10: Andy

“What’s up, Junior?” He pinches his unfiltered cigarette with his thumb and index finger from between his taunt lips. His other hand takes its usual position, casually hooked inside the front pocket in his jeans. But the fact that he can’t fit his swollen hand down into this too small compartment coupled with his unwillingness to let his arm fold at the elbow causes his shoulder to jut up toward his ear. He balances on one foot as he knocks his free heal on the steel toe of the boot planted on the ground. I’ve observed this habitual series of movements each time I walk outside on him taking a smoke.
“Nothin’” I walk toward him, yet I keep my distance from his self-made clouds of toxins.
“Nothin’? What’s wrong with you? Got nothin’ to do?” He waits a second after my lethargic shoulder shrug.
“What are you doing?” Neither of us is too keen on getting the conversation rolling and relies on the same, tired small talk we’ve used my entire life to get our feet wet.
“Smokin’” He points out the obvious and shoots me a shit-eating, half smile meant to taunt me—a warm-up to his routine teasing. He barely turns his head away from me, sticks out just the tip of his tongue, and then immediately recoils it back into his mouth against the spitting force of a small exhale: some dried tobacco found its way from between the rolling paper into his mouth and is now shooting from between his lips.
“Attractive.” I offer the same esteem building observation every time.
He cocks his head to glare at me from a different angle, relaxes his straightened elbow, allowing his shoulder to drop, and refocuses his rigidity by pressing his lips together. It looks as if he’s getting ready to tear me a new one; and maybe if I weren’t his sister he’d tell me how it’s “Nunya….Nunya business” in a tone he saw fitting to the stature of the wise-guy. But as it was, he slaps me with some tough-love warning, “I’ll kick yer ass if you ever thunk about smoking, Sam. A mean it, Boomer, I’ll k i c k y e r a s s.” He breaks eye contact as he looks out into the quiet, residential street and takes another drag from between his two pinched fingers. He squints as if he’s looking for some insightful last liner, but as an alternative he allows a fog of stress-relieving transparent white escape his lungs through the different holes in the front of his face: once again, an attractive look against his rugged dark features.
With the haze lingering around his head, he can barely make out the navy Chevy Suburban pulling in across the street. “She-iit: Holly’s home.” The fact that he curses makes him initially sound like he’s annoyed with his neighbor’s arrival, but his leisurely tone and reluctance to rush inside the sanctuary of his private bachelor pad speaks louder than his words. Holly is just his type.

Blog 9: Eavesdropping on Silence

Earlier this week, I sat on the bus headed out of Forest Grove and into Cornelius, where I would disembark at the WinCo stop, and beyond. I took my seat in the first row of forward sitting double chairs. This specific location supplied ample knee and leg room, but past that, it allowed me to confront the row of seats facing out the side of the bus; and this arrangement lessened the suspicion of my stare on my fellow bus riders occupying these sideways seats.
By the time I boarded the bus and took my strategic seat, I had my pick of prey already lined up. I sat very still so not to be detected, I narrowed my sight on my target, and I cocked my weapon—this week taking the form of my ears positioned on either side of my now inclined head; the sport: eavesdropping. My aim was set for what I assume to be a middle aged housewife of Mexican heritage, her 6 year old son, and preteen daughter.
“Gedda cake an round balls before Papa come home,” the housewife rapidly instructed her daughter. She showed the approximate size of these “round balls” by touching her two pairs of finger tips together and moving this junction away from her chest.
“Ba-lloooon-ss,” the girl corrected her mother in a quiet voice but loud facial movements that screamed the pronunciation of the word. She made sure not to make eye contact with her superior and instead focused her sight on her shoe swinging back and forth disappearing under the seat only to fully reappear a slow second later. She had to sit awkwardly in her seat to enable her left foot to swing unobstructed by the ground’s friction while her right foot remained firmly planted on the speckled bus floor.
The mother tilted her head toward her daughter’s wording suggestion but maintained her distant gaze on her son’s toy truck at her feet. She dismissed the strange word with its funny vowel arrangement, “Papa ged home not too late. We gedda floor swep ta-day, soon, and wash da plates.”
The girl shook her head in compliance without interrupting her trance on her pendulum shoe. Anyone who was observing this family understood that this young girl was to take on the list of chores piling up; the “we” was a euphemism for “you.”
“Papa ged home and your toys be pik-ed up,” the instruction was turned to the boy who looked up at his sister and smiled, as if to say “you will do it for me.” He was sitting on one leg, resting his chin on his other knee, wheeling his toy truck through the ridges of the walkway down the middle of the bus. His mother moved her old, unicolored, Reebok shoe in to the slim cushion of her son’s hip: a loving nudge to remind him of his place. He turned his smile on her and added his top, four front teeth with a bite that covered his bottom lip.
His mother opened up her thick arms, extending her dry hands down to him to signal his climb into her embrace. Her arms folded around the boy’s waist and he arched his back to pull away from her to show 6 fingers—one opened hand plus an index finger pointed towards the roof of the bus. “I’m six today!”
The women turned her head to smile at her daughter; but with further observation, this doting smile at a glance might have been a cover up to gain her daughter’s approval, confirming that the boy was holding up the right amount of fingers and claiming the right age. The girl indicated her approval by giving no sign of objection and instead returning her sight from her younger brother in his mother’s arms to the floor where she corralled the toy truck over to her with her foot.
“When’s Papa getting home?” the boy asked.
“Tonighd,” informed his mother. And the boy looked impressed that he would see his father so soon. The girl only picked up her brother’s toy as the three of them stood to make their way off the bus.
(It seemed more was said at the time I was on the bus, but recalling the dialog, more was communicated through silence and eye movement. The dialog that was verbalized used the same limited words over and over—just a note!)

8: perfect BLOG stranger

“Goin’ on a trip?”
My blog assignment started out backwards: I didn’t approach the stranger, the stranger approached me.
“Yep.” I lied.
I stared down at the red, roll-a-way suitcase in between my feet and was confident that my lie was planted in solid ground. I had just found an open seat, on the red Max line, with an additional open seat on either side meant to keep my personal space bubble from popping. Unfortunately, this prime seat lacked the still added bonus of facing open seats—surrounded by buffers and the inability of making small talk with fellow public transpiration riders. I lied because it was quicker than telling the truth—as to why I had my Samsonite carry-on. Small talk never interested me much. Whose business was it anyways?
Nonetheless, I had felt this man’s gaze on me since I sat down, immediately making me wish I opted for the handicapped zone where I ran the risk of looking socially insensitive, or having to move once someone worthy of this section got on my Max car, or heaven forbid making it appear as if I had some [hidden] disability. It took him about the time of seven awkward stops to wear down my darting eyes, where upon I finally met his yellowed ogle. Yes, let’s say I’m going on a trip.
“Where to?” He didn’t bother with the invitation of my raised head this time; I guess we were already past those formalities. A fast mover, this one was.
“Ahh, home—to Indiana,” I spoke as proxy for the suitcase. I took a better look at my single serving friend of the next fifteen minutes or so. He had me, and our conversation was going to happen if I liked it or not, so I might as well make the most of it.
Taking this second look at the skin covered skeleton across my way, I began to relax in the sincerity of his halfcocked smile and timekeeping head bobs.
“Indiana? Boy, now there’s some place I haven’t seen yet. What you doin’ in Oregon?”
Wait, who’s trying to get the life story of who here? I realized I had better turn this chat around if I was to have a blog this week.
“I go to school at Pacific, in Forest Grove. Have you ever been to the Midwest?”
Arnold, I read his name off his embroidered baby blue work shirt, uncrossed his legs and repositioned his stretched out elbows from across the tops of his empty neighboring seat on his now widely spread apart knees. Leaning closer to me, he started in with a chapter of his life story. He might as well write my assignment for me, I couldn’t help but smile at my luck. Arnold took my now cheery disposition and ran with it: hook, line, and sinker.
“I got to Colorado with my two girls about three years ago.” I almost opened a newspaper left within reach after hearing Arnold’s consideration that Colorado was the Midwest, but I figured I was in this far, why start all over later?
“Oh, cool. What’d you do there?”
“Just a family vacation. My wife, she don’t get too many vacation days so we make the most of what we got.” I pretended to be texting so I could shorthand his answers in my phone. To make sure he knew I was still interested in him and not my imaginary friend on the other end of my texts, I shot him with more questions. I felt kind of bad hearing in his hesitation since he wasn’t done with his first thought.
“Oh yeah? What does your wife do?”
Arnold straightened his back with pride and illustrated his wife of 23 years working as a 9-1-1 operator. He remembered with affection how, when they were first married, she typed along with the dialog on the TV shows to practice taking down callers’ exchanges—having to type word for word what these panicked callers had to say/scream/whisper/cry.
Another fellow Max rider who had found her way into our conversation in between one of the stops that had occurred since offered her insight on the salary of these 9-1-1 operators.
Arnold looked down for the first time that I knew of and shook his head, “yes sir, she make good money, but it take two with kids in this economy. I got a sick one in bed right now. Been sick for three days, poor baby.”
“Oh no, what’s he got?” the second stranger asked. I was out of the conversation, the outsider taking notes on the two new main characters.
“I got two baby girls.” Arnold corrected the other stranger’s last question before correcting himself, “Well, they ain’t babies no more, but they’ll always be to their daddy. She’s got the flu, though.” And in perfect timing, he pointed to some corner store as the Max pulled to a stop, “On my way to get her some medicine right now.” He said a one word farewell to the other stranger and granted me the same acknowledgment accompanied with the same sincere half smile and head bob that began our conversation.
I turned to capture a final look at my subject as he passed behind me outside the Max car. I caught him staring at me, eyes completely fixed on me since before I knew it, as he walked past. We met gazes and he showed me his pink palm accented with white cracks against his black skin. Arnold was a perfect stranger for what I needed for my blog, and as I opened up to the possibility of sharing with complete strangers as our conversation progressed, I made a complete circle to being freaked out once again with this intensity dedicated to me after he left the Max.