Over in the Photography section~

These are not my best pictures of people. These are the ones- and there are many more- where something registered. You were party to something, present in this moment that will never again repeat. Some are from the ancient, living past, and some are from a month ago. But in all cases, whether it's someone I knew and loved for years, or a passersby on the street, it's small moments like these I cherish. We gaze curiously out at life, and there are fleeting glimpses that feel like they contain answers to something, or details heretofore unnoticed. There is the suggestion in these moments of something larger, a shape we can sense but can't define. I don't mean to equalize the great relationships of my life and the unknown masses in a way that's demeaning- I can't express how thankful I am for the time I've had with each of those special people- rather, I feel I can learn from everyone, strangers, friends, lovers, past and present. I am the result of these moments and thoughts, shaped by the answers, or the questions, they offer.

Rainier and Orcas. It was an afterthought. Middle aged mixed gentleman stepping out, and I had said to him my customary "have a good one," to no response. But after he steps off he returns to the present, registering my gesture. A slight turn of the head. "You have a good night too," he says, glancing back. You almost want to reach out and grab those moments, snatch them out of the air and put a lid on the bottle before they float away.

Similar but equally affecting situation happens with a thug hopping out at Holden, busy on the phone, his mind somewhere else- but enough of him is still here to hear me, and I hear his "you too" aimed at me, amongst the bustle of an ongoing dialogue.

Working man with a rake and a bucket of tools runs up at the last minute at Henderson. Often runners don't need your bus- if they did, they'll typically  have been at the stop already; many's the time I've waited for a runner only to have him get off at the next stop, or somehow ignore that there's another bus right behind me. Having said that, however, there are those moments when you can tell this person would really, really benefit from making your bus, and this guy, Working Man, was one of those. It's evident he's been working long hours, and I say, "All done for the day?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Right on. Congratulations."
"Oh, you said it."
"You're a workin' man."
You can sense he appreciates being complimented as a working man. The solidarity of it. Of a worldview formed in hard work, in the tactile nature of most blue-collar professions, of the knowledge of performing something valuable- where you're actually doing something. Sometimes I have difficulty explaining to people that I am out here by choice. Someone on a bus once asked me,"you gonna get your GED?" "I have a four-year degree from the UW," I responded. The guy looked at me as if he just got paralyzed. He temporarily lost the power of speech, as if his brain couldn't process the implications of what he was looking at. "What?!" he said, as if someone had just insulted his family. There are essential jobs and there are non-essential jobs. Working Man and I smile. I hope he is proud of the implements of his profession.

"Wassup widdit," a young man inquires as he boards. "Not a lot," I say. As he and his ladyfriend deboard later at Henderson, I wish the line of passengers well. You can't say the same phrase to every single person. I throw out the "take it easy"s, "have a good one"s, "be safe"s and endless other variations of goodbye with abandon. I overhear the lady say to her friend, "man, he got a line for everybody!"

"Next stop is at Othello, by the gas station," I say. There's a classic Cadillac convertible blocking the exit to the gas station. Sunlight gleaming off polished surfaces, glare filling out the space between shadows. The driver and passenger of the car are exchanging places. I recognize one of them- it's Gregarious Basketball Player Man (a fun fellow; mentioned here), and I honk as I roll slowly by. His whole body lights up as he yells, to his friend's momentary consternation, "That's my guy!!! That's my guy!!"

"You are nice man," a first-generation African grandfather says. I tend not to wait for people when I'm doing a frequent route, but for him I did. I try not to be preferential, but how do you resist that smile? Lines creasing into goodness, transforming his weathered skin, an expression he's worn off and on since childhood.

"You always so nice! I love riding your bus!" They blurt it out without premeditation, two girls getting off at Rose, and it comes out with a bald honesty and enthusiasm that you couldn't replicate.

Me: "How's your night goin?"
Mid 40s, Rainier and Genessee: "Oh, not too great."
"Uh-oh! That's not good. I appreciate the truthful answer. But still."
"Yeah, I can't complain."
"What happened, if I may ask?"
"I be checking up on my daughter, she got into an altercation last night."
"Oh, no."
"Yeah."
"That's terrible. She's okay?"
"Yeah, she's okay. She can take care of herself pretty well."
"Well, it's good of you to come out here to check up on her."
"Hey man, it's just what we do."
"Gotta look out for each other."
"I know that's right."
Beat. He lapses into silence, watching me meet and greet. He doesn't bring up his problems anymore.
"You got class, man. Keep it up."
A sense of rejuvenation in his tired voice.

"HAPPY MAN! HAPPY MAN!" greets the old Chinese man at Fisher Place. I saw him at the zone as I was pulling up, and waved big. He's been on my bus before. Both of us smile way too much.

On occasion I get to chat with "the Great Todd," as I call him. He's a newer full-timer (and highly skilled Brazilian jujitsu master) doing his tour of duty on the 7 at night for this shakeup. He rode my bus when he was just starting the 7 and I was glad at the chance to show him a few things. I really like when other drivers come hang out on my bus. Today, parked outside of Saar's Market at Henderson Street, he asks how I'm doing. I respond as I often do, with a low rumble: "eeexcellent!" He laughs. "You are one strange guy," he says.

I scribble down notes on transfers at red lights sometimes so I remember all these little moments. I'm looking at a note right now that says "kind of ugh lady tries to give me a kiss, then tries to kiss waiting passenger afr. lady, she and i share a weird/grosss smile."

That about sums it up.

"Kind of Ugh Lady" was getting out at Walden, really enjoyed the ride, and wanted to express that by kissing me. In my opinion this was entirely unnecessary. Her corpulent, significant form leaned toward me in a hug, gently tilting the bus with her weight (or so I imagined). I restrained myself from saying "no kissing on the 7," and instead turned my head away and thanked her. I locked eyes with the passenger waiting outside who'd been watching this awkwardness- that's the "Waiting Passenger Afr(ican) Lady." It didn't matter that she and I didn't speak each other's languages- it was obvious we were both thinking the same thing, which was, "eewww!" She avidly stepped away from Kind of Ugh, who approaches her with similar intentions. WPAL got on and we burst into laughter.

A young African boy standing at Rainier and Seward Park Avenue recognizes me as I make the turn. "Yosef!!!" I thunder out, as if announcing a starting lineup. "Nathan!!!" he screams in reply. The guys who always stand around by the haircut place glance over, confused at this heedless expression of joy. Yosef had been on the bus earlier that day.

Same with another young guy, except this time his name is Ahnus;

A mild-mannered teenager in the requisite thug getup comes up before we hit Cloverdale inbound, urgently asking to be let off. A group of girls had just walked past the bus. I look around, wondering if something's amiss.
"Sure," I say to him, slowing down.
He says, "I think I fell in love, goin' the other way, as we crossed paths." I smile. I can get into that.
"Like ships passing," I say.
"Exactly." There's something of a poet in this young man. Appearance means nothing.

An older East African woman in the chat seat, silent with a friendly air. She watches me, head tilted, smiling through wizened eyes at my interaction with the different people. I meet their dialogues halfway, without consciously thinking about it.

I'm waiting at 5th and Jackson to start my shift. A man sitting in the back of another 7 is gesturing wildly through the window at me. "YOU'RE FIRED," he yells through the glass. It's that guy! We exchange waves. (I've mentioned him in the past when he was on my 3; the phrase is his new trademark).

Androgynous Safeway Passenger gets on at Andover, as (s)he is often wont to do. He/she always has a great, warm air, as if excited to be here. I know I am. I think the fact that she's just getting off work helps. Dressed like a man, shorter with glasses, body full of energy, coiled like a spring.

Jermain's friend is standing at Walden, not at the zone but waiting to cross the street, and we recognize each other at the same instant- big wave, his "heeyyy!" still audible through the glass as I drive by.

Again, waiting at 5th and Jackson, I'm waiting on the sidewalk and someone in the back of another 7 recognizes me- this time it's Jermain, all smiles- who I will miss. We do a through-the-window fistpound. The girl sitting next to him watches wide-eyed. The next 7 rolls by, and Big Guy is sitting in the back, and he recognizes me as well, his dreads flailing in the air as he does a double take, and his crooked teeth flash in an expansive smile. With much silent gesturing we communicate "hey," "what time you come back around?," and "other side 5:30."

Carl with glasses comes up from the back once he recognizes my voice on the speakers. "I just had to come up and say hey!"

I'm riding the 41 home, exhausted but happy. I'm standing on the packed bus by the back door, looking out the glass at the platform at Convention Place. There's a young couple sitting together on one of those white benches. They're trying to lean heads against each other, but he's a little tall, and she's a little short, and they have to kind of crane their necks to make it happen, looks maybe a little uncomfortable- but they don't care. It's worth it.

"Whores ride for free, right?"
"What?"
It's not the kind of question that you hear every day. He says it again-
"Whores ride free today, right?"
It's Tuesday. I wasn't aware. "I'm gonna leave that up to you guys," I say. What's confusing is that the lady following him up the stairs onto my bus is obviously not a prostitute. She's obese and dressed nicely. "That's my husband," she mutters. They sit down at the front and chat with each other (argue loudly) while holding hands (batting each other's arms). I ask if they're alright, and the pleasant attitude of the bus washes over them like a drug. "We're just clownin,'" he says, though they obviously weren't, and they speak in quieter tones afterward.

The lidded man gets on right after them; you've perhaps seen him before, moving up and down Third between James and Pine. Tall and imposing, with a face carved from years of hatred, and eyes that peek out from under heavy lids. "Can we get a five minute bus stop?" he says. I don't know what that means. "Can we get a five minute bus stop? 'Cause Renton is all the way, far away, all the way down. Renton is five minutes. We need a five minute bus stop tobacco shop."

He's one of those people you can't talk to. His ears might be able to hear you, but his mind is somewhere far away, drifting out at sea.

The man in the front seat who's been watching starts humming the twilight zone theme. "Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo," he observes.
"That's definitely where we are," I say.
"Oh yeah."
"Just the way I like it."

The southeast Asian man from the "Hesitant" posts (here and here) gets on and looks at me. Without saying a word he points at his tummy, tapping it a few times. "Looks good," I say.

As I look up in the mirror to close the back doors at southbound James, I notice a tumultuous slow-shutter blur in the back of the vehicle. Two men are savagely beating each other up. I forcefully tell them to step outside and continue their fight elsewhere, but they can't hear me. Other passengers begin to step off. Usually fights on the 7 involve kids, but these two are older- 30s, both of them, and they tear each other up with a ferocious concentration. I'm reminded of lions or tigers fighting over territory- lithe bodies endlessly shifting and clashing in conflict, only this rumble is different: they're fighting in complete silence. It's disorienting. I feel like I'm the only one yelling. Both are in top physical condition, and the only sound is the echo of bodies being slammed into the hard edges of chair corners and stanchions. These guys are serious. They leave the other passengers alone. No drunkards here. The elastic shape comprised of the two of them rolls forward, over and under each other to the middle of the coach, where I again tell them to step outside, which they do. Only thirty seconds have gone by. Worlds can happen in less than a minute.

Occasional regular passenger Margaret stops by and gives me some danish.

"Back door!" someone yells. I gesture with my arm for him to come up. I don't care about fare, but I do care about which door they use- probably a bad habit of mine. "Back door! Why can't I go out the back door?" he shouts, walking forcefully up. I deflate him with,  "Thanks for comin' up, man, I appreciate that. No biggie."
"There," he says showing me his transfer. "You got it?"
"Tha's beautiful."
"Alright, black man," he says, derisively. By his tone I can tell he intends the label as an insult, but I'm confused: this guy himself is black. I've often been called "brother" or "dawg" or "boss" by African or African-American passengers, but it's always intended as a compliment. This is a first: Older black dude tries to piss off young whitish-Asian kid by calling him black. Go figure.

By now it's dark outside. The inbound 7 is a fun feeling: you rise slowly, from the depths of the Valley, moving block by block towards downtown.

An older man irregularly stomps his feet and hands, without rhythm or reason. Sometimes his words make sense and sometimes they don't. He comes up to me, teetering on the brink of balance. "My mind is gone," he whispers in a hoarse voice. "My mind is gone..." I marvel at the part of his mind that recognizes this. Part of him is still here.

At Rose a young East African man with bloodshot eyes makes his way up the steps. He's clearly under the influence of a heavy something- that point where decorum is a struggle, and you have to work hard to have some semblance of normality. He sees me and makes the gesture of hands in prayer, nodding at me. He tries to put a dollar into the farebox, but it's the only money he has, and the motor skills required to place a dollar into the slot are too complex for him right now. Something tells me I need to have this guy on my side. "Hey. You should save that dollar. Maybe need it for something else."
"Thanks man. You cool." In a quiet voice he adds, "If anyone disturb you, let me know."
I can see that he's deadly serious, and thank him.

"Hang tough, brotha," a dark-skinned gent says on his way out.

At Othello two Caucasians appear, clearly way out of their element. One, with ruddy skin, unwashed hair and flat eyes, does the talking; the other doesn't make an impression. They carry bags of clothing and who knows what else.

It turns out that the flat-eyed fellow, Jamie, and his friend, Scott, were hitchhiking from Philadelphia when the car they were in stopped for gas at Rainier and Othello. The two of them stepped out to use the bathroom there, and when they emerged from the convenience store the car and its driver had vanished. They were confused and terrified, having utterly no idea where they were, not knowing who these strange faces were lurking in the shadows. There are always lurking figures at the Valero gas station there. That they were the only white people around for miles didn't make them feel comfortable either. "Let's go for a ride," I say. I learn that Jamie, in his four years in the Marine Corps, was stabbed 14 times and shot in the back, and that he's about to lose custody of his twin girls because he can't hold down a job, and that he's been checking out the day labor spots and is familiarizing himself with the resources here and has a shred of hope, but if he can't cover rent soon, CPS will come and take his kids away because he can't afford to keep them...

Me: "so this is some Danish that I'm not gonna eat," I say as I hand them the pastries that Margaret left me. Margaret thinks I'm too skinny and always brings me such things. It won't solve all Jamie's problems, but it'll make the 358 he has to get on a little more enjoyable. He is very thankful, more for the chance to be in a protective space, a warm space, than the food. His handshake at the end of the ride carries multitudes.

A new batch of images over in the Photography section, this time an assorted set taken in LA.

Continuation of the same day as Waves, X with a black border:

Amman, driving the 36, and we're excited to see each other. As he drives past me he turns his head completely to gesture and wave, cutting an unintentionally dashing figure in his hip sunglasses. Milan Kundera once wrote that your memories tend to be still images more often than moving scene with beginnings and ends; the glimpse of Amman with his head tilted and his two finger wave is one of those images that hangs in the air after it's already gone by.

At the Henderson layover, I lean out the door, bellowing out at Danielle, one of the other perennially happy Atlantic drivers. "Have a good night," I holler. "You too," she yells from across the Saar's parking lot.

Jermain's friend (who surfaced recently) shows up without Jermain, and I greet him as a friend, though I've never actually talked to him. African-American, high-school age, in a big white tee, gray sweats and basketball shoes. We chat for a bit about school starting, and then I hear him talking to another passenger. Sometimes I like "kickstarting" a conversation- getting it going, and then stepping out to let it grow into its own thing amongst the passengers while I merely listen. When our friend steps out at Walden he lingers on the sidewalk as a couple of east Asian grandmothers deboard.

What's he doing? Standing there, with a big bag of takeout in his arm. It turns out he had volunteered to carry out one of the grannies' bags for her. Mentally I want to selfishly take credit for that gesture of kindness, in that I fostered a positive example and environment for it to happen, but really, he deserves all the credit. What a guy. Not sure if he would've done that if a pack of his buddies were with him, but this is him too, big as life. Helping out for no personal gain.

Later Jermain himself stops by with another friend of his. I hear him telling his friend about me as they step on. "As-Salamu Alaykum," says Jermain. It takes me a split second to summon the response- there's so much going on in your head when you're driving the bus- but I'm there for him with a hearty "Wa' alaykum a-salam!" His towering friend laughs approvingly. Jermain goes for the classic bone-crushing handshake. Interestingly his other friend from earlier prefers the three-pound fistbump (up, down, head-on), which I don't see too often anymore.

Grizzly Tony, beer-guzzling panhandler extraordinaire, who first met me on the 4, now logs serious hours at Rainier and McClellan. He rides my last round trip with me. His life is a storied one. He mentions his 21 years in the military, and then we laugh about a little kid who recently tried to jump him with a penknife on Rainier. "Put that piece a shit away," he'd muttered to the boy. "I've shot down helicopters." The youngster had retorted with, "what if I start stabbing you?" Tony: "I probably wouldn't give a shit. Now go on, get outta here." Which is exactly what the bewildered would-be robber did. Lesson: bluster and experience with helicopters count for something.

I pull alongside Abdul on Stewart Street. He's on the 70 today, and with his sunglasses he looks like Jean Reno, except happy. He opens the doors and says, "we're gonna miss you at Atlantic!" Yet another of the greats at that Base.

On Third Avenue. Red-Haired Operator of the Month, a part-timer like me; she's out of North Base, but got forced to East for next shakeup. I tell about how I wanted Atlantic, but got forced to North. We continue our conversation while skip-stopping up Third- she'll pull alongside me at a red light, we'll exchange a few sentences, and then I'll pull alongside her at the next zone, and exchange a few more. Interesting way to carry on a dialogue.

It's nighttime now, inbound at Rose. I step outside to help out someone with their groceries. Grizzly Tony is still sitting around on the bus, killing time, and watching me he says to a genteel lady passenger, "isn't he great?" She responds with a look of incredulity and says in a tone of comically unpleasant shock, "I know. I was gonna say, what planet is this guy from?"

The last wave of the night is a double-whammie; the first part of it is between Dawna and myself. Dawna drives the 14. Maybe you've had her before. She's yet another one of the greats, smile beaming out of her bus at all hours of the night. I don't know how she does it. You get the impression that rather than life happening to her, she happens to life. She's possessing of a kindness unflappable, a worldview cemented in stone- an attitude that she and other great figures of our time project. Something I aspire toward.

In the moment that I wave at her, I notice an amorphous white shape on the other side of the bus, to my right. It's a stranger in the night, but he or she knows me, because (s)he's waving at me in a big way, with the same kind of extended arm salute that I often throw out at people. All I can see of this person is the white shirt waving and white teeth gleaming in the night, that universal expression of what ought be regular human existence- what we call happiness.

I'm reminded of an earlier moment in the day. At 07:00am, I was doing the 70 myself, laying over at University Heights. I was sitting on the grass reading my Tolstoy (just cracked the 700-page mark of Anna K!), and a crusty older street guy walked past. On impulse I greeted him. He responded warmly, and paid it forward to a "regular" woman walking toward him. She was pleased at the hello from him, and responded in kind, and when she got to where I was sitting, I said hi to her as well, mostly because the street fellow had done so. She looked mildly surprised as she continued past me, glowing in a temporary bubble where everyone says hello. I felt secretly excited at hopefully making her wonder, "why is everyone saying hi to me?" Later on this day as I was walking to the bus stop to go home, and a middle-aged black American guy strolled past me in the twilight. I said "hey," and he said, "how's it goin.' Good seein' you again."

I've never seen the guy before. Is this what John Travolta feels like? When people come up to him and go, "I loved you in Phenomenon?" Who knows. What I do know is that it feels good to be building something; a rickety, perhaps easily destroyed, perhaps temporary, but still real structure, an imaginary house where people are kind to each other, out here on the open streets, where such a house of kindness might not be expected. Ephemeral, yes, but present for now. What else is there, after all?