Image courtesy of Lionsgate Pictures.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve. An FBI agent (Emily Blunt) finds herself in deep water while investigating cartel activity in Juarez. Co-starring Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin. Trailer.

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Why is Sicario the best film of the year so far? It will hold that lofty title, I imagine, for merely a brief time, as we head now into fourth quarter, as new work by Paolo Sorrentino, Danny Boyle, Spielberg, Todd Haynes, David O'Russell, Tarantino (in 70mm!) and others appear (the hyperlinks are trailers to each's respective upcoming films). But after the dust settles Sicario will still rank among the finer achievements of the year. 

No director working now is so adept at such finely calibrated, brutal intensity as Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies). There is an atmosphere of menace oozing from every frame. That the opening establishes such a high barometer of dread, and that the film sustains in keeping us off-balance for the remainder of its runtime, is something I find both astonishing and extremely impressive. Villeneuve's impeccable choices of composition and camera placement communicate attitudes and sentiments far beyond what dialogue can offer. His cinematographer, the legendary Roger Deakins (who was so enamored by Incendies that he actually pursued relative unknown Villeneuve to work on Prisoners) conjures up visions of light and dark and detail heretofore unseen. 

Why is Villeneuve's tactile sense of menace so impressive to me? Because it stems from a veritable orgy of craftwork. He, Deakins, editor Joe Walker (who works for Steve McQueen) and others, through their prodigious talent and highly considered choices, create with precision. Take a peek at the trailer.

Notice the decision to dedicate an entire shot to moving shadows hitting that small portion of curtain at 00:15, or the choice to focus on dust motes hanging in the air in the explosion shot at 00:17. He attunes us to details. Villeneuve's near-total avoidance of handheld camerawork furthers the sensation of a precise, singular vision conveyed with intention. The use of the wide 2.35:1 scope frame (as opposed to regular 1.85:1 widescreen) makes what could be overly claustrophobic feel expansive, and lends the film a larger, grander sense of scale, despite actually being a fairly intimate portrait of one woman's experience. 

Note also some interesting choices such as shooting this dialogue scene with the camera fifty feet away from the actors (01:27), rather than over-relying on close-ups. The trailer presents the moment out of context, but the alienation she feels in that moment is underlined by the distance. Also the general enthusiasm for doing something besides eye-level medium shots (reverse tracking low angle at 01:28, ariel at 1:30). There's a moment not in the trailer involving reflections on a glass table during a key revelation that is masterful, as well as a sequence shot entirely with heat-sensing and night-vision goggles. 

Why is all this visual razzmatazz important? It's not razzmatazz, would be my answer. Cinema is a visual medium, and the best examples of it are those films where the visuals communicate ideas and psychological states in ways that can only be done in film- that is, through the camera. We all know pictures are worth a thousand words, and there's no more portent communication delivery device than the moving image.

A film which doesn't take advantage of this is a missed opportunity, and may as well be a stage play.

Critics offer valuable context on content (people are finally realizing reviews are a better indicator of quality than marketing), but rarely have any image-making experience and thus hardly ever mention the craft elements of a picture (more on that here). Which is why I'm here, telling you to look at shots of dust motes. This is undoubtedly the most visually impressive film of the year so far. Note the choice to frame cars driving on a highway like this (01:45), the prevalence of natural light (01:46), or the saturated golden hues late in the picture (2:03).

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, and Villeneuve as well, were both pressured by suits to rewrite the main character as male. Neither was particularly interested, thank goodness. All but two of Villeneuve's films center on female protagonists, which we always need more of. Like this year's Mad Max, the main character is female, isn't defined by her relationship to males or by romantic attraction to a man, doesn't exist to define or support male characters, has her own agenda, has motivations besides approval by or sex with males, and whose competence requires no explanation. How refreshing. Although, Sicario is perhaps more akin to Zero Dark Thirty (the decade's defining portrait of a woman working in a man's world; my ruminations here) than Mad Max in terms of gender relations; all three films succeed by navigating these issues in stride instead of dwelling on them, but the first two have less to do with gender relations and are more the stories of struggling, highly capable people who just happen to be female. Also pleasing as a casting choice is her partner, a law school graduate, who happens to be African-American.

The Emily Blunt performance is superlative, shaded and brooding, reminding us as she did in Edge of Tomorrow that being formidable and feminine are not mutually exclusive. She holds her own right alongside established greats Brolin and Del Toro, here giving his best performance since Inarritu's underrated 21 Grams (2003). But it's not a simplistic portrait of a woman triumphant, either. Mike D'Angelo of the A.V. Club sums it up well:

"the true victim in (and of) Sicario is its protagonist, who attempts to do the right thing at every turn and is rewarded by being systematically squeezed out of her own story. It’s an uncommonly bold gambit, expressly designed to frustrate people who want to see a strong woman deliver a righteous ass kicking. The progressivism here is instead rooted in futility and despair, which provides much more of a valuable shock to the system."

Villeneuve joked to David Poland that the visual conceit of Prisoners was to set it in the most imagistically boring environment possible (rainy grey contemporary suburbs) and then get Roger Deakins to shoot it. I find that film excellent but nigh-unwatchable because of the horrors of its content. Sicario differs from its predecessor in three key ways. Its subjects (bureaucratic power structures, inter-border political and personal violence, importance of law-breaking by entities maintaining order) don't hit me in as vulnerable places as those in Prisoners (child abduction, torture, home invasion) do. It's imminently more watchable, though similarly as intense and possibly bleaker in its outlook. Villeneuve's penchant for moral uncertainty makes him the perfect choice for a picture on America's drug war. 

Secondly, Prisoners, also Villeneuve's first english-language picture, relied more heavily on a genre template than any of his previous pictures. Though the film is (among other things) more about the decline of the affected party's moral compass and the importance of a third party in solving problems, it still uses a genre springboard to hook the audience, and for those audiences looking for nothing more, the whodunit framework involving cops and wrongdoers, et cetera, is prevalent enough. Prisoners transcends genre while still being of it. Sicario relies less on a familiar template.

Like Prisoners, simplistic character labels like good and bad hardly apply, but here that moral haze pervades not just the characters but also the narrative as a whole. There is no visually identified villain to pursue, no clear narrative through-line. Blunt, as the audience surrogate, is taken through strange episodes she struggles to understand, sometimes connecting dots and more often coming up stymied, gradually becoming less and less relevant in an ever-murkier world. It would be a lie to call this a straight drama, as it still embodies a thriller framework, but rather less so than Prisoners. 

Thirdly, we're a long ways from boring grey suburbs now, as far as concerns the visual milieu. The simple fact of the locations allow for a visual panache entirely different from that of Prisoners. Deakins wrought magic out of suburban Georgia (the slow push-in on the tree trunk, the racking focus on Dano's glasses inside the RV), but the sun-bleached flatlands, slums, and housing developments offer entirely new opportunities (01:46, 02:00 in the trailer above). Nevertheless, Vileneuve and Deakins seem to like setting challenges for themselves, still maximizing the visual possibilities of some pretty flat locations (the interrogation room with fluorescent lighting being one example).

Other reviews (Scott Foundas at Variety, Mark Olson at The LA Times, Todd McCarthy over at The Hollywood Reporter) do better than I at elucidating the film's many themes. A note should also be made of Johann Johannson's excellent score. I simply hope to contribute by sharing some of the visual dexterity which may be going under-discussed. The content is plenty, but if this had been directed and photographed by a lesser caliber, it wouldn't be anywhere near the film it is. 

Note: none of the films mentioned here are for the faint of heart. Don't take this warning lightly. I admire the faint of heart. But these, in their faithful depiction of truly harrowing spaces, are not up to such a par.

I'm off to Cuba for a week. I'll try to get one more story up before I leave tonight; this one had to go out first because it introduces a character in the next story. Thank you all for sharing in these moments. I'm so glad you enjoy them!

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People call me the n-word when they like me, and 'white boy' when they don't. He calls me both, and he's always happy to see me.

This Michael's last name really is Jackson, a fellow in his twenties who makes full use of the excellent napping opportunities the long 7/49 route provides. Sometimes after dozing off a while he'll simply watch me work with the folks, smiling to himself.

"Be blessed tonight. Every night!" he calls out to his friends, who've just yelled a thanks to me.

At the Henderson layover now, he's showing me photographs on his flip phone. He knows I like photography (this was before the ad about me which proclaims that fact, causing people to come up to me, ask if I like photography, and then immediately step away, as if that were a terrible thing!). Michael's pictures are pretty good. Here's one pointed directly at the sun, as Akira Kurosawa first intrepidly did in 1950's Rashamon. Another one has an emphasis on spatial dimension a la Sergio Leone, with objects situated near and very far from the picture plane. Here's another which clips the heads, letting us only see the subject's mouths, not unlike the opening moments in Malick's 2011 Tree of Life. I sum all of that critique into one word: "tight," I say aloud, expanding a little further.

"Man, you're just fuckin' the best." He asks permission, then takes a picture of me. This is the third such event tonight. Earlier a piano playing girl was excited, and before that I'd asked some men in the back to photograph some graffiti I liked and email it to me. I don't have a camera on my phone, and the graffiti, pictured above, touched my heart. One of those situations where you ask, "excuse me guys, this is gonna sound really weird, but…." I'm glad they were amenable. We have an earth to share, and we may as well get along.

Michael continues enthusing. "You're always sayin' shit, sayin' hi, and even though they angry at first they be like 'hi!' Fuckin' treatin' people good and shit." His is a wide-bodied grin glowing for days. He shakes his head in aw-shucks wonder, like you do when your favorite player tosses in a three-pointer, no big deal. "I see you talkin' into the microphone, I'm like 'that's my dude!' You're great." 

All I can do in the face of such praise is turn it around. Sincerely, I say, "well, thank you for smiling, for always–"
"That's my nickname, you said it!" 
"What, smiling?"
"Smiley!"
"Nice! That's' beautiful thing you're doin,' smiling. I know you're positive 'cause I remember the day of the Super Bowl, after we lost the game, and you were still happy, talking 'bout how it was a good game, well-played game, good football. Whole rest o' the city's cryin,' you're talkin' about it was good football…."

He details how he watched the game at a bar on Rainier Avenue with– not friends or family, but a local police officer. Both were extremely curious about the game, and decided to step off the street and spend some time together. Michael described the ebullient nature of such solidarity, a sharing of life so unexpected it makes you just about blow up with well-being, the possibilities of goodness all around you becoming realized. It could be like this. It's like this, right now. I know how he felt; I was once in an abandoned barn in Eastern Washington making photographs, way out on those vast and unbodied plains. The officer who accosted me on scene provided me with what can only be called the greatest civilian-officer experience I've ever had. He actually presumed I was innocent. He was genuinely checking in to ensure I was doing all right. We talked about good nearby photo locations, and how a lot of Japanese tourists have been through here, how he was surprised by how much they liked photographing things like empty barns and wheat stalks. I wanted to hug the guy.

"Iss 'bout bein' positive," Michael sighs. Pawsitive. "Niggers actin' all hard and shit, forget how to enjoy life." The Dalai Lama might use different vocabulary, but the two of them would be politely nodding in agreement were they both here; who can forget the Dalai Lama's wonderful thought, phrased to perfect succinction: "choose optimism– it feels better!"

"You a cool ass white boy, man," he continues. "You a cool ass white boy, doin' your thing. Don't stop!"
"You too, man, you too." I'm referring to his resilient attitude and his ability to see all that is light, whether cool or uncool. "Stay happy!"
"You too. Hey, be blessed, be safe!"
"And you also! Be blessed, be safe!"
"Hey!" He pauses for dramatic effect, and with a grin christens me with a new name: "Nigga Nate!"
"Ha! Always!"

This is the first in a series of three posts, all describing the same evening.

It started slowly and then all at once, not letting up for eight hours. Do you remember what it feels like, to be in love? Not with a person, nor an an idea or a place, but with the overriding and significant act of being? I'm helping a Middle Eastern family with their stroller, looking into the mother's eyes as I would a cousin. I'm among friends now. I put very little stock in astrology, but a book on the subject once opened itself to a page which described me to a tee:

Pisces doesn't see a particularly meaningful difference between family and strangers.

I couldn't have found more accurate words. The partiality I feel for this woman and her children, a series of bright dark eyes framed by hijabs or open curly locks, feeds and refeeds my soul. My thirst for the present usually means the person in front of me has my genuine interest, but these folks on the 7 are fulfilling me in a way I haven't felt at work in some time. No other route so compliments my thirst for the vitality, the verve and chaos of modern life in all its many-splendored tides. Tonight is my first day back on the 7, the busiest and most notorious route in the country's fastest-growing city.

What's taking me aback this evening is how many people remember me. I've been away from the route for an entire summer, but the amount of goodwill directed specifically because of prior experiences with me is humbling in ways I don't know how to deal with.

"You're the greatest," a man says. How could I be, though, when I'm just being myself? Here's another mother and stroller, distant on a parking lot sidewalk, screaming: "Heeeeaaay! Where you been!"
We catch up at high volume while her boyfriend looks at us askance. He'll just have to deal.

Moving along, we have a gentleman at Mount Baker, a perennial on that block, casually wandering until he notices me. I've seen that hooded black sweatshirt before (the same soul as at the bottom of this post). He switches his paper-covered beer can to his left hand, in anticipation of a handshake as he bounds over to my bus, yelling to ensure I wait for him. 

"Heeey, brotha!" he yells, the bus tipping ever so slightly as he jumps on, like a genteel citizen tipping his hat in greeting.
"It is you! How's it goin,' man!"
"How you been?" The exuberant tones in these questions are their own answers.
"I been doin' other stuff, finally got back on the 7, this' my favorite route as you know!"
"Man, iss good to see you." I've been hearing reports from friends on the Avenue of apathetic drivers of late, and his gaze rings with meant sincerity. 
"It is so good to be back! Where I belong!"
"I don' wanna bother da people," he says, indicating he just stepped in for a quick hello.
"Ey, I'm glad you said hey!"
"Hey! I'm your friend! I see you around!"
"I'm a be here!" 

These people don't even want to ride the bus. They aren't even asking for transfers! Goodwill is its own reason for delight tonight. I wish the whole of our culture, all those who act as if realism and pessimism are the same thing, who with their worldview call cynicism religion, could see what I'm seeing tonight. There are moments of goodness happening they don't have definitions for.

"Iss mah luck I get one a da bess drivers," a man in a black kerchief skullcap says. His fistpound is made of loving steel. There are new faces, too: I hear a teenager crawling up from the back with, "this ain't no tour bus man, you don't gotta announce every stop!"
He hasn't been on the Nathan train before. This is just how it is.
"Oh, I got to, man! It's how I stay awake! Keeps me sharp, you know?"
"Fair enough!" he says, grinning. He just wanted something to say.

I jog across Henderson to the bathroom, nodding "wassup" at the skulking figures there, watching their serious faces crackle into smiles. That's more like it. I spend my break shopping at Saar's Market with Operator Gary, musician and night owl 7 driver extraordinaire. Kale and Mini-Wheats for me tonight. Kale is the way of the future, by the way. Throw it on the frying pan with a dash of oil and salt. Michael is the cashier, with long dreads and a beanie, and he gives me a paper bag sans charge, because, as he once explained to me, "I may need a ride someday!"

To be continued...

This is the second in a series of three posts describing the same night. See above and below.

Austin comes racing across Broadway, jumping in at the last minute. Red lights were made for this. Usually I'm the one who says the archaic "as I live and breathe" to people, but this time it's him. A Cornish student and violinist, with whom I used to see once a week on a different schedule. We'd talk high art and literature while roaming the populated night.

"Austin! How great that you are here, on my first day back!"
"Really?"
"Truly!"
"I thought I'd missed the bus, but then–"
"You saw it was me, driving with my light on–"
"I saw it was you and I knew!"
"It was meant to be!"
"How are you, what's the latest?"
"I'm going to Cuba on Thursday!"
"What the fuck?"
"That's what I thought!"
"Ha!"

I tell him about the new Denis Villeneuve picture, Sicario, and why I think it's spectacular. We talk about Gueros, a black-and-white gem that showed at SIFF, by a new Mexican filmmaker. Is he still spending time with that young lady he was with at the screening? 
"No, she moved. She's in London."
"That's not allowed! What's she doing there?"
"It's good. Everyone should do that. Travel and learn. She's dancing in the company, she got into Laban."
"Wait. She's dancing with Laban?"
"No, she's dancing with the company!"
"Oh, okay! That makes sense! I was about to have a brain aneurism!"
"Ha!"

There's Michael Jackson. He pauses outside the bus, standing outside the open doors, slouching with glee. I don't believe it, his body language says.

"Heey!"
"Heeey!" I shout back. "Where you been all my life?"
"Where YOU been?"
"I'm back in the game!"
"Sheeeeyit!"
"That's how I feel! How 'bout you, where you goin'?"
"I'm headed to a J.O.B."
"Congratulations, man! Michael Jackson!" I say his name as a sports announcer does a well-loved favorite.
"Shoot! He says, 'Michael Jackson!' I haven't smoked weed in a month!"
"That's cool!"
"Yeah."
"Keepin' it responsible, nothin' wrong with that."
"I can't believe it."
"I know, you're kinda blowin' my mind right now." He was always high, back in the day. I say into the mic, "here we go," as per usual.
"Aawwwww shoot," he enthuses, as it all comes back. To the couple beside him, who are slightly cowed by his outsized eagerness, he says, "you're gonna be seein' him on da wall!" Meaning the portraits of Operators of the Year.
"Nawwww!"
"He's like, 'naaaww!'"
"I'm too young, man! Tha' be too good to be true!"

"Good to see you!" is the rallying byword of the night. The past summer, working reduced hours and going to class, steeped in Art Life, Friend Life, in and out of love, has all been a treasure. I had the honor of showing in Pioneer Square, completing a film, and the painful privilege of heartbreak. But what about Bus Life? The absence of a crucial ingredient reveals its importance. Spending mornings on the 70 and the 36 with commuters has been pleasant enough, but words like "pleasant" and "tolerable" have no traction when describing the great and towering monolith of the 7. To revel in the specific joy of getting along with these people, these unvarnished masses, more crude, more polite, more loving, more hateful... the rush of surfing along this ridge tastes like nothing else. I feel whole, buoyed up by the challenge and the responsiveness of the crowd, as they push me ever higher, closer to the ceiling of what I'm capable of. You feel yourself raising the ceiling, piercing through it a little, and no other form of exhilaration is quite the same.

To be continued...

Third in a series of three posts detailing the same night. See the two posts below.

A woman from Hawai'i asks for a free ride before stepping on, explaining which shelter she's going to.
"Yeah. Hey, thanks for asking to get on beforehand, that was nice." And risky. For her sake I'm glad I was driving. 
"Are you goin' up to Nightwatch?"
"I am!" 
"Awesome, come on in. It's a good program."
"Did you volunteer there?"
"No, but I take a lotta folks over there, and they always say good things about it. There's food until I think eleven." We'll make it. 
"Is it a women's, or women's and men's…?"
"They'll probably send you out to a women's. What happens is you go there with a ticket, and then they find a spot for you somewhere else that you then go to." 
"Okay."

She's been on the street two weeks and already has three job offers on the table. She lists them. "Security,"
"Okay,"
"Walmart,"
"Uh-huh,"
"Or down at Sea-Tac, cleaning or loading, for fifteen bucks an hour. I think I gotta go with that one."
"Oh, totally! I mean, Walmart, forget about it!"
"Ha!"
"I love that you're, um. Stayin' motivated and pushing it forward during this hard time. 'Cause you're doin' the hardest thing, keepin' up the energy and tryna move forward when the you've got the least energy, the odds are stacked against you. I find that extremely impressive."
"Thank you!"
"So, you said Hawai'i. I hear they have the best kimchi in the world over there."
"They do!"
"Man! I'm Korean, so I'm super interested…"

And we're off, talking like a couple of regular people. I could see how much that meant to her.

Not much later I had a similar conversation with another woman, who for years I'd see around the Paramount with a cardboard sign. "Long time no see," I said. She had sad blue eyes and a frail, wizened figure. I used to give her the free treats they hand out on Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays. "You look good, you look healthy!"
"Thanks! I got into a program finally."
"Oh, that's excellent!"
"Thanks! Yeah, it'll be eight months comin' up." 
"Wow. Wow! Congratulations." Drug addiction and homelessness. Are there challenges more difficult to surmount than these two? I earnestly share with her similar words as with the Hawaiian woman, my admiration and sheer respect for her dedication. These are heroes as big as any other.
"Thanks. I'm still out here to try to cover rent. My rent's only forty-nine a month, but you know, I'm not getting a paycheck, and I still owe the nineteen dollar late fee from last month!" 
"Shoot! " This is the in-between time, the hardest part, waiting and treading water. But her course is good, and she's still moving forward. I wish her the best of luck.

Bashi drinks too much, and tonight's no exception. Some things never change. A well-dressed father going out for the evening, he staggers on board, barely able to keep balance. He kisses my hand upon recognizing me. Not necessary!
"I love you," he slurs out, vocal cords struggling through uncooperative lips. "Anybody try to bother you, I fuck him up. I, fuck. I fuck. Him. Up. I love you. You're family, you know that?"
"Same! That's an honor, to hear you say!"
"I love you, I'm a good guy, I know you don't think that,"
"Oh but I do! I know you are. You always lookin' sharp, gettin' on dressed nice." I mean that without irony. Nobody else at Rainier and Rose gets on this late in slacks, polishable shoes, and a tucked-in button-up. "That's an honor, what you're saying. How's your daughter?"
"She's fantastic. Anybody bother you, I fuck him up…."

Everyone's falling down tonight. A young man stepping out the door leaves the bus, walks a few steps, then collapses on the asphalt, as though a switch enabling him to live had just been flicked off. I stepped out to inquire after his well-being. At first I thought he's just a drunk who needs to sleep off the effects, but I couldn't just drive away. No one's gonna stop and ask this black thug-looking kid sprawled out on the cement if he's okay.

"Dogg, are you okay? You cool?"
He nodded from his prone position, as if nothing out of place was occurring. It bordered on being comical, actually. Just collapsing to the ground for a quick nap on Pike Street.
"Right on. Stay safe!"
He nodded again.

A woman slightly older than me is overjoyed by the concert she's just gotten out of. She's still riding the wave. "My boyfriend bought the tickets. They were fucking expensive," she says. "I'd totally make out with you," she whispers a minute later.
"Um, uh. You're very kind!"

As I pull away from Roanoke, my periphery catches a familiar shape, just in time for a last minute wave. She's still there, the old stalwart, a neighborhood fixture who enjoys sitting on that one particular bench and watching the evening drift past. I marvel at her reflexes, noticing me and returning the wave just in time. It's been months since I've driven past there, but we still somehow know to look for each other. Oh, how I love life!

My good friend, Celia, came out to ride my last round. I sometimes joke that my friends can be considered in two categories– those who've ridden my bus and those who don't. It's a time commitment, coming out for a ride. I'm immensely grateful. Some people get a lot out of it. I know I do. Celia chats with me, or with whomever's next to her. We share in our love for humankind. Or in the passing moments she would just watch, listening to the world go by. I'm reminded of a favorite line of mine, from La Grande Bellezza*:

"How come he [the poet] never talks?"
"He's listening."

The day turned to night, and then to morning. Neither of us wanted to close out the night just yet. All the stirring cacophony, the multiplicity of voices and details, gradually funneled down, the evening echoing into memory, boiling down to a pinpoint, coalescing into Celia and myself standing in her family kitchen after my shift. We sampled homemade applesauce, still earnestly discussing life. We whispered, that we might not wake her cousins in the next rooms. 

There is always so much to talk about.

---

*If you watch one film made in the last five years, let it be this one. More thoughts of mine on it here.

--
​
And that's all for now, friends! I'm dashing off to Cuba and Mexico for a spell. But I have every intention of returning; look for me on the street and on the web in a week and a half or so!

Begrimed is such a perfect word for this man, sitting in the front seat, staring at me. I love the English language. With 615,000 entries in the OED, you have the incalculable luxury of always being able to nail down the particular subtlety you're after. The unlaundered trenchcoat, kinked and torn and growing stiff with organic filth, fits right in on this ancient, dilapidated vehicle. The non-slip flooring is streaked with peeling paint, and the metallic panels and glass are carved about with various slogans and namesakes, their angular letters vying for attention with the natural blemishes of age. 

Several of the interior lights are out, and the resulting gloom emphasizes the shadows of our friends the bulky figures. As a youngster on the 174 I remember thinking that freeloaders and sleepers seemed larger, occupying of more space, because of their need to carry all possessions on their person. Jackets over hoodies over sweaters, and bags inside of bags. On this particular late-night 7 we carry a lot of sleepers, because the short turnaround time at Henderson means a full round trip of napping. It's pointless to fight such endeavors. For those who need it most, beds are among the harder things to find. 

The begrimed man at the front is no sleeper, however. He's wide awake, stubby fingers working as he regards me between thickset, narrowed slits. You know when a face in the shadows is watching you, even if the unkempt mustache conceals the mouth, even if nothing but pinpoints of light mark out the pupils. 

He's growling softly. Slowly his growls become discernible. He growls, "after you get off work I'm gonna take you home and make you mine."

They say sexual harassment is usually never about sex, but about power. To think of such come-ons as genuine flirtation would be amusing if they didn't end so awfully for some. You almost want to ask, has that approach ever actually worked?

Somehow my first impulse is to laugh. I do so, saying with friendly confidence, "oh, I don't know about all that!"
"As soon as you're off, you're comin' with me." The growl. "I'll warm you right up."

I did what a female night operator once told me works for her– accept the implicit compliment and then steer the conversation somewhere else. Lead this dance, don't follow. 

"Yeah, tonight's my last night before vacation, nine days," I say.
"Lucky you."
"Yeah man, I'm thankful. Doesn't happen often, lemme tell ya."
"Where you goin'?"
"Mostly I'll stay here, but I'm takin' a few short trips out to the East Coast, then down to LA, that's my hometown."
"What parta LA?"
"South Central. You know South Gate?"
"Yeah, I'm from Orange County."
"Oh, cool! What part?"
"Anaheim." Which, though it's a big city, has zero street cred compared to South Central. In the ongoing (and completely useless) SoCal geographical status dialogue, there's a hierarchy here which works in my favor. The thing to do is let him feel respected despite that, bring him in.
"Oh, cool. Friend of mine went to Chapman, the school there."
"Yeah, it's a good school," he grunts.
"So I've heard. You know what's interesting? They have a piece of the Berlin Wall there, and it's one of only two pieces of the Berlin Wall in the whole United States. In Orange County! Go figure." He's not overly engrossed by Berlin Wall remnants, but I don't care. I need to keep leading! "I don't know why. It's like you know the Lenin statue up in Fremont? That's the only Lenin statue in the whole country. I don't know what it means!"
"Huh."
The man's interest in discussing Communist revolutionaries and East German artifacts is approximately zilch. He lapses into silence. 

As he gets out he starts saying something about penises, but I heartily steamroll right over the guy with an enthusiastic and concerned "have a good one! Be safe now!"

On my last trip he reappeared. 

A distinct difference between taxi drivers and bus drivers is that taxi drivers can choose their fares. Bus drivers can't. I opened the doors at Mount Baker and a few people boarded, our begrimed friend included. But there was no cause for fear. We only talked about bus matters. There was no mention of trenchcoat removal, no dark muttering about fornication. I asked how his last hour had been, and where he was off to next. There'd been a mix-up with his keys. He need to go his landlord's to drop off a pair, and there was no bus going out that way for a while. We discussed landlords and bus routing in SoDo. As we approached Chinatown, we considered the remaining distance and figured it might be quicker for him to walk.

This time as he left he said something about beds, but once again I was entirely too busy thanking him to hear: "Be safe walkin' out there! Take it easy!"
"You too!"

Like nothing awkward had ever happened.