or if I’ve made no difference either way.

  Later that weekend, I get home from the store only to realize that I’ve left behind a bag of groceries that I’d paid for, just left it sitting right there by the cash register. My frustration is colored by Ron’s question from Friday night about how I would feel. Pissed off about covers it, mostly pissed off at myself. But I'm not as pissed off as I’d be if I had to walk all the way back to the store to get it and walk back home again, instead of driving back to the store and getting it, which is what I do. Feeling guilty the whole way, guilty for wasting gas and guilty for my privilege and just the sort of general guilt that I was raised to feel at all times about just about anything.

   Later still, I do some research and realize the Tent City has moved two miles away just this week. I directed them to an empty parking lot. I am, therefore, an asshole. With the best of intentions, naturally.

Posted by flamingbanjo at June 22, 2006 06:19 PM