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!)