Friday, April 18, 2008

Bus Report #316

The other night I was hanging out with The Teacher's Pet downtown (my 10 Townsend bus was hideously late, due to game day traffic I think, but it was okay because I still got to our meeting spot early).
All of a sudden it was 9 PM, so we said goodbye and went our separate ways, The Teacher's Pet to Church and Market and me up the street to catch a 38 Geary.
The bus came and I got on, and started to walk towards the back.
I noticed someone was smiling at me, so I stopped to see who it was.
Blast from the past! It was MC2, who I used to work with back in my long temp days.
I sat next to him and we caught up on things, and it was funny… it felt so familiar it was as though the past 7 years had never happened and we were back at the old office, trying to get out of working, J and I sneaking off to Tully's to visit our friends at every opportunity.
We watched as a scruffy guy in sunglasses (at 9:15 PM) got on the bus and squeezed into the seat next to mine. He immediately started talking to a boy (late teens? Early 20s?) who was standing nearby with a beat up paper bag full of junk.
"I'm going to Christina's," the boy said, quietly. "I've got, you know, some stuff for her."
"You bringing her some food?" asked the guy in the shades.
"Yeah, yeah, and you know, some other stuff too."
Right, I thought. Some 'other stuff'.
Shades made a phone call on his cell to Christina. "Yeah, I'm here with Mike, I guess he's coming over with some food and...stuff. Yeah, yeah, we're at Japantown so… almost there."
Shades handed Mike the cell, a battered-looking purple number. He palmed something else to Mike, but I didn't see what it was. I noticed I was not the only passenger watching this exchange. A man two seats away from me was watching, as was a girl sitting across from me.
Shades got out at Laguna.
Mike sat down in the stepwell (thanks, Mike, that's great, stay in the way when there are some empty seats right nearby. You are awesome) and made a phone call.
A quiet, hushed call to Christina, from what I could understand.
He got out at Baker, lugging his paper bag, clutching the phone in his hand.

I got out of the bus at 6th Ave., and walked down the quiet street towards home. I was hungry. I ducked in to King of Thai and ordered some food to go. It was one of the cook's last night at work, and he was handing out gifts to the other staff. One man got a soccer jersey, while another was gifted with a watch. The cooks hugged each other, and then one of them started my order.
Outside, as I walked, I felt a surge of love for the Inner Richmond.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love king of thai!!!!

8:09 PM  

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