Downhill Both Ways

A Lesson from the Bus Driver: Everybody’s a Risk

Faces turn off on a bus the same as they do on elevators. Even the driver’s face was off today. She must have some personality, though, right?

I figure this for 2 reasons:

1. My face goes off too, and I’m virtually made of personality, so the most reasonable, golden-rulish assumption in this case is to believe that she, too, beneath that powered-down exterior is lively and perhaps even worth knowing.
2. She wore a pink neck pillow on her shoulders. And from what I could tell, it doubled as a stuffed dog. So that’s something.

I muttered a “Good morning,” which ended up just coming out, “Morn.” She didn’t acknowledge me. I took my seat about halfway back.

I was a little concerned, given the time of day, the driver’s seeming lethargy, and the stuffed animal, that she might be about to nap on the job. Fortunately, one of the strange few who leave their faces on while riding the bus (like people who don’t face forward in an elevator) got her talking.

I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but I heard her just fine. He must have said something about dogs. (And now that I think about it, it was a pretty likely topic to liven her up a bit with, given her neckwear.)

She entered her new conversation with surprising gusto:

Yeah, I got two dogs at home. If I could bring ‘em with me on the 5, I’d never have trouble. Course, no one would ride. Heh.…

No, I don’t work weekends. Not after the shooting on the 22.…

14’s gettin’ bad, too. Just as bad. But it doesn’t go all night. The 5 does, so it gets all the riff-raff.

That’s what they need to do: Stop running all night. Then the troublemakers can’t get where they wanna go. Not on the bus, at least.

I know some people want the 10 to run more, cuz…

The conversation faded out for a moment, and when it returned, her interlocutor was a bit easier to hear.

He said, “…Homeless would take the 10 to Northtown and sleep in the backyards there.”

The driver kept on talking like he hadn’t said anything.

The 16’s another one that runs through the night. People’d try to ride it all night long. But there was a garage at one end and a layover at the other…

I didn’t hear the end of her sentence. I’m assuming it had to do with kicking people off the bus. She continued, but I could only hear her intermittently:

They don’t need a liquor store to get what they need. All they need’s a…

…That bottle of Listerine has more alcohol than a bottle of beer…

…One guy … 4 AM … terrible … Listerine breath.

Despite her talkiness, her face continued to power down at each stop, and each new rider was met by the same sullen driver that I was. Then the doors would shut, and her mouth would accelerate again with the bus.

We passed an old church that’s now a mosque and an old Super America that’s now Bangkok Market, offering video rentals and a Thai deli. Then I got off.

I was momentarily taken aback by how cheerily the driver wished her departing customers farewell. But as I stepped off the bus into a gas station parking lot, I realized that, for her, every new passenger is a risk, a threat. While every passenger getting off is another danger averted—a burden lifted for just a moment before the next stop where she’ll turn off her face again and pick up the next potential troublemaker.

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Downtown Minneapolis Fog While Waiting for the 22

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Carpet Ruined the Winter Sidewalk Bible Study

Outside of Augies, about 12 college-age kids were sitting in a circle on the sidewalk. Actually, some of them were kneeling. And, as if to wordlessly explain not only their presence but also their odd posture, they each had a massive Bible either open in hand or resting beside them.

A car was stopped nearby at a red light, and a woman rolled down her window. She hollered to one of the fellows, “Is that a Bible?”

“Yes, it is,” he responded a bit too sprightly.

“What are you doing?” She asked. Her tone was impolitely sharp, but the gist of her question seemed sensible enough, I’d say.

“We’re having a Bible study.” I didn’t see his face, but you could tell he was grinning. The kind of grin you choose to wear, not the kind you can’t help. There was no self-deprecating tone in his voice to give the impression that he was aware of how weird he and his gang were.

But I don’t think these people were insane, just zealous. Zealous and naïve.

The zeal was easy to see: I mean, it was near midnight on a Saturday. It was winter. And they were having a Bible study. Outside.

The naivete of this whole scenario seems pretty obvious, too, so I won’t spell it out for you. I’ll just draw your attention to one seemingly subtle, yet extremely significant detail about this little gathering.

They were all sitting or kneeling on little pieces of carpet. Not remnants, but those neat little rectangular pieces that stores use for samples and my kindergarten teacher used for nap mats 25 years ago.

At first, I just laughed about this the same way I laughed that they were having their book club outside a strip joint. But then it hit me…

They brought carpet. Carpet.

They brought carpet.

I almost don’t know what else to say if that doesn’t make you cringe a little.

I’m sorry, is the sidewalk too dirty for you? Is it gonna stain your khakis?

But never mind—I’m being mean. Perhaps there’s some reason for the carpet.

Whatever the reason, though, those little squares of cut-and-loop turned our young Bible studiers into outsiders. And not just outsiders, but purposeful outsiders. It was like they were wearing insect repellant to go bug collecting.

Without the carpet, they would’ve just been plain old crazies. And you know what? We would’ve loved them for it. Crazies are welcome downtown.

S-A. T-U-R. D-A-Y. Hey!

Balance on a fire hydrant and scream down brimstone. I’ll say Amen and throw you a quarter.

But come on!—You had to bring carpet with you just so you could sit down?

They probably thought they were being practical—And I suppose that’s true. They were.—but their actions said, “Downtown isn’t ours. We’re just visiting—and good thing, too, cuz jeepers creepers, Sister Susan.”

Now, I want to be clear: Other people don’t need to feel like I do about Minneapolis. I promise not to be personally offended that someone else wouldn’t want to sit on our public walks.

I just don’t want to be like that person, no matter how clean they keep their pants.

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The Lofty Standards of an Old Minneapolis Motel

It’s clean. It’s comfortable. It’s affordable. And the beds are fireproof. What more could you want?

I wonder if there are any vacancies.

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A Note on the Color of Characters

I’ve been posting to this site for a little over a month. Most my essays have characters in them. It’s part of how I try to simulate that something is happening.

I’m not gonna go back and count how many people I’ve mentioned…wait, that might not be a bad idea…nope, not gonna do it. Gotta get this post done before work.

I’d guess maybe 15 people in specific and then a bunch more sort of in a general way.

Only three times (if I remember correctly) have I come close to mentioning the race of any characters in my stories.

1. I mentioned that the fellow who commiserated with me about getting puddle-dumped was Indian. Now this isn’t a race per se, but it does insert some reasonable assumptions as to skin tone into a reader’s imagination.
2. I mentioned that Giovanni and First Mate spoke Spanish…again, obviously not a race, but still a clue.
3. And I posted a picture of Douglas, so that gives a hint.

With every other character, I’ve left the melanin in their dermis unnoted.

I’d like to say that this is for some high-and-righteous reason, like color-blindness or something. What?! I didn’t even notice that guy running down the street in his underwear was albino! (This is a made-up story to give an example of my made-up color-blindness.)

Unfortunately, it’s not.

I suppose that if someone’s race becomes relevant to a story, I’ll mention it. Until then, I’m gonna keep it to myself simply because you can’t really say what color a person is without giving the wrong (and probably offensive) impression to someone.

I like to avoid conflict.

The downside of this is that most readers are probably misimagining what color most characters in my stories are.

For instance:

• What color are the yuppies that Justin wanted to attack? Or Justin, for that matter?
• What color is Antoinette or the nurse who administered my drug test?
• What color is the lost guy who was looking for the Sound Bar?
• What color is the errant pirate boy?
• What color is Warren or Unidentified Man?
• What color is the guy who didn’t mug me back in early February?
• What color is Derek Webb?

Who can know these things? If your imagination is pigmenting folks—whether randomly or based on bias—I can guarantee that it’s mistaken.

But I have the solution for you readers who need details, details, details.

I don’t know anything about math or biology (except for that which wikipedia has seen fit to make known unto me). Nevertheless, here’s my best attempt at a formula to determine the race of any given character in one of my little tales:

1. Take the color you assume they are;
2. Assign a whole number to that color randomly. (Or not randomly. You can use your favorite number if you want.)
3. Multiply it by how guilty you feel (on a scale of 1 to 12) for assuming that they’re that color;
4. Then divide by the number of other characters in the story whose race you didn’t think about because you assumed they were white.

If this number is an integer, you can assume that the person is probably not the color you assumed they were, but maybe they are.

Sorry, it’s not an exact science. Thanks for reading anyway!

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The Attack of the Killer Bus Stench

I began to smell it at Broadway. By then there were too many people on the bus to know who it came from—or even if it came from one person at all.

It began as a memory, like most subtle scents do. I was reminded of a neighborhood friend I had when I was a small boy. Or, more particularly, I was reminded of his house.

I was inhaling poverty. American poverty, not the abject kind. The kind that has electricity and a microwave to plug into it. But calling it poverty is to explain this smell away socially, rather than simply experience it physically.

So let me try to be more specific. As the odor snuck further into my skull, I tried to divvy it up into categories and causes. I concentrated on the air of the bus like a wine snob whose nose is fogging up the interior of his glass as he seeks out bouquets to mention and impress people with.

So here I go. Be impressed:

It wasn’t any kind of rot or mold. It wasn’t BO in the typical sense. It seemed somewhat food-based, but not like it emanated from a particular meal. More like it was the result of years’ worth of culinary apathy. Culinary apathy combined with apathy in general. If apathy can stink.

Then I realized: It was grease. All kinds of grease oozing like so many motley demons into one bodiless attack on my precious olfactories.

As soon as I named it, what had been simply unpleasant became nearly unbearable. What had been an odor became a stench.

Like an ear can pick out various instruments from the barrage of an orchestral wall of sound, my nose began listing its individual assailants:

Hair grease; hamburger grease; the grease that gathers at the edges of noses then spreads, making unwashed faces glisten; greasy spoons; shoe leather grease; greasy, undrained dishwater;

pans of uneaten bacon left on the stovetop from yesterday’s breakfast; daycare windows and iPhone screens; Vaseline and other various petroleum byproducts; cheese after it’s warmed up to room temperature; even sex, I’m afraid, greasy as it can be…

…and so on. I trust you get the idea.

As we crossed from North Minneapolis into Downtown, the unbearability of the stench began to steadily move from hyperbole to actuality.

I tried to read my book, but with every breath, ghosts of grease surged into my nostrils, then up whatever cranial passageway opened to them first. Surging up into me ear canals and eye sockets, where they corroded my ear drums and optic nerves, then flowing back down into my throat and dividing up between my stomach and lungs as I helplessly swallowed and inhaled.

Soon I could’ve sworn I was ingesting the whole busload’s grease. Every man, woman, and child’s greasy history. A combined millennium of human grease.

Have I mentioned grease?

Grease.

I was getting more desperate to get off that bus than you are to quit reading this disgusting little essay.

The bus snuck in the backside of downtown as if the vehicle itself knew it would be quarantined (if not permanently retired) when the Department of Health and Human Services got a whiff of it. It slunk, guilty and afraid, down 10^th and turned left into the dark promised land of the 7^th Street Transit Station.

With very purposeful composure, I stepped normally out into the garage—tripping, staggering, and gagging in my mind. I stood inhaling deeply the fresh exhaust of idling buses accented by the occasional hint of oil and gasoline stains wafting from the asphalt.

Then, as if by a miracle, my poor eardrums reconstituted and returned to their place at the sides of my head. My eyes remarkably recovered their former connection to my brain with just a blink or two. And my larynx relaxed, enlightening me to the fact that it had been tense at all. (If that was indeed my larynx, which I doubt.)

Two or three minutes later I boarded the #9. And, as is often the case with absent smells, it was as if none of this ever happened.

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Hello from the Foshay Tower

Looking west from on top of the Foshay:

Looking east through a telescope at my reflection in the building to the east of the Foshay:

Details if you want to visit:

• $8 adults, $5 senior, under 12 free.
• Foshay Museum Phone:  612-215-3783. Call for directions and hours.

Thanks to Travels with Children for the info!

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Have I Been Unwittingly Ingesting Marijuana, Part 2

If your just checking in, you may want to start with Part 1.

The answer to the title, just to save you any unnecessary feelings of suspense, is No.

But…

Waiting to get tested for drugs, I felt like I was on trial. No, not quite, because, to fit the analogy, I suppose the bathroom would be the courtroom. So, I guess, as I sat in the lobby, I felt like I was in a holding cell before my imminent trial.

Really, though, I have no idea what it feels like to be on trial. Maybe what I should’ve said is that, sitting in the lobby waiting to get tested for drugs, I felt like I do when I’m being particularly empathetic while watching a movie with a character in a holding cell before their trial. Don’t ask for examples.

It didn’t dawn on me until I was sitting there that I wouldn’t be able to bring my kids into the bathroom with me during the test.

Oh, I didn’t mention that I had my kids with me. Yep, I brought my children to a drug test. A 1 and 5-year-old, cuz mom was at work.

Of course, they won’t be allowed in there. I might have my 5-year-old pee in the cup for me. Or I might wring out the 1-year-old’s diaper for a sample. So, anyway, add to the stress of the drug test that I now would have to leave my kids with a stranger and carefully use the restroom while they freak out. This is going to go well.

They called my name. I stood up despondently, head hung in shame, and followed in my orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, somehow keeping the kids in tow, while I was led out the back door of the clinic. The nurse said, “We have another waiting room just down this way.” Perhaps I was only projecting the ominous tone that I hope you read that last line with.

Of course you do, lady. Of course you do. My eyes didn’t dart around right then, but this is definitely the part of the story where if my eyes had darted, they’d be darting.

It turned out they actually did have another waiting room and it wasn’t a sterile whitewashed chamber with a drain in the middle of the floor where they were gonna strip search me and wash me down with a fire hose. So that was nice.

I followed the nurse into a small room with my kids. She informed me of what I’d already realized—that they had to stay out when I tested. She asked if they’d be OK with her. I said maybe not, but they’ll only be screaming for a minute. She didn’t seem impressed with my parenting.

She told me to empty my pockets, wash my hands, and spit out my gum. While I obeyed, she squirted some blue soapy solution into the toilet and told me not to flush. It was all very formulaic, almost a ritual.

I got the baby set up with this little personified drop-of-blood toy, and told his big brother to take care of him. Then I closed myself in for the test. (Come to think of it, given the level of mistrust that this test is obviously administered with, I’m surprised they don’t require the test itself to be surveilled. Or maybe they do…)

Besides having a difficult time remembering not to flush (you know…because I’m so hygienic), the test went fine. She made sure I turned the blue toilet water green (I’m assuming that’s what the blue stuff was for.), let me have my stuff back, which included my kids but not my gum or the baby’s new drop-of-blood toy, and a couple days later I was confirmed in the job.

3 cheers for gainful employment and an end to my personal poppyseed prohibition.

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$10 Dollar Names and a 30-second Friendship

A girl leaned down toward me while I was sitting next to Douglas and asked very politely if she could get a light. She almost seemed apologetic, offering to give me a cigarette if I let her borrow my lighter for a second. I declined her generous bargain and handed it to her for free, philanthrope that I am.

I could tell she thought I was homeless, because she asked me what my name was. She wouldn’t have done that unless she considered us to be two completely different animals. No harm in making small talk with a long-haired fella dressed in brown sitting with an old hobo.

If I’d been dressed in black and white, or standing in line to get into the club (or maybe even just standing up at all) she wouldn’t have thought to talk to me. That would have made us too similar, and she would’ve kept her quiet if she noticed me at all. Which she wouldn’t have.

But there I was, poor homeless dude, just trying to get by as best I can while all the actually happy people line up to get into nightclubs—which, as we all know, are the very idyllic definition of a return to Eden.

She asked my name and I answered. “My name’s Abraham. What’s yours?”

She stuttered when she responded: “I’m To— T— Antoinette.” Then she laughed in mild embarrassment and explained that, when she heard my name—A-bruh-ham—she wanted to make sure I knew that she had a big, old, awesome name, too.

“Usually people call me Tony, though,” she said to close out the explanation of her stammer.

We spent a very slight moment sharing in the joy of having 10-dollar names. Then she said, “Abraham, huh? That’s like a Jesus name.”

“I suppose so,” I replied. (It was easier than saying, “How’s that?”)

“I mean, I’m not saying your name is Jesus. It’s just, like, Jesusy. Also, you gave me a light, so you must be a good guy.”

I try.

Then the line for the club moved forward. We said “Have a good night” to each other and she went inside. I imagine, she found a bit of satisfaction in the benevolence of the residual pity she felt for me while she danced under frenetic, flashing lights to that mm-chicka-mm-chick-mm-chicka bass.

And I felt the same thing for her as I stayed outside, sitting with hobo Douglas beneath First Avenue’s streetlights, listening to his buzzing guitar.

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For More Info on Standing in Line, Please Contact Julie

At the Goodwill Outlet:

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