His hair wasn't always gray, but it still grows, and now it's long enough to register a breeze. With that and the tuft of a beard he keeps nestled in the small of his chin, he could be a martial arts instructor from a seventies-era kung-fu picture, the sort of look you didn't know existed in real life. He staggers in on sea legs, alcohol swilling around in there somewhere, wearing the vacant gaze you find in drunks and tired toddlers. Some drunks are loud, or angry; this man, another on the list of those I've never seen sober, is a quiet drunk. A Native American man of about forty, who keep to himself and drinks, and drinks, and drinks some more. He reminds me that heartbreaking Johnny Cash tune, The Ballad of Ira Hayes. There was a different personality in this body once.
Tonight he steps on carefully, giving me a light fistpound and a wan, glacial smile, lips spreading slowly over empty teeth sockets as he recognizes me.

Nothing but a whisper: "So how's business?"
"Business is good," I reply amiably, keeping the mood up. I think he just wants the comfort of small talk, the connection. "Nothin' too major, not too many folks out here on a Monday night you know, keepin' it pretty mellow tonight."
Nearly under his breath: "That's good."
"How 'bout you, how you been?
"I been, I been."
"I'm glad you're still around! I was startin' to wonder where you were."
"Yeah."
"You been doin' okay?"
"Well, no."
"I'm sorry!"
"Yeah, my dad and my mom and my brother been kinda gangin' up on me."
"Uh oh."
"Yeah, my dad's yellin' at me, then my mom, then my,"
"Oh no, all a them all at the same time! That's some drama! Soap opera drama!"

He listens and laughs, a gentle but full-throated chuckle. "Yeah, that's what it is!"
"That can be a lot. What they say?"
"They say. They say I gotta stop drinkin' so much the bottle."
"Uh oh."
"Yeah."

My job generally exposes me to only the negative effects of alcohol consumption. The ugliness of some of the violence I've seen staggers the mind, and for that and other reasons I keep my own counsel on the subject, but those are opinions I try not to share. I only know what's right for me and besides, who would I be to tell Ira Hayes what to do? I'm more interested in what our kung-fu-looking friend thinks. I ask him, "what do you say?"

"I say. Well, the drinkin' and the spice. My brother from smokin' the spice, he got really fucked up in the head."
"Oh, that's bad, man. That can't be changed. It's scary stuff!" Keep it neutral, I remind myself. Don't try to change people. Just be truthful….   
"Yeah. So, smokin…."
"Plus, that stuff's expensive."
"Well I don't know about the spice, but."
"Yeah."
"They're all just yellin' at me. My mom,"

This isn't about drinking or not drinking, I realize. Is it ever? Problems have deeper roots. His soft voice is calling out for a family who loves him.

I said, "well, maybe they're just tryna look out for you."
"Hmm."
"You know, where it's comin' from a place of love. They're trying to give you a tough love type a thing, but it's probably just comin' on too strong."

He heard my words at a profound register. You could almost hear him thinking, the silent face ticking toward a better place, eyes relaxing now, lines on his forehead giving way.

"Oh wow," he said. "Yeah. I think you're right, that's probably what it is."
"Yeah."
"Okay," he nodded, parts of him waking from slumber, daring to believe. The headspace of believing you are loved is a different planet from the opposite.

The rest of the city was going on about its business, and only the two of us, in our small corner, got to live in this elusive moment. Times like this are why I come to work.

She's repeating. We had this exact same exchange five minutes ago. "I'm a little tipsy," she'd said upon boarding, a woeful understatement.
"Yeah you are," I'd said. 

"Happy New Year, Mister Bus driver," she saying again now.
"Happy New Year to you too!"
"How was your New Year's?"
"It was pretty good, how was yours?"
"Quiet."
"That sounds nice."
"Yup!"

"Aaaa," yells a staggering runner. There is much intoxication happening tonight, New Year's Day. It's one giant dorm room out here. Just last trip at this very intersection a man was bodily dragging another (large) man out of the street, struggling to haul his unconscious carcass over the curb. Now there's a guy saying, "aaaa," and trying not to run into the side of the bus. After a mental coin flip I open the doors.

"Hey! Uuggh."
"Hey, how you doin'? You feelin' alright?"
"Yeah." 
Calm him down, in case he isn't. "Happy New Year."
He looks up at me. "Oh, hey! My brother! You remember me?"
"Yeah, how you been?" He looks familiar but gaunt today, wild eyed, man as hyena.
"Good, how you been."
"Happy New Year!"
"I'm twenty-nine," he says.
"You're twenty-nine? Did you say you're twenty-nine? I'm twenty-nine!" This is excellent. He's wildly unstable, and we need to make friends. Steer them toward their good side.

"I'm twenty-nine!"
"Me too!"
"When you were born?"
"1986," I reply.
"When?"
"March. And you?"
"January!" he says, still standing up front.
"Nice."
"Siddown," says Repeating Lady to him.
"Fuck you!" he replies sharply. So much for gentle steering and similar birthdays!
"Shut up," she slurs.
"Fuck you, fucking bitch!" 

Fights are never about anything important. She's a heavyset black American woman in her fifties, eyes half-closed and speaking in slow motion. He's a rail-thin black African man in a flannel and knit cap, much older than he looks. Neither one is particularly intimidating; in their verbal parrying they seem to be just going through the motions. As in, it's late at night in Pioneer Square, and we're supposed to be drunk and fighting. All right. Let's get on with it. 

"Oh she's alright, she's nice," I inform him.
"Fuck you," he says to her again.
"Stay away from me, stranger."
"Get the fuck away from me, lady. I know you?"

Her lines are the type generally used to repel unwanted and scary advances; his are normally reserved for intense hate felt personally. Instead they sound like bad actors, sighing after being asked to say the same lines again a hundredth time. Maybe that's why I find it so amusing. She's practically falling asleep, definitely not afraid, and slurring out the dialogue as if it's because there's nothing else to say. He seems to be searching for a reason to be as angry as his lines require, and failing. 

"Get outta my face and outta my life, smelly old man!"
"Fuck smelly!"
"All right young lady," I say to her, though she's definitely pushing sixty. She'd asked for this stop earlier. "Here we are. You need to jump out?"
"Huh."
"You said you wanted the Mission, this is it."
"I wanna go downtown."
"Okay. I'll take you there. Gotta be nice though, alright?"
"You siddown like I told you," she continues to the twenty-nine year old.
"Fuck you, get the fuck out. This is the Mission," he replies, offering his own creative paraphrase of my comment.
"Get away from me."
"Fuck you. Stay away from me."
"I don't have to do anything you say!"
"Okay, okay," I said.
"Fucker fuck. Why you wanna go to the Mission, lady? That's a men's shelter. You some kind a lady?"
"Okay guys let's be nice." I'm using my Mom voice. I don't get to be a Mom very often. I'm enjoying this. "It's New Year's, we need to be friendly on the holidays. Everybody supposed to be friendly on New Year's!"
"Fuck."
"Okay."
"Fuck you," he tells her again.
"Everything's okay." A young man further back had taken off his headphones to observe. I caught him smiling. Furthering the holiday spirit, I lean into the mic and say in a friendly and exciting voice, "our next stop is! Columbia! Cherry! By the ferry terminal! Columbia Tower. Dexter Horton Building. Next stop after this is! Seneca!"

You know, balance it out a little, yin and yang. At Columbia my angry twin staggers up and out.

"Oh, you're getting off here?" That's fine with me. I'm not stopping the guy. "Okay, have a good night!"
"Okay!"

She chimes in once again, as if nothing at all had happened:
"Happy New Year, Mister Bus driver."
"Happy New Year to you too!"
"How was your New Year's?"
"It was pretty good, how was yours?"
"Quiet."
"That sounds nice."
"Yup!"

Ah, yes. Everything in its right place. 

Patricia and I were talking about something, at the end of the Prentice loop, out there at the end of the 7 line. She's a semi-regular. Tonight our conversation is interrupted by this gent, who other drivers and I have taken to calling "mista driva," since that's what he calls all of us. He's described here, and one day, I'll actually see him not drunk. Yes, I believe in miracles. But today is not that day. He's a new face on Rainier, and given how he runs his body he wont last too long– though there are those who, like Denise or the Rolling Stones, have a resilience that quite simply defies logic.

"Do you have eyes?" he says, stumbling into a seat next to Patricia. 
"What's that?" she says, politely, in her refined way. I don't think she has conversations like this very often. 
"I cannot see your eyes."
"Oh, no." She says, stepping out right when things are getting interesting, leaving just the two of us.

"Hey, mista bus driva."
"Hey! How are you?"
"I'm okay. But I cannot see the eyes."
"Uh oh."

There was a watershed moment I had on my first city route, the 70. I had come from two years of suburban work on the Eastside and didn't know how to talk to unstable people, or as I like to say, the mentally wandering. A man was monologuing about his job as a leprechaun bounty hunter. Joe Biden was in town, and the going rate for a leprechaun was higher than usual. Two hundred dollars. They're harder to catch these days, he explained. I listened but didn't engage, not knowing what to say.

"So that's why you can get more for them now, a hundred dollars."
"Hang on," I said, as something clicked inside me. "I thought it was two hundred!"

Talk to them as if what they're saying makes complete sense.

Why am I ignoring a chance to take part in a conversation about leprechaun head price fluctuation as affected by vice presidential visits? Am I going to have a more interesting conversation today? Um, no. In my then woefully undeveloped street sense, I had actually been considering asking him to stop talking. What was I thinking? Bend like tall grass in the wind. You'll last longer.

"Bus driva, I cannot see your eyes."
"That's a bummer, man. Are you feelin' all right?"
"I'm o-kay. I am sad that I cannot see your eyes."
"Shoot, that's too bad." I'd feel the same way!
"I can't see the eyes!"
"Aw, man,"
"Mista bus driva!"
"Hey!"
"I can't see your eyes!"

Let's really get down to business and solve this, I thought. Let's talk about it. "Well, I can see your eyes, so you must be able to see my eyes, right?" 

"The eyes!"
"Can you see my eyes?" 
He rises up and stands close to my face. After thinking about it for a while: "Bus Driva. I cannot see your eyes."
"I can see your eyes. Can you see my eyes?"
"Mista bus driva, where are your eyes? I can't see them."
"Oh, they're right over here. Can you see my eyes?"
"I am looking for your eyes."
"Can you see my eyes?"

He was maybe two feet away from me. The red light at 57th and Rainier is a very long one, and he needed every second. Finally, his glassy, completely dilated orbs blinked, and again slowly, and he said,

"Your eyes are. Brown."
"My eyes are brown! You can see my eyes!" 
"I can see your eyes! Bus driva, I can see your eyes!"
"Everything is okay! You can see my eyes!"

I'll tell you about last night soon, but first I want to share the second best New Year's I've ever had, which was two years ago. I finished up a pleasant afternoon on the 358 and met my friend Paul, whom you remember from when I did the slightly ridiculous thing of riding his bus for almost eight hours on a day off. I believe his son was nine at the time, and together we headed over to one of their friends' dwellings in Columbia City, populated with a collection of parents and children of like ages. It was the happy house! 

Imagine wood trim and warm white walls, decked with color, paper, glitter, light… picture streaks of movement as children run around and about, making the rooms jungles or deserts or mansions, cries of delight and concern. Music from another room, standing in for silence. The parents and their friends are hardly less joyful, nodding with cups in their hands, bursting into spontaneous laughter.

I used to have a great fear of being at a party where I knew no one, but everyone else knew everyone else; how did this now feel so invigorating? A space which made you real. Cup in hand, going back to the kitchen for more; here is the sort of house where squeezing past others in a hallway invites goodness, strangers who say hello. You live for moments like this, where every need is satisfied, for an hour or for a night.

All clocks had been set back three hours, that the children might understand it was midnight, experience the excitement, and then get to bed at an hour where tomorrow could still happen. The rule was everyone there had to make a hat. I sat amongst parents and youngsters, equals all, reaching across the table for scissors and feathers and colored paper. Talking out of one ear about music and jobs, the other about glitter glue and pink versus green. At the intersection of wisdom and the carefree lies something very special.

Upstairs a pillow fight was brewing. Taking part felt essential! I joined Paul's son Hazel and several others in a room with green walls, and we howled and spoke in the laughter of tongues, flying blankets and feathers filling the spaces between. Sometimes you, as an adult, will play at such things at half-speed, or half-strength, so as not to overwhelm the children; not necessary tonight. Here is a girl giving her all swinging those pillows, and the devil help anyone holding back.

The seconds began counting down, and we gathered, and whooped, and cheered. That was New Year's Eve One, with the children. Paul and I were in the kitchen when he said, "hey. Do you wanna go to the Space Needle?"
"Sure yeah, let's go!"

That was a little after nine. The kids went off to slumber, corners were squared away, and around ten Paul and I walked out to a 7. Having come directly from my 358 shift, I was still in uniform. We pretended to give the driver, whom we knew and liked, a hard time, yelling about this and that, before sitting down on the warm and ancient Breda. I began to explain to Paul that I was about to do something important, but odd:

I've done many things on the minute of the New Year, and one of them has been meditating. There are so many things you can do in that first moment– first person of the year to eat a carrot, make a field goal, say a sentence about both aluminum and hippos– that sometimes the fairest thing seems to be to do none of them, and simply meditate, rise into the new year. Or better yet, actually be asleep, and rise by waking up into the New Year. You get the idea. Which is why, I told Paul, I needed to meditate for five minutes on this 7, even though there's people around and it's going to look weird, me sitting up with my eyes closed. He said cool, let's do this. 

I came back to wakeful consciousness from whispered voices nearby, women's voices. I could hear three girls sitting to my right. "Yo," one said to another, quietly, "tha's that driver I was talking about."
"Him, right there?"
"Yeah, he's the best one. He's nice to everybody…" and so on.

"Are you guys talking about me!" I smiled in a singsong voice, coming out of my reverie. What a great way to be woken up, by these three grinning stranger friends. I dearly wish I remembered their names. One was in Muslim dress, another had her hair down; they were united in their rich, beaming faces. I told them the man next to me was one of the exceptional bus drivers ("this is the great Paul!"), and they shared about their experiences on my bus. I asked how their New Year's was progressing, what their plans were for the evening and the year.

Theirs was the time of going off to college. One was accepted to UW, the others to the Ivy League, one of them Yale. A part of me trembled with deep satisfaction, at the thought of these three beautiful women of color making it, succeeding against stacked odds by anyone's standards. It's not that the colleges were prestigious, but that they were embarking on their initiative, and right, to aim high. Later it occurred to me they embodied the intersection I'd been thinking of earlier– carefree but wise, light-hearted but thoughtful, playful and intelligent in a single breath. 

Paul and I got off in Chinatown and walked the remaining two miles or so to the Space Needle. His hat, made at the party, was enormous– a Seahawks helmet with a large double paper cone on top, plus feathers and other paraphernalia. People leaned out from their balconies screaming, "SEA…HAWKS!" Men took pictures with him. Others recognized me from busland. Chatting up restaurant owners in Pioneer Square. Fists were pounded, and hugs given out. The air was filled with cheer. With his hat and formidable beard, and me, the skinny smiling guy in uniform, we were quite the pair. I think we balanced each other rather well.

Under the Needle now, it's less hectic than I imagined. It's not a zoo, the way it looks on television, but more of a garden; the crowds are definitely present, benevolent huddles massing in the darkness, but between the clumps of humanity this place is easily navigable. Ever present is the massive edifice directly above, wreathed in fog tonight, nigh-mystical, the air thick and tangible. Extra buses are parked everywhere for afterwards, and we wave to our friends. Supervisor Tamara snaps our picture.

What is it about fireworks, I ask myself as the bursts flame out. We strangers below are united, brought back to the sameness of long ago, staring up at a cascade of sound and light. The sparks hang in the air vapor as never before, coloring the fog, a humble Borealis of our own making. Something similar is touched in each of us as we marvel.

​When you know someone for long enough, you can sense the child they used to be; that youthful sense of wonder is there still, made awake in the early moments of a new beginning, a gentle voice from long ago, reminding us of the potential we have, gazing wide-eyed up at the heavens, higher and higher into the living night.

I've seen this guy before. Perhaps you have too.

He once sold Real Change at 4th and Pike. His strategy was sui generis, and had nothing to do with saying anything about his product. Instead: wear a huge, genuine, beaming grin, and yell out "good morning," we're talking really bellow it out– "Good Morning! Good Morning!"– bellow it out like a national treasure waiting to be found, roaring out kindness to every single passersby. There was no sense of falsehood in his being, just massive uncontrollable joy howling through him, radiating out like fervent, vehement, impassioned sunshine. He fulfilled the great Thomas Hardy quote: "the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance from his ears..."

How he didn't lose his voice every morning I have no idea. People would be delighted. How could they not buy his paper? Such enthusiasm, so extreme and unfettered. It's not like they're going to find that at the office. Mid-forties, African-American, jean jacket and cap, with that smile… oh! The first time I saw him I don't even recall him having any newspapers. I just remember him shooting delightfulness at everybody. Here he is tonight getting on at Martin Luther King Way, by Franklin High.

"Hope you had a good holiday!" I say.
"It was wonderful! And yours?"
"It was outstanding, thanks for asking!"
"I hope your New Year is even better."
"Right back atcha!"

He sits down two seats back, but I can't let him go. I've never actually talked with him before. "You still sellin' the paper?"
"No," he replies, grinning.
"Don't wanna do it forever, I guess." I'm working off the assumption that it's difficult work with many drawbacks.
"Well, actually, I'd love to do it for about one more year…."
What a guy! "Yeah? I bet you meet a lot of interesting people, good people,"
"Oh yeah! Great folks."
"I remember you, 'cause you would always say, good morning, good morning!"
"Yeah!" 
"That's a hard, I mean that's a tough job, sellin' the paper! I got some friends who do it."
"Well, it's not so hard." This guy! "I try not to look at it as a job," he continues. Do you see what I mean? I'm in awe! Of course it's a hard job, my goodness, they only get $1.25 per paper sold!

The person in the chat seat moves away, and he takes over, continuing: "I just greet everyone, say hello to everyone,"
That sounds familiar. "Get 'em started in a positive way,"
"Exactly,"
"Give 'em some good vibes in the morning."
"That's what I try to do, yeah. That's why I'm out there."
"You know what? That's how I feel about this." I'm pointing at the steering wheel. "That's why I'm here. I also, I try not to think of this as a job either, because… uh, well, there's too much other stuff about it that's great!"
"And you know what? I never ever sat back back and said, 'hey, do you wanna buy some Real Change.' "

I think I'm falling in love. No, I don't mean if this guy was twenty years younger and a woman! You understand. It's the idea expressed, that raising the quality of life for these strangers, that that was more important for him than actually you know, making his own living.... Looking at his stentorian exuberance I'm reminded of the Nelson Henderson quote engraved on the steps of the University Heights Community Center: "The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." Oh, how I love the generosity in that perspective, the built-in assumption that other people are like us and worth the effort! 

That he saw the urgent need for raising the people up and did something about it in a simple, nonjudgmental way and, and this is the real kicker here, that alongside such an attitude things fell together for him without too much effort on his part. Who was it who said the universe seems to favor those who put their trust in it? We reach for hints of understanding, glimpses of wisdom as we work out how to be our best selves.

"That's awesome," I say. "That's what I'm talkin' about!"
"Well, I'ma get off here and give McDonalds some more of my money!"
"There you go! Good to see ya!"
"You too, Happy New Year!"
"Happy New Year!"

I pull up at southbound Union behind a 36, and a fellow with a walker, just now hustling for that bus, opts for me instead. Frequent transit users know to look for a second bus; it always has more seats. He's wearing a large beige outdoor jacket with the hood up, and with his head down I can't see his face. He maintains this position as I put out the ramp and lift up a seat or two for him. Then I hear him speak.

"I'll be goin down to the courthou–"
Never mind the courthouse. I haven't seen this guy since 2012.
"Greg!" I howl the name as if it's a long-lost cipher, the magic code that'll unlock our strangerhood and turn us to friends. "Is that you?!"

He looks up from under the hood, pulling back the rim. "My man!" A rich grin from ear to ear as he proffers his hand, turning the rainy night to sunshine. It's not so cold out here after all. His grip is bonier than I recall, but firm as ever.

Greg is described here and here. He made me feel at home during my early days on the 3/4, a time when he was the picture of health and a neighborhood regular. After some years he became homeless, and I'd take him to the City Hall shelter in time for its evening opening. After a long absence, he showed up one day at a different time, proudly telling me of his new apartment, the waterfront skyline view of which he was most enthused.

"I knew I recognized that voice! Where you been all my life?!" I say, with that lighthearted mixture of joy and mock reproach.
"I got me a spot! You know where St. James is?"
"Course I know St. James! Now let's see the last time we spoke, you was tellin' me about you found an apartment that had a view of the water."
"Same one!"
"Oh, excellent!"
"It's a kinda assisted living spot, they take care of some of us old folks." 
"Well, look at you go! That's excellent!" 
"You seen my buggy?" Referring to his walker. 
"Yeah, I see you got a lil' sports car there!"
"Was I limping last time you saw me?"
"Uh. Limping?"
"Yeah."
"Honestly I don't remember, I think I was just excited to see ya!" A friend I admire once shared he prefers to say just what he's thinking, regardless of what it sounds like. I'm excited to see you. I was just thinking about you. He'll entrust such lines to the listener, trusting you'll understand there's no subtext intended. Something about this emphasis on face value gladdens me, and I endeavor to do the same. 

"Ha. Well, from June '13 to, from June '13 to August '14 I was limping. Finally, went to see the doctor; he says it's cancer."
"Greg!" I howl the magic code again. "I'm glad you're here! That's heavy stuff!"
"Here, look." He shows me his scalp, under his knit cap. It's bare, save for a resealed wound of sorts.
"Greg, you're a survivor."
"I've done it two times already."
"Ugh, Greg, you're a trooper. Is what you are. I'm glad you're here!"
"Thanks. This'll be me." We've arrived at the courthouse.
"Sure thing."
"I'm gonna look around a bit for her–" not sure of his meaning there– "–'cause it's my birthday next week."
"Hey, happy upcoming. Greg, it's good to see you again,"
"This your route?"
"Every night!"
"Well, come on up there sometime, ask for Greg. I'm always up there."
"Well, thanks for steppin' out to say hey! I been wondering where you been hiding!"

His hood is going up again, concealing his face, but I can still see the grin.

It's a comfort to know he's still among us, that friendly soul who made me feel welcome when I was new. I remember him as the sturdy, strapping figure he and I both once knew as real. Greg. Let us recall our memories of others at their best moments, not otherwise.

I picture him on the hill up there, maybe he's home right this very minute, smiling to the sky and to himself, a private smile seen only by the clouds and sea. Is there a greater pleasure than sitting in a place of comfort, taking in the view from the picture window?

Happy holidays.