When We Were Kings

Stalkers are no fun. They make me uncomfortable. It's something female operators and I commiserate about– the problem is more common than you think. One night a colleague walked into the base after her shift with three massive– and exquisite– bouquets of roses. 
“What's the story?" I asked. 
“Oh, they're from my stalker," she replied. “I can't say no, or else he flips out. These are hunnerd dollar bouquets! I'm like, sure! Now I'm ’onna go put ‘em on my Dad's grave! Din't tell him that though!”
"Right?? Hey, makin’ the best of it!”

She grinned with relief when I and another operator listening shared we have stalkers too. It's an occupational hazard that isn't discussed enough. In past days I was always embarrassed to share about mine, though in retrospect I have no idea why; maybe I thought I was the only one. Shame follows us in curious ways.

Of course, stalkers never think they're stalkers. They think they're boyfriends, or girlfriends. For the longest time I thought the best way to deal with them was to stay on their friendly side– you know, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer"– by giving them what they wanted in a boring, unfulfilling, and boundary-ridden manner that would hopefully make them lose interest and finally stop bothering me (newsflash: this doesn't even come close to working). I've always been too nice. I didn't know the first thing about speaking up for myself, or how to ask for help. And I'm particularly at risk for stalkers because I have a high threshold for what I think constitutes friendly behavior: more than once have I been accused of sending mixed messages, and more than once has my friendliness been misinterpreted for flirtation. I can hardly blame such accusations; people (myself included) see only what they're looking for.

All this to say that there's an antsy knot that appears within me when people refuse to leave the bus, especially at terminals. The invasion of privacy that is someone refusing to let you take your break alone is (strangely) similar to the sensation of being stalked. Both involve an ignorance of your need for personal space. It can be hard not to take personally.

That anxiety manifested itself in frustration this afternoon, when I noticed a man in his eighties nodding off when we arrived at the Queen Anne terminal. I told him we were at the end of the line, that it was time to hop out, but he couldn't be bothered.

He gazed up from behind his walker with glassy eyes, staring fixedly out the window, then at me. He wore green corduroy pants and a clean oxford button-up. He had a large Nordstrom Rack bag. It looked brand new. I took a deep breath and sat across from him, resigned to having lost my break due to his presence, trying to hide my irritation while reminding myself that this was no stalker, obviously, just another bewildered soul who got on a bus without reading the destination sign, trusting to fate that it'd take him where he wanted.

I said, “Where you tryin’ to get to?" 
"Boren and Minor,” he said. My brain hiccuped. Aren't those parallel?
“Well, lemme take a second and look that up. Boren and Minor, that's tricky. You got a good one. Usually I know where stuff is!”

I've removed all web browsers and social media from my phone, but I still use Maps. Together we confirmed that there was no such intersection, and that what he wanted was the Capitol Hill QFC on Pike. Still bewildered, he said, “You always drive this route?”
“I've done most of the routes, but usually do the 7 and the 49.”
“The 49, where's that go?” 
I reminded him. 
“That's right, the one I'm spossa be takin’.”

I was coming around to the guy. His slow-birthing confusion reminded me of early childhood, the age-old puzzlement we feel looking out at existence, so full of questions we never find answers for. He had that quality of paralysis I've felt in times of grief, when just being takes great effort.
“We'll work it out,” I said. “How's your day been otherwise?”
“Been good. I woke up this morning.”
“Exactly yeah, good to be above ground, nice beautiful day like this. I like this job.” 
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I been driving these buses 17 years.”
“Oh! Long time!”
“Yeah man, 2007. I still like it. Where’d you work before?”
“Postal service. It was real uh, blue collar type work.” He had a soft voice, thin, and no teeth, but there was just barely enough articulation to make out his words.
“Hey, that's you and me both,” I exclaimed in agreement. "I respect that so much, real work doin’ somethin’ with your hands. Feels like you've actually done something at the end of the day. Did you like it?”
“Hell no, I just wanted that retirement!”
We laughed. The silence he wore so well couldn't stay put for long though, a silence of memories lived and lost, hazy, emotions waiting in forgotten rooms.
He said, “My twin sister she passed just as you was startin’, in 2008. We were real close.”
“I'm sorry to hear it.”
“Thanks,” he said, with real appreciation. “We were real tight, every day. She taught me to read and write, taught me how to cook.”
“Sounds like a good person.”
“She was.”
“What was her name?”
“Kathy. Kathy –.”
I paused. Somehow it was important to continue, to respect his presence with spoken interest, engagement. You get ignored too often in later age. No one likes to feel invisible. “You been in Seattle a while?”
“You bet. Came here 1953.”
“Oh 1953, wow! I bet you seen some changes.”

It's a line I often share with the old-timers, the better to make their memories feel heard. It unleashes the wound-up slipstream of memory inside them. Having been here thirty-plus years myself, there's always a lot to share, here in this metropolis even I now barely recognize. But he had a different answer. 

“Um. Not really. It's pretty much the same.”

No one's ever said that about Seattle! But I realized he was much older than most of the old timers I chat with. He wasn't fifty or sixty; he was at least mid-eighties, if not moreso. He had the perspective to have seen not just one rise or fall, but several of each. I found myself grinning with newfound optimism.
By way of paraphrase, I said, “…Everything changes, everything stays the same!”
“Ha! You got that right!”
“People are happy, people are sad, joy and sorrow, highs and lows.”
“Highs and lows for sure."

We learned each other's names and shared further words and silences, as I let his humanity reach me. He was about as far from being a stalker as one could be. When we finally arrived at his stop, I went back to alert him, and walked out with him together, showing him how to cross the street and where, for his connecting route. 

I'm often moved by the solitary figure walking away from the bus, and was once again as I watched him. The figure striking out, alone, amidst a vast throng of indifferent souls, all moving and thinking faster than he. We can only hope that when we are one day as old as he is, if we're fortunate enough to live that long, as rich in memory and perspective, that a youngster or two will take time out of their day to slow down and help. To meet us at our pace, and trust that once, long ago, we were kings.