This one is a companion piece of sorts to the one below.

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He swaggered onboard with the lost hope of a man who wished he ruled the world. In delusion there is comfort; maybe he did and still would, in the final place where such things matter, the secret recesses of your mind and that of your friends.

I was grateful for his familiarity on this 5/21, where I feel like a stranger in a strange land: a crush of haggard commuters now, the affluent, overworked, and exhausted set, not interested in talking and perhaps understandably so. I'm no judge. People have different solutions for the parts of their lives they don't like. I'm used to a different type of crowd, though. The Seattle I describe in an earlier post isn't the Seattle of most of these route 5 passengers tonight. 

But this man, this swaggering dark-clad man with the wild eyes... this man spoke my language.

You may not know that crack cocaine often has no noticeable odor. He smokes it in the back of buses sometimes, and you can see the full whites of his distended irises from all the way up here, where I'm sitting, through the rear-view mirror. That sack-boned gone and dirty need, a speedometer starting at shame and going the other way... What is it about reducing yourself from a human mind to a mere lonely chemical? I see the pipe and I see irreversible brain damage. He sees it and sees release, freedom, comfort, all the things he can't find in easy reach.

But my job is not to solve the big problems. That's on someone else. I see too many. I'm not sitting on the piles of capital and infrastructure opportunities that would help. I'm doing what the power players can't do: I can be their friend. I'm the authority figure who has no agenda. Let me help you feel acknowledged, free, comforted. 

I tell myself I'm okay with all of what I see. It looks like I don't care. But that's where I need to sit in order to offer what I have. You're Abdulahi, drunk at 8 AM, and all the cops and aid workers in Seattle know you and they're rolling their eyes. Everyone else is crossing the street to get away from you, because you're scaring people. 

But I know your name, friend, and I lean in for a fistpound, as I did this morning in the line at CVS. Because you're my people and you've been nice to me. I leave the solving of problems to more-equipped others. I stick with what I'm best at, and what they may not be able to do as easily: make you feel human. 

One night I talked to him at the terminal, after the others had all left.

"Hey, my guy."
"'Sup."
"Listen, you're welcome to ride my bus again, but I gotta ask you one favor, which is to please, dude, we can't be lightin' up in here. Can't be smokin' out inside the bus with all these other people. I don't mean no disrespect."
"It's cool, it's cool, I won't do it no more."
"I know sometimes it's hard, maybe you really want to, but just outta respect, I gotta ask you please."
"I gotchoo, bro. I apologize."
"Thanks, man."

And he stopped. Two weeks later he got on again.
"Thank you for not smoking, my guy," I quickly said.
"Ey!" Elastic toothy grin, making my heart soar with relief: "You remember!"
"I appreciate you!"
"You a cool bus driver!"

And that's how it's been since. "Ah be good, ah be good," he'll say when he slips on. And he is. It was in the breath of our histories (above and earlier, linked below*) that he saw me now, tonight. 

"THE FIVE?" he exclaimed, in shock.
"I KNOW," I replied, throwing my hands up in the air. 
"Aintchoo sposed tuh be on the 7?"
"TOTALLY, MAN! It's like, what am I doing here?"
"Ey. It's good to see you."

I can't tell how he's doing, if he's better or worse tonight. But he engaged. He was kind. I no longer mind if people are unresponsive to me. But doesn't it feel good when they do respond? I'm sure these plugged-in people have their strengths. Silence and interiority are virtues, not drawbacks. 

But. He was the person on this bus who said hi to me. I was Abdulahi at CVS, and he reminded me that I belong, too. 

And that counts for something.

---

*These sorts of things can come and go with the tides. Here he is doing worse, and better; incremental improvement is still improvement.

In case you missed the broadcast earlier this week, here it is online! Hope you enjoy!

A huge thank you to Joseph Suttner, Suzie Wiley, Julia, and of course Michael King, for their graciousness and enthusiasm.

I suspect my early formative days, spent as they were in the predominantly black and otherwise ethnic neighborhoods in South Central LA, have left within me with a certain positive bias, a subtle sense of long-ago comfort toward certain culture groups. It's not really a sensation based on specific experiences; just a feeling, the everliving hints of your earliest self.

Should we really be surprised that my favorite Seattle neighborhood to work in, Rainier Valley, just happens to comprise almost exactly the same proportional  demographics as South Central LA? Some things don't change. Our yearnings reveal the children we once were. Writes the German poet Novalis, more than two centuries ago: "I am always going home. Always to my father's house." 

Recently I was driving in West Seattle. I'm doing the 5 and 21 this shakeup for boring contract-related reasons pertaining to reblocked shifts and forced overtime on the 7 that I wish to avoid. I miss the 7/49. I'll get back there soon enough. I always get back. 

For now I'm a visitor enjoying my tour of duty elsewhere, genuinely enjoying it, getting to know the entirely different, far less garrulous, more subdued, but still genial crowds in Greenwood and West Seattle. I'm a stranger out there though, and I can feel it. In the land of office workers, bankers and mid-level managers, my brand of loquacious kindness is an anomaly. These guys don't need friends. They just want to go home. I've gotten spoiled, spending so much time in neighborhoods that don't have the Seattle Freeze...

There I was in any event, southbound at 35th and Morgan. A young man waited at the stop. Early twenties maybe, or late teens even, the way kids can surprise you with their growth spurt. He wore a knit beanie and sweats upon sweats, the athletic type, everything a noncommital dark blue, sagging low with no logos.

Yes, he was black American. No one else in sight was a person of color, unless you counted my hapa-happy heritage. Something about him relaxed me. Formative Nathan, the child from LA touching some lost memory, textures I used to dream in. I thought about how like him, I too prefer to wear clothing with no logos. 

I opened the doors and nodded the upward nod. 

"Hey," I said.

That's all I did. I didn't even do anything... Or did I? He was tense before, numbed on edge, but now, upon looking at me, hearing me, he instantly relaxed. Instantly, reader. His head wagging in a sideways grin now, shoulders going down, the crook in his step practically a dance. Instantly. He nodded in return and swung his arms in an X over each other, rapping silently to the beat of his happiness. He wasn't a stranger anymore.

How did he know, though? He has no idea of my background, where I'm from, anything. My appearance indicates none of that. I'm just some skinny Asian-looking guy with nerdy glasses. How could he possibly know I felt comfortable, respected him, that I welcomed him as an equal? Could he perceive that he was accomplishing the very same comfort for me that I appeared to be giving him? Is the human brain sharp enough to delineate the worlds contained in a flash of bearing, everything about our storied lives that made me feel at ease? 

I was a stranger in a strange land. We both were, and we made each other feel less so.

​Seattle is many things to many people. You carve out a niche, and it becomes your understanding of the place, your very own personal city. All the other ways Seattle can be, ways the city is, recede from view. You get to take part in giving it a name.

For me, Seattle is very friendly. It's always been mostly ethnic: Asian and east Indian in my childhood, spent largely in Redmond during the days before Microsoft. 

Do you remember Redmond then? Tall grass, bramble bushes, a bus once an hour, older immigrant couples taking walks after sunset, hands clasped behind their backs, the neighborhoods where you could meander down the middle of the street. It would become one of the tech centers of the world. That wasn't us. When we were there, we fed sheep and horses. 

I don't usually bother telling people under fifty about the portion of my childhood that took place in Redmond. Because when you say Redmond, they think Silicon Valley meets the Hamptons. And that's got nothing to do with you. They don't think of cheap and quiet land, where a plumber could support his whole family with money left over to feed the dog. It's important to remember that suburbs once existed separate from affluence and status. As I've written before, living in the 'burbs didn't used to mean anything. It was just a place to live. In the '60s, a waitress' salary could fully support you, a single mother raising your child, like Mildred Pierce does before things go up and over. Tall grass and trees and a library, the perfect counter to riot-ridden south LA. That was our Redmond. 

With the thought of those contrasting origin spaces, you can understand where I'm coming from with my Seattle. It's a mix of the two.

My Seattle is generally black, American or African, with a healthy smattering of east Asian and Latino backgrounds. The respect carried in smiles and nods are the common language here, a predominantly working-class town, earthy. Vocal, sometimes too much, but who's counting; the white folks are artists, filmmakers, writers, servicemen and women, thinkers rich and poor, always generous in their outlook; everyone stimulating to be around, with overlap for days.

What a fine bunch.

Yes, mental health, drugs and desperation bubble in the periphery. Either those or the problem of influx, new money, the downturn of politics and education. There are conversations. But mostly, we shake hands with our words and eyes, accepting, vibrant, living in the place where we have things in common.

Part of this island of identity we build has to do with geography in the literal sense. I once did a photo project in art school focused on Rainier Beach, only to discover nearly all my colleagues had no idea where that was. On another occasion, a friend told me how white she found Seattle, and I asked her which neighborhoods she spent most of her time in. When she answered by saying "Queen Anne and West Seattle," it was hard not to chuckle. For a lot of young people, Seattle just means Capitol Hill, the U District, and Belltown. That's fine. That's their Seattle. But mine's bigger.

We know South Seattle is larger than its northern counterpart, but I think we forget by exactly how many orders of magnitude. Take another peek at the map. Look at the size of those southern tracts. Seattle also means Columbia City, Brighton, Hillman City, the Beach, the Valley at large, Beacon Hill, the International District, South Park, White Center, Skyway, Boulevard Park, Ambaum and beyond, the veins of the city pointing outward from its jagged southern limits. Let's not even get into the inarguable vastness that is South King County, or "South End," as they say on the street ("South Side" referring to within the city proper).

Aside from geography though, there's simply who you choose to associate with. Nevermind which neck of the woods you're in. To your neighbor, Seattle might be a collective of twenty-something bearded developers in plastic-frame glasses who love talking about microbrews. To you, it's lively discussions in your native tongue about grandchildren and cooking and politics back home. 

I know my Seattle is small. I know it's a minority view, and probably sounds ridiculous. A warm, welcoming, earthy, vibrant, friendly Seattle? What? 

But everyone's version of the city is authentic, because their experiences are valid. For myself, I continue to be surprised by just how sizable my lil' Seattle is. By how many of you wonderful blog readers there are. How hundreds (hundreds! Plural!) of you came out to my recent book launch. Who are excited about the attitude and perspective the book and blog embody. 

How many thousands of smiling faces I see, night after night and years in and out, nameless or otherwise. Faces that respond to kindness, to me, the little boy still acting like he lives on the end of a small-town neighbourhood block.