Feelin’ My Age One Sunday Morning
© by Jack Ragsdale
You’d think a trip from my place to Sixteenth Street via the Mission Bus would be a snap on a Sunday morning but in intermittent rain and no umbrella, it was anything but cozy and neat. I went out in sunshine but before I arrived at the bus stop, Jack-be-Nimble-or-quick! – Jack also be dampened to the skin. Before my trip was over I got rained on pre-tti good, but if my clothes were limp when I got off the bus to go home, there was at least a spring in my step from the surreptitious brush I had with two young lovers.
A good deal of this city’s casual commerce with immigrants’ illegal homework travels via municipal transportation in black garbage bags and wire hand carts, and that was the case on a Sunday morning. The bus was mobbed; every other person had a huge bundle, delivering his spouse’s, or his grandmother’s sewing-work, done at home at sweatshop wages.
I was out to buy absolute essentials, healthful foods: avocados, tomatoes and oranges, and the rain had me ducking in and out of doorways trying to avoid the raindrops. On the bus I had to stand both ways. I’m not complaining: on my trip home I stood over a very attractive young couple. Oh, before boarding the bus for home, I stopped in at Walgreen's to buy five rolls of toilet paper on sale for $2.00—so, on the return trip I had two bulky packages.
I took my place in the tiny niche in the front of the trailer part of the bus, my feet mingling with those of the smiling boy and girl seated immediately below the strap to which I clung. I did not stare at them nor were they ever unaware of my existence. From their smiles and flirting eyes-- as the French would say, they seemed content with life just as it was: the boy, a white American, the girl, oriental, maybe a little older. In deference to my age, but without stirring to execute his offer, the boy tendered me his seat but I declined because the girl had her hand on his leg. To me that indicated ownership and I thought it would be a cheeky intrusion to disturb their happy connection. They may have been in love, or it could have been just a casual but satisfying affair as I judged by the playful smiles of satisfaction on their faces. Later, in the middle of the trip, the girl also offered me her seat, but I declined again, thanking her, and thinking it more pleasant seeing them together. They and I seemed to have "hit it off" in a way, even though our “friendship” was formal and distant.
Alas, the Fates soon tired of our little play, and all too soon it came to an end. Suddenly I was in the street combating the raindrops again, with only a smidgen of memory remaining as just another “sweet sorrow” in my head.
501wds April 21, 2006
You’d think a trip from my place to Sixteenth Street via the Mission Bus would be a snap on a Sunday morning but in intermittent rain and no umbrella, it was anything but cozy and neat. I went out in sunshine but before I arrived at the bus stop, Jack-be-Nimble-or-quick! – Jack also be dampened to the skin. Before my trip was over I got rained on pre-tti good, but if my clothes were limp when I got off the bus to go home, there was at least a spring in my step from the surreptitious brush I had with two young lovers.
A good deal of this city’s casual commerce with immigrants’ illegal homework travels via municipal transportation in black garbage bags and wire hand carts, and that was the case on a Sunday morning. The bus was mobbed; every other person had a huge bundle, delivering his spouse’s, or his grandmother’s sewing-work, done at home at sweatshop wages.
I was out to buy absolute essentials, healthful foods: avocados, tomatoes and oranges, and the rain had me ducking in and out of doorways trying to avoid the raindrops. On the bus I had to stand both ways. I’m not complaining: on my trip home I stood over a very attractive young couple. Oh, before boarding the bus for home, I stopped in at Walgreen's to buy five rolls of toilet paper on sale for $2.00—so, on the return trip I had two bulky packages.
I took my place in the tiny niche in the front of the trailer part of the bus, my feet mingling with those of the smiling boy and girl seated immediately below the strap to which I clung. I did not stare at them nor were they ever unaware of my existence. From their smiles and flirting eyes-- as the French would say, they seemed content with life just as it was: the boy, a white American, the girl, oriental, maybe a little older. In deference to my age, but without stirring to execute his offer, the boy tendered me his seat but I declined because the girl had her hand on his leg. To me that indicated ownership and I thought it would be a cheeky intrusion to disturb their happy connection. They may have been in love, or it could have been just a casual but satisfying affair as I judged by the playful smiles of satisfaction on their faces. Later, in the middle of the trip, the girl also offered me her seat, but I declined again, thanking her, and thinking it more pleasant seeing them together. They and I seemed to have "hit it off" in a way, even though our “friendship” was formal and distant.
Alas, the Fates soon tired of our little play, and all too soon it came to an end. Suddenly I was in the street combating the raindrops again, with only a smidgen of memory remaining as just another “sweet sorrow” in my head.
501wds April 21, 2006
posted by Jack Ragsdale @ 8:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home