[This story is now available in my new book.]

I couldn't quite make out what variety he specified, but I somehow knew his next word would be cancer. Him and his pet rabbit, whom he cuddled about his neck. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike.

"You shoulda seen me two months ago. I had lumps the size of this."
"Well shoot, you coulda fooled me, you look all right,"
"But I'm weak. They had me in there…" he explained the details.
"Oh man, that stuff is no joke. I'll be rooting for ya."
"Well, I'm tellin' you cause I'm not really getting any support from my family,"
"Aw man that's no good,"
"And I could really use some,"
"Oh yeah,"
"And I know you radiate positive vibes, so if you throw any kinda positive vibes you can my way, I know this thing'll work."
We do what little we can, to make each day easier. I said, "oh, I'll definitely be throwin' all kindsa positive vibes in your direction. I think that type a stuff makes a real difference."
"I do too."

He enthused on how his medical team was a real crack outfit, angels and geniuses. I was glad to hear it. Beads of sweat were forming on his bald pate, though it was nearing a cool midnight. He mentioned how several experts of different disciplines had been brought in to consult with him on the psychological aspects of surviving the treatment. One was a social worker who insisted that being positive doesn't matter, that he could think as negatively as he liked and the outcome would be unaffected. 

We scoffed at the idea because we needed to, but also because we knew better, citing obvious examples of stress and anxiety manifesting themselves in one's physical state. Grey hair on presidents and all. I told him of a nanny who used to ride my 3/4, Jemma, and how she was once healthy, then cancerous, then in severe chemotherapy, and then, at the end of it, healthy again. "So, it can happen," I said. "She beat it."
"Is she still beating it?"
"Yeah! As far as I know, yeah, she was doing good."
I can still recall the excitement in Jemma's face the night she told me it was over. Frailty vanishes first from the eyes.

We spoke some more, he and I, and it wasn't until after he'd gotten off I realized we'd talked for several blocks about photography, my day, my interest in film, before he even mentioned his situation. My passengers didn't know it, but I sat up there in my driver's seat, quietly stunned. Such generosity. Can you imagine?

​He whose life was now so involved in pain, endurance, the slow lament of nearby death… who took the time to consider my trivial cares. I was profoundly moved. Would that we all cared for others to such a degree.

Snarled is perhaps too strong a word, but I'm using it anyway. It's what he wanted to do. Two of us 7's had pulled up at the same moment. He snarled from outside the doors at 5th and Jackson: "so which one of you is late!"
I said, "um, neither of us."
"Well, somebody's late, because I've been waiting for fifteen…"

He looked like Albert Einstein, except angry. The nondescript dress of many a fifty-year old white male, could be a teacher, could be an accountant, with stringy hair going everywhere, only with no apparent genius to back it up; only fumes here. 

Plenty of others were waiting for the bus besides him. He stepped in and sat right next to me, diligently continuing his fuming. That takes work, you know! I ignored him for the moment, brightly greeting the incoming horde. Several of them recognized me, and we excitedly exchange best wishes for the new year. What a great crew the 7 ridership is. Whatever energy you put out as a bus driver, you get back in your face multiplied by ten; on the 7, it feels like you get it back multiplied by a hundred. Another driver and I were talking about why we both like Metro's statistically least desirable, busiest, lowest-seniority route; he summed it up by saying, "I just feel more wanted on that thing!"

I told the crowd, by way of the mic, "guys, we're thirty seconds early, we gotta wait thirty seconds. Don't wanna leave anyone behind." It's true that we're early. I imagine the 7 behind me is late, and supposed to be our leader. 

"Ha, well, according to all of us, you're late!" That's Einstein's brother, piping up.
"Well, all I can tell you is, I'm here, and we're on time." I was turned in my chair facing him, with the bus parked as we waited out our thirty seconds. I was thinking quickly, but not well. As I looked at his smirking self-confidence, the condescension he felt he could rightfully bestow on those younger than him, I said something unintelligent: "you're not feelin' very well, huh?"

Before he could respond, I elbowed into his thoughts directly, with a firm and cutting tone. "Actually, you should vent. Just vent. Get it outta your system." I realized I sounded too harsh, and lightened it by adding with a smile, "I won't take it personal!"

He didn't say a word. 

His smirk vanished before my eyes. He was a spade being called out as such, temporarily steamrolled by a mixture of confidence and unassailable relaxedness. How do you resist encouragement? He began to realize he was out of place– not just racially, but more crucially, emotionally. The people on this bus know the driver, and everyone in here is happy. A young black American man leaving through the middle doors flashed me the westside sign, by way of thanks, almost daintily. I waved at his echo. 

Einstein got up to leave just four stops later. "Thanks, man," I said.
"Well, I'm done venting now."
"I hope it's a good rest of the night!"
"It will be. I'll be perfectly on time."
"Right on. Take care!"
"Take care!"

He sounded chagrined. I hope he took something with him from the energy my passengers and I had built. It isn't proprietary, after all. We cook up that good feeling for anyone and everyone.

This is the final conversation in a very full day, covered by the two posts immediately below.

You may remember Sho Luv, from the 358. He looks like a friendlier version of Ice Cube, with more gold in his teeth. Always in bright spirits, at least when I'm around. We're both from South Gate. He's explaining how he was just down in Los Angeles. A flood in a living space he was visiting there had resulted in problems.

"I was down on Skid Row for five days and five nights."
"Skid Row, uh oh!" Like our Jungle, Skid Row has housed a large homeless population since before the 1930s. 
"Went down there for a high school reunion."
"In Skid Row??"
He bellowed with laughter. "Naw, silly! In LA! Ah found a hotel, finally. The sign said sixty dollars, I said okay."
"Okay, reasonable."
"I gave the lady a hunnerd dollar bill, and she gave me twenty-seven dollars back!"
"Hold up!"
"I know! It's a problem with the arithmetic!"
"Totally! My math ain't perfect, but it ain't that bad!"
"Somethin' don't EQUATE!"
He continued his story after we caught our breath. "I was down there five days in Old Town, man, and you know there ain't no cabs goin' into Old Town,"
"No way,"
"So I'm walkin' across MacArthur Park in a two piece suit!"

We're both screaming. "What? You did what?!"
"So then I was late to the dance, finally got there felt like I had climbed Everest or somethin',"
"I know you like to hit them clubs,"
"Aw naw, no more clubbin' for me." 
"Right on."
"Anyways I got there with an hour left, and they still tried to charge me full price! He was askin' me for eighty!" 
"Fuhgetaboutit!"
"I said I'm givin' you forty, and if we need to talk about it we'll talk about it!"
"That work out okay?"
"Yeah, but check this. Inside, at the reunion, a lady asked me, 'are you a pimp?'"
"What?"
"I said, 'I don't need no ho to make my dough!'"
I suppose that's one way to express one's interest in legitimate careers. "There you go. She just asked you out the blue, straight up?"
"Yeah!"
"That's weird, man." I assured him that he did not in fact resemble a pimp, though pimps have been known to traverse MacArthur Park in the wee hours. "I mean I'm just sayin', Mister Sho Luv, I see somebody walkin' 'round Skid Row in the middle of the night in a two-piece, the word 'pimp' is gonna cross my mind! I mean I miiiight think this guy's goin' to a high school reunion 'cause his spot got flooded and no cabs drive through here and Skid Row is in between his flooded hotel and his reunion spot, buuuuttt…."

Our cackling, deep-throated joy was the light we made for ourselves, and each other.

This story is a continuation of the same day as the post below.

It's only a few minutes of faces I don't recognize, and then we have Andrew. Andrew's on his way to practice mountain climbing. Albert, whose name I won't know 'til the end of the trip, keeps butting in with tidbits on football and weather, but that's okay. Andrew's a young man with a job; Albert's an older man without one. They respect each other anyway. I met Andrew on a recent break, as I was eating dinner in the middle of the bus with all doors open, gabbing away at someone else. He and I are just getting into our recurring mountain climbing discussion when a young lady I recognize steps aboard. It's Celia.

I'm bubbling over. I distractedly yell hello at some Pioneer Square regulars walking by– bus driving is nothing if not multitasking– after which the three of us carry on our big reunion. Celia is one of those bright, happy faces upon which you see the best of life writ large, a reminder of the good things we so easily know on our better days (you may recall her from here, wrapping up the night here, talking tough stuff here, or especially here).

We three fill the air with enthusiastic music, using rock climbing, Amazon, and corporate bureaucracy as starting points. We somehow manage to laugh about rising house prices, of which we are all victim, and together hope we don't have to move to Renton to stay near this glorious city. I comment on something I noticed in Los Angeles– when the minimum-wage working class is priced out to the point it has to own cars, you've just lost the functionality of the city. 

Andrew leaves, and Celia and I soar ever higher. The conversation on this little bus is our great construction for the day, our living art piece. We zig-zag between cars and bounce ideas, emotions, memories off each other. People around us smile. A sampling of our lineup: telling each other our separate Y2K experiences; politics at the Center School; politics at Columbia City Bakery; how age disparities recede with age; declining notions of coolness; how this is the time for our generation to shine and assert itself as something other than "millennial" (a term I abhor! I was born in the eighties, for heaven's sake!); ways of routing the 7 over to light rail that would still include the Prentice loop; how well Goethe's letters hold up through the centuries.

Do these details matter? I want you to know what it was to be there, as we turned Tuesday afternoon into something glorious, rich with the benevolent surge of excited life, how we built that grace out of nothing more than banalities. And they say there's no magic in the world! I think you know the feeling, friend, where you and your conversation-mate spar back and forth with joy, well-oiled and symphonic, English being the music of the street. 

She leaves us for now, but the wheels keep turning. Rory, a vet and father, tells me of his recently deceased relative, how he used to sell tires, how his sister's doing. These are the essential matters on his plate and the center of his day; I'm here to listen, partly mind-boggled at the density of human experience on this universe. His world is just as big as Celia's, yet features none of the same highlights. How is there room for all this on our tiny globe? Everyone, with their urgent dreams and sorrows, hardly known by those right next to them. No wonder people always have something to say. 

After him there was Kathy, or Katherine, or somesuch, with her own highs and lows: her last day working at PCC before gearing up for classes at Seattle Central. We talked western philosophy, how a bus system that forces transfers has an inadequate understanding of people's travel patterns, and the brilliance of the connected 7/49 routing. Another man and I expounded on how we love the older coach types– the Americanas, this Breda we were driving, and the German M.A.N. coaches which preceded it. The bus would've blushed furiously were it able to hear our unabashed praise.

Some exchanges are short: A man named Al tells me I should be an airline pilot. That's all. 

Others are long. Here's Ahmed, fresh from a long day working at Taylor Shellfish. We have a real discussion. He's about my age, and as gregarious. The topics reel in and out of our flywheel, and we're able to discuss matters more personal, more complex as the bus thins out– getting on in the evening now. Girls, restaurants, business strategy, chicken, relationships, divorce, kids, the value of creativity in one's life perspective, nurturing a creative environment for children, being kind, honesty, finding peace and respect in divorce- "no reason to hate," he says, referring to his ex-wife.
"Exactly. She's not all bad. There was a reason you got together."
"Exactly!"

The last lines stuck. No relationship is a failure just because it ends. Everything ends. The trick is enjoying it, right now. His was a conversation you hang onto, or try to, as it flits into the ether, fading away already, living on only in your memory, and hopefully your actions. There are dialogues where you walk away a better person. 

That doesn't exactly describe the next conversation, which unlike the rest I was able to jot down, not because it was profound (it definitely wasn't!), but just because it happened to be the last one in this long, exhilarating four-hour string of Nathanbabble....

To be continued– check back soon! 

Pretty early on I realized, there's no way I'm going to remember all this. The most I can do is throw my hands in the air and just enjoy it. 

I've written before about my great fascination with spoken language, and how I love capturing its nuances and specifics. The starts and restarts, the repetition, the interruptions– quite different from much fictional dialogue, wherein characters patiently wait for each other to finish talking and express complete thoughts in organized, structured bursts of brilliance. 

The linguistic enthusiasts among you will perhaps know that the Nixon tapes are the largest existing document of the same people talking. Think about that for a moment. It's a dialectic gold mine. The resulting transcripts are invaluable examples of what spoken interactions actually look like on paper. The recent 800-page brick of a publication, The Nixon Tapes, culled from 3,000 hours of backroom dealings and private conversations, focuses mostly on early-term material (we've all heard the Watergate tapes). Aside from the obvious historical value and disturbing Shakespearean undertones– perhaps overtones is more like it– the transcripts are revelatory in their unadorned depiction of human speech.

You realize people don't talk in paragraphs, let alone complete sentences. Page after page goes by of oddly rhythmic, staccato interruptions and roundabout developments of thoughts, like intercutting storyline threads in a Robert Altman movie. Read here as Nixon, John Connally, and other cronies discuss bribing dairy farmers. The subject only comes to light glancingly, gradually, a sum revealed only by taking it all in. It's a beautiful dance of sorts, the type we all engage in every day.

It is this fascination which compels me to document so many bus conversations in such detail. People reveal volumes of themselves in how they choose to phrase things, and how thoughts come to light through a progression of two people interacting. I aim to capture the dialogue of the bus conversations with as much accuracy as possible. I'll scribble down down everything on transfers or paper towels as soon as it's safe to do so. I can fill in context later; at the outset all I care about is getting down the actual words. Keywords come first, quickly followed by word choice and structural details. When you do this enough times, your recall develops and remembering the idiosyncrasies of speech becomes an ingrained habit. Generally I start with the last (most recent) sentence of an exchange and work my way back through the conversation from there.

However, I can't get it all down every time. Many's the time when the conversation was so compelling– but so fast– that retaining it all was simply impossible. I'd sit there at a red light, thinking, what just happened? If I can't remember a conversation with confidence, it doesn't go on the blog. After all, if it isn't truthful, what's the point of telling it?

Today was one of those days. Over the course of a seven-hour shift, at least four hours were spent talking with friends. It was a cavalcade, a hit parade, a stream of delighted faces. Usually I see a few people I recognize, but never in such an all-at-once overload. While I don't remember the words themselves– almost immediately I realized that would be an absurd task– perhaps that's not what matters so much as the feeling, the living reality of it all. Of course. In the same way the act of photography takes us out of the present, so too does the conscious effort to memorize and document words. I wonder if I was more there, more unwaveringly present as a result. I'm grateful for having gotten to experience any of it at all.

​It began with Paul and I gabbing away at my first break. It's about to be The Great Paul's last round trip of the 7 for the day (read here for how Paul and I celebrate New Years'; here for a humbling moment on Paul's bus). It'll be my first, following right behind him. Maybe you know him. Picture a beard which manages to combine Duck Dynasty, the best 'fros on Rainier, and Charlton Heston's take on Moses.

He's one of those men who's exceptionally good at what he does, but not because it's his only interest; his curiosity and capability for life are such he'd be good at anything he chose to do. This is more rare than it sounds. Today's his last day before heading to New York with family to take down an art installation. We talk about last days, road trips, weight loss on trips, his son, the Badlands and more. We're off– two 7's in a row with drivers very happy to be there. He drives his bus while drinking coffee out of a ceramic mug– that is to say, in style. 

That's just the beginning– to be continued shortly!