Bus Report #637

This morning the 38 was almost empty.
Despite the many available seats, a man who was bleeding from his face sat right next to me.
I am not usually squeamish about blood, but there was something about this man that made me feel sick. He kept a tissue pressed against his cheek, a shaving cut, probably, and every couple of minutes he would take the tissue off and look at it, and then press it to his face again. The tissue was polka-dotted with red and brown spots.
Ugh.

At Fillmore I waited and watched the homeless man who sat in the bus shelter across from me. He is there every morning and many afternoons, safe inside the fort he builds around himself out of cardboard boxes and free weekly papers.
The other day I noticed that the hood of his parka was spray-painted with what looked like some letters. I wondered if he'd been tagged while he slept.

The man with the black glove and the bright white tennis shoes got on at McAllister.
When I got out at Bryant he got out, too, and stood right next to me as we waited for the light to change. I went for coffee and he headed into Safeway, as usual.