get on the bus

it's always the public transportation. always. today is thursday. this is when my metrocard expires and i need to buy a new one. i don't know that because i remember. i know that because every thursday at 6am when i swipe my card at the turnstile it tells me my card is no good, so i go to the card machine in the train station to get a new one. every week. today i was feeling wild and thought i might see if ski mask man was around again, so i walked down toward him and toward the bus. this morning was warm, even so early, and everything smelled quiet and like rain. no ski mask man, but i got to the bus stop just in time to hop on a nearly empty bus so i was pretty happy nonetheless. i dipped my card in the reader next to the bus driver and pranced on back to a seat. he probably called to me several times but i finally heard him halfway back. my card was expired. see, the train won't let me get on without a current card so this doesn't happen often.

i turned around. oh, i said. i didn't have anything better that early. i expected him to look different. there is a face that goes with many of the people who work in new york, especially if they work for agencies with uniforms and small amounts of authority. it is common on the faces of transit workers and the police and security guards. it is the face of authority-that-goes-with-blue-pants. and it is terrible to behold. this is the face i expected to see. a face that looks like it is hovering atop hemorrhoids. but i saw the face of a man from missouri. i know that sounds strange. i know there's no such thing. but he looked like the sort of man i'd seen a million times in my childhood. he looked gentle. he looked like a guy who managed to add up grocery sums to exactly whatever small change a child happened to have sweating in grubby palms, even if someone else might have seen several dollars worth of stuff there. he looked like he smelled like a lawn mower. grass and gasoline and oil. he looked like someone who could make my dad laugh. the bus was already moving when i told him i could leave. i said i'd hop off at the next stop. he smiled a little and said, "you didn't hear it from me. have a seat."

on the way home i walked past a covered bus stop. you may not know them, but here in brooklyn we have these nice little shelters at some of the stops. glass on top and three sides. many with benches in them. this one, on union near fifth avenue, didn't have benches, but someone fixed that. there were four mismatched chairs sitting inside the glass shelter, safe from the afternoon rain. one was a wooden kitchen chair with a fabric cushion. there was a green wooden armchair of some sort, maybe a patio chair, low and missing some paint. there was a dining room chair with arms that seemed like it might be related to the kitchen chair. same wood. same cushion. but the most wonderful chair was a red high stool with a back, like a bar stool, but with those two awesome steps that fold out from inside. my great grandma had one of those when i was a kid. it is where i sat to eat sugar cookies and sandwiches made of bread and butter pickles and cheese.

a young mother was hurrying through the rain to the bus stop. her boy, four or so, ran ahead and scrambled up onto the red chair. she plopped down onto the dining room chair next to him and they smiled at each other like they'd discovered a new world.