Scrappy Beauty

You remember Gig CarShare. That was the app which, like today's Lime except for cars rather than bikes or scooters, allowed you to rent a vehicle and drive it to a location of your choice without having to return it to the pickup point. For a night owl like me who worked after the last buses and train home, I loved it. It seemed too good to be true, honestly– and we now know that it was, as Gig CarShare is long since out of business.

But there was a period when it worked, and I found it wonderful. You could reduce the price of your rental by filling up the car’s gas tank (the cost of which was reimbursed to you), and so I often found myself at various derelict Sodo gas stations in the wee hours. 

Decrepit spaces in Seattle used to be abandoned; now they hum with presences of varying safety, eyes and sounds and legs and flame from over there, rustling beneath cardboard and other debris, the dark urban forest floor a place where one must tread carefully.

I was at a decidedly sketchy Arco around 01h00, waiting in line to ask for a receipt from Pump 5 after filling up– Gig CarShare required a printed receipt, and this pump’s printer was long past broken– and I regarded the surroundings. I was thankful to still be in uniform; in spaces like this it's a suit of armor. They know I'm something besides a tech worker or someone else made of money; they know I'm working class; and they know I'm not an authority figure who might do them harm. I'm just the bus driver.

A scraggly white guy was pinwheeling past, his arms doing strange things and his eyes everywhere. He didn't seem unstable enough that I should avoid speaking. Better to make friends than enemies in the nighttime. 

“How's it goin’,” I said, to which he replied in kind, and I added, it being the first hours of July 5th, “Happy 4th!” 

“You too!”

Two figures reclined on the ground, immediately adjacent the attendant’s heavily barred window; this was one of those gas stations you could not enter. The male of the pair had dark sunglasses and may have been Mark, a street guy I used to see around there, but I couldn't be sure; and a bald young lady in short shorts, shivering for reasons unknown to me on this hot summer night. 

Someone stood in front of me in line. 

A young woman with a striking physical appearance and evening dress to show it off was speaking to the attendant, and I stood at a respectful distance behind her. She didn't exactly fit in to the environment. While the attendant attended to something she turned to me. Aware of her surroundings.

I said, “Havin’ a good night?”

“I am, what about you, you just gettin’ offa work?”

“I am, you know it! Feelin’ good!”

“What're you gonna do now?”

I said, “I'm gonna tryyy to go to sleep. I try to go to bed as soon as I get home, to sorta stay in line with the rest of the world's sleep schedule. Doesn't always work though! Did you have a good holiday?”

“Yeah, really good,” she beamed. “Just workin’. I'm over at [unintelligible] if you ever want to stop by.”

I didn't hear her. “You're over at where?”

Sheepishly this time: “Dreamgirls.”

You could see the embarrassment in her eyes, wondering what I thought of her. I needed her to feel un-judged. Appreciated. Respected. 

I said, “Oh, right on! Gosh, that seems like intense work. I hope everybody's treating you right over there, respecting you and everything.”

She was comfortable again as she replied, “Oh yeah, they always do!”

The scraggly guy, overhearing us, concurred, saying, “Have you SEEN those bouncers they got over there?”

I laughed. “Ha, good point!”

She exclaimed with a glowing smile, “I make them respect me!”

“That's awesome. Are you a night owl?”

“Totally.”

“Me too. I love the nighttime.”

A bill had dropped as the cashier served her a wad of bills. I pointed it out. She'd seen it already, and, seemingly also aware of the watchful eyes on the ground nearby, she handed the fallen bill to the bald woman. “Here,” she said. 

She included me in her farewell as she addressed the bodies on the ground, with a wave at Scraggly: “You all have a wonderful rest o’ the night now, it was good bein’ here with you!”

And with that she strode away. I marveled at her fearless confidence. Such skill. She knew the street. That it's important to include these faces. She was dressed sexy, handling large amounts of cash, hemmed in by desperate and unpredictable people… and yet, despite all that, she somehow owned it. The gas station was hers for those minutes.

I will probably never see you again. But you're a role model. You didn't just give out kindness and respect. You beamed it out, when you didn't have to.

Thank you.

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