As I woke a scruffy older sleeper at the U District terminal, he grumbled out something I think he intended to be derogatory. Something about "you know what you and your coworker, buhuuuh uuh," a remnant from that zone between dreams and wakefulness. I couldn't understand his slurred speech though, and wished him well as he stood up. I got a few stretches in as he gathered himself into the present and stumbled away. Several minutes later when I started the bus back up again, he reappeared, and I said happily, "back for more! Awesome, dude!" 

He smiled, seeing no more need for the antagonism from his dreams.

Another passenger got on some time later, also an older male. He looked like Elton John with a sunburn and twenty extra pounds, and he staggered into the chat seat and began regaling me with a story from earlier. "So I found a wallet the other day. In the street. A wallet."
"That's pretty cool," I said.

You can tell when someone's been drinking, and then you can tell when they've been drinking all day. This was the latter. 

"I opened it up the wallet, and there was a cocaine straw," he yelled.
"There you go."
"So I thought, cool! And then there was a twenty. Right there, inside the wallet. So I had a cocaine straw and a twenty, right there off the street."

He paused for dramatic effect before continuing. Other people were listening now. I feel like I'm on a stage of sorts in situations like this. The sleeper from earlier was now awake, sitting nearby. More refined types and Capitol HIll hipsters fill out the rest of the bus. Was I going to tell him to stop talking? Nope. Mister Elton the Cocaine Strawman is my buddy too.

He continued holding forth: "And the wallet had a you know, a secret pocket. And guess what was in it?"
"What was in the secret pocket?"
"Seventy dollars!"
"Well now, that sounds excellent!"
"Yeah it was," he blurted in agreement. "And it was rainy and dark outside, and the wallet was black, the wallet, the ground was black, you understand?"
"It was all black!" 

The juxtaposition of the serious concentration necessary for watching the lanes, anticipating the moves of other cars, and checking the wire– all that in combination with a dialogue like this, is something I find highly amusing. Just the balance I need. Call it brain tickling. I'm maintaining three feet of clearance for the parked cars while being mindful of passing cars on the left– oh and yes, there was a cocaine straw and the wallet was black.

"It's amazing I FOUND it. But but but. There was no cocaine though." He sounded disappointed.
"No cocaine, just a whole bunch a cash?"
"Uh-huh," he said dejectedly. The sleeper barked out a sardonic laugh. I give voice to his thoughts, saying, "I don't know, man, that still sounds like a jackpot to me!"
"Yeah, really," grumbled Sleeper Man. 

"I'll take ninety dollars," I continue as two teenage girls get on. They're done up Just So, as it's Saturday night. One's having trouble finding money, and the other pays for her. "Such a good friend!" I say. She bats her lashes, and they sit down near Elton the wallet finder, who stares at them goggle-eyed. 

Finally he says, "you guys look reeeeally pretty!" 
Pause containing deafening awkward silence. "Are you guys teeeenagers?"
They nod patiently.
"You look like you're about SEVENTEEN, is that right?"

Pretty soon it will be time to steer the conversation in a healthier direction. While I'm thinking about how to do this diplomatically, Sleeper Man butts in on my behalf and that of the girls, saying to Elton: "well, you look like you're about SEVENTY, so why don't you shut up?"

Everyone within earshot collapses in laughter.

Elton the Wallet Finder's a good sport. "No, I'm sixty, I'm sixty! Okay, I'll leave you girls alone." Thank goodness for friendly drunks.

Sleeper Man gets off at Union. His first words to me may have been negative, but his last are positive. Out of nowhere he says, "hey! Did you know UPS and FedEx are merging?"
"What? No way!"
"Yeah, I heard it on the news!"
"This is madness!"

I felt like he wanted to balance out whatever negative energy he was belching out when I woke him up. It wasn't because he thought I might be interested in company acquisitions. The attitude from earlier wasn't big enough to warrant an apology, but he seemed to feel a need to reach across the empty spaces. The UPS news seemed offered out of a desire to what, find that wonderful meeting point, questing for equilibrium, the need to lay claim to that shared territory which proves we all have something in common. 

Have you missed my last few shows? No worries! This is your chance! I'll be at my current exhibition the evening of August 21st, for Georgetown's Third Thursday art walk. Stop by Kate Alkarni Gallery for a chat and check out work by a variety of great artists! 

Bring your friends! Come alone! It's a friendly party. Details here.

I think they were the first people on the bus, at Rainier and Rose, by the cluster of East African markets. Two black American high-school age boys bounded on. Summer nights on Rainier have a lot of activity– it's no surprise to see kids out past midnight. Some are out to prove themselves through trouble, others have a family situation they feel better being away from, and others are simply out with friends having fun. Didn't you stay out late when you were young?

While one of the boys asks me for a ride, I eyeball his drink. Is that sixteen-ouncer alcohol, I'm wondering. Out loud I say, "is that is that is that...." Then I see the label. "Oh, kiwi strawberry!" We laugh. "You guys are fine! Come on in!" 

I'm riding the bus home tonight, racking my brain for particulars. He had a helmet, I'm thinking. It's just after 1am, and I'm sitting forward on the last bus to my house. Today was the Torchlight Parade, and a detail from the night of madness is nagging at me. Finally I decide to go up and talk to the driver– to distract myself, to get another opinion, anything. Nice guy, this fellow. Younger, late thirties, with a family; he just got back from traveling to Yellowstone. I see him every Saturday night. 
 
"How was your day today?"
"Oh, hey. It was surprisingly easy," he responds, despite the intensity of the crowds. He describes some technicalities of timing and direction that led to his shift being an unexpected cakewalk. I chat briefly about the general quality of my own day– incredibly hectic but incredibly enjoyable– before getting down to brass tacks.

"Hey, so something happened on my last trip that I'm confused about."
"Okay, yeah." He leans in, curious.
"So I was doing the 7, southbound, and halfway through the route a guy gets on with a bike. A Latino-looking guy, maybe Hispanic."
"Okay."
"When I get to the end, he forgets his bike, because nobody's on the bus, and the bike is still there. So on my way back into town, I look for him, thinking he'll be out there waiting to get his bike back."
"Yeah."

"But there's another 7 right behind me, and we start skip-stopping. Nobody gets on my bus asking about the bike, so I start to think he must be on the 7 behind me. Musta been on one of the stops I skipped. But my 7 only goes to Fifth and Jackson. The 7 behind me goes all the way through downtown and out to the U District."
"Uh huh okay,"
"So I'm thinking about this bike, and this guy, and at Fifth and Jackson I tell everyone, this is our last stop but there's another 7 coming five minutes behind me, and he'll go all the way through downtown. I tell them this, and I tell them, I'm actually going to wait for this next 7 with you guys because I want to talk to the driver about something. And I mention, I want to talk to him something about this bicycle, find out who's bike this is. And as soon as I say that, a guy on my bus says, that's my bike!"
"Ooohhh!"
"And I say, what? And he says, yeah, that's my bike, right there, and I'm like, I really think this bike belongs to someone else. This skinny Hispanic guy from earlier, I remember him. But this guy, this heavyset black guy who looks completely different, he's saying this is my bike!"
"Oh no!"
"Yeah. And he's saying, I would swear on my sister's grave, and he starts telling me all this stuff about the bike that turns out to be true, it has no front brakes, the back brakes are bad–"
"No way!"

"-And the thing is, he's wearing a helmet! He even has a bike lock in his pocket. He takes it out and shows it to me. And I'm thinking, am I crazy? Am I completely crazy? He's going to the next 7, and I tell him, I think the guy who owns this bike, that guy is going to be on that 7, but he's like, doesn't matter, this is my bike, I can't believe you thought this belonged to some Spanish guy."
"Did you tell him the bike had been on your bus for an earlier trip already?"
"Yeah, he said he fell asleep, and he was glad to get the bike back, but he didn't say anything about it when he got on! I don't get it. I was a hundred percent sure it was the Latino guy until he started talking. I looked at him for a long time and finally I said okay, 'cause what can I do, and we shook hands. I mean, he had a helmet, so he must be, why else would anyone wear a helmet, and he totally walked over to the 7 bus stop for the next 7 to downtown."
"And the other guy was probably gonna be on it!"
"Definitely, if that was his bicycle!"
"I would have loved to been on that bus!"
"Exactly, either they would be fighting or... I wish I could get on that thing right now just to find out. I've been sitting here the past fifteen minutes, trying to figure it out in my head. I think I'm going crazy. All I know is I'm never telling anyone there's a missing bike ever again!"

"Well, a something similar involving a bike happened to me recently."
"Okay," I said.
"I was driving the 71, by Virginia, also very late at night, and there's only a few people on the bus. There's a bike on the bus. A guy gets off and I'm positive it's the guy who put the bike on. But he starts walking the other way, outside toward the back of the bus. I honk the horn a little but he keeps going. And I see him cross the street behind the bus. So I lean out the window and yell, dude! You forgot your bike! You know? And he can't really hear me so he starts walking closer, and I tell him again, your bike, don't forget your bike. And he says oh, that's not my bike. And he leaves. Then I turn to the inside of the bus and say to everyone, who is the owner of this bike? Does this bike belong to any of you guys? And they all said no! It was none of theirs either! Nobody took the bike!"

Welcome to the Twilight Zone, was all we could come up with. That or we're both nuts. As he spoke a shooting star streaked across the clear night sky. Now that had to be real– both of us saw it! We marveled at its brilliance. Oh, the things that happen in the middle of the night!

We won't tell anyone I took it for a test drive. 

As I pulled my 358 into the layover at Second and Main, I noticed someone had forgotten their bicycle on the rack. It was definitely on the junker side of things, a red jalopy of a bicycle with peeling tape and a chain rusting into orange. I looked at it for a moment and thought, well, what of it, as I stepped outside and removed the bike from the bus. I had fifteen minutes of break time before the next trip. Hoping the owner had a sense of humor, I decided to spend my break taking it out on a "test drive," as it were, enjoying the sights and sounds of Pioneer Square while I could. 

Of course I'd return the bicycle to the bus and leave it on there for the rest of the day before sending it to Lost and Found, but for now the poor red puppy looked so lonely. I barely fit on the thing, but that's okay. I tooled through Occidental Park, nodding at a few familiar homeless faces. I drifted over to the viaduct and wandered underneath its steadfast bulk, enjoying the shadows it provided, trying to conceive how the waterfront would look without it. 

Somehow I found myself inside Metro Customer Service, still with the bicycle. I can't imagine why I felt compelled to go in there at that moment. Maybe I needed some timetables. As I walked up the steps to the doorway to exit, carrying the bike over my shoulder, two young black American boys, teenagers, simultaneously approached the door from the outside. 

Yes, they were dressed in the stereotype that's been offered up to them for the last twenty-five years or so– sagging, low-riding jeans and spotless athletic wear, oversized basketball shoes with horizontal laces, reflective shades on one, the other with a flat-billed hat tilted at a rakish angle. 

It's an unfortunate fact that media representations disproportionately link this image with that of the irredeemable urban black "thug" figure, a depiction so tiresomely pervasive we run the risk of forgetting that black culture is so much more just than hip-hop culture. There is nothing inherently oppositional about large sports jerseys and low-slung pants.

The two boys hold the door open for me. I step through, saying, "thanks guys."
"Fo Sho'."
"'Preciate it."
"No problem!"

I smiled deeply as I walked away.

Note: that's my good friend Eric in the photo. We worked at Capitol Records in Hollywood together.

I recognize his face and gait, but what happened to the mangy hair? He's still scruffy, but his haircut looks like that of just a regular joe. In my head I called him Grizzly Alan, and I haven't seen him in more than a year. A smart fellow, about my age, clearly educated, and probably homeless. Today he's walking slowly past the bus stop on 45th, gaze lowered in thought.

"Hey, maaan," I call out. I pronounce "man" with emphasis, stretching out the vowel, giving it the weight of a proper name. Letting him know I recognize him. 
Jogged out of thought, he sees me and replies, "Oh, hey!"
"Haven't seen you in a while!"
"Yeah, you remember me."
"Of course. Good to see you're still hangin' around." Referring to his haircut: "I see you lost some hair!"
"Yeah, it works better at job interviews."
"How's that been goin'?"
"Aauuh," he says.
"Just okay?"
"Uuuuh."
"It's a process, right?"
"Yeah."
"I feel like it's a numbers thing. Apply for ten, hear back from one of 'em, you know?"
"Yeah," he says, pronouncing it as in, "that's true."
"Hey well. It's good to see you again."
"You too."
With urgency I added, "Stay strong!"

The faces come and go as the months turn to years. I'll be riding the ferry, taking in the horizon line, when the thought will surface: whatever happened to Juan and his new baby? Or Angel, with the bathrobe and bruises? Do you remember that face on Pine, outside the mall, the first-generation African man who for years never asked for money, but instead  stood yelling angrily about how Seattle Police are communist, and about how the Frye apartments evicted him? Did you ever see him on his "lunch break," where he would go and sit quietly inside Nordstrom, in complete opposition to the angry facade he projected on the sidewalk? I wonder about these faces, whole and real people, whom I now no longer see. Do they know I'm thinking of them?

Recently I was at the base, preparing to walk out to my bus. Several drivers were discussing a well-known passenger, Gaylen. An angry man surrounding a child inside, he could be an insufferable handful of epic proportions. The last time I saw him was a couple years ago.

"Gaylen? Oh, he's dead."
"What?" I said.
"Yeah, he's gone."
"Oh, that piece a shit? Man, I say good riddance," said a third driver. "That duu' got on my bus so many times, and I just wanted ta kick those crutches out from under him each time. What a' asshole."
"Aw, he's my buddy!" I said.
"He was, no, no. I couldn't stand that dude!"
"We'll just have to find some other assholes!" quipped a fourth, who'd been listening. They laughed. Part of me wanted to cry.

I gazed across the room at Vicki, a driver and former social worker with a heart of gold. She knew where I was coming from. We looked at each other ruefully. It wouldn't be any use trying to change their minds. I know they certainly couldn't change mine. 

My mind flashed back to an ancient moment from years ago. Venus, another driver, walked up to me, excited. "Nathan, there's this passenger who I actually really like, even though everyone hates him. His name is Gaylen, and he–"
"Has two crutches, yes I know! Venus, you're amazing!"

I'd heard horror stories about the guy but hadn't met him at the time of the conversation. Listening to Venus was an inspiration. She seemed thrilled in the sense of having come upon a secret; her vision didn't stop short at a reactionary appraisal, but kept going. She could see through the initial to a more complete picture, and in so doing had found something familiar in a man so outwardly different from her. Aren't we all the same, searching for happiness each in our own imperfect ways?

Mister Gaylen, I hope now you feel less pain, less occasion for hate, and perhaps the glimmer of a joy which eluded you in this life.