Thursday, March 16, 2017

Bus Report #967

This morning, a surprisingly damp and humid start to the day, and foggy.

Caught the 33, Leon at the wheel again, no regulars except the annoying little woman with her garlic tea.

We flew down Arguello, and then down Fulton and Stanyan, picking up just one of the Hayes girls today. She grinned and we said good morning as we always do. As she passed by, I caught a whiff of her coconut hair product. People keep telling me I should get some for myself, and maybe one of these days, I will.

In the Haight, when we turned on to Ashbury, Leon honked and yelled out the window at a woman who did not let him turn (she was supposed to wait behind the painted line for him to turn first). She just shrugged and shot him a bitchy look. Nice.

The giant genie got on at his usual stop and sat in the front of the bus. First, he combed his beard and mustache. Then, he took his lotion out of his bag and lotioned up his hands, and his sleeve in the process. Those hands. They are huge. He lotioned and lotioned, mesmerizing, really.

As we rounded the hairpin turn at the top of Market and Clayton, the city was below us, still asleep for the most part, a thick band of dark grey fog obscuring the tops of the tallest buildings.

(and I just found this - some historical photos of this turn (and former switchback), for your geeky enjoyment)

Just like yesterday, everyone got out the bus at Potrero and 16th, except for me.
Leon turned around and grinned. "Hey, so it's just us again, huh?"
"Yep," I said, and I went up to the front of the bus and sat down.
We chatted about the weather (which has gotten progressively colder and drearier as the week has gone on) and about his regulars.
"I'm great with faces, but not names," he said. "By the way, what's your name?"
"Rachel," I said. "You?"

Because, as you may have guessed, I'm big on pseudonyms here. Leon is, of course, not his real name.

But we're still going to call him that, because despite now knowing his real name, he could still be a Leon.

He said, "I love my regulars. You know? It's like they're my friends, especially after a while."
I nodded. "I get it. We do spend a lot of time with you guys."
He laughed. "I'm off tomorrow, so I'll see you next week," he said.
"Have a good rest of your week," I told him, and headed down the street to work.

2 Comments:

Blogger Robert said...

Didn't you turn onto Ashbury in the Haight :-)

7:37 PM  
Blogger Rachel said...

Good catch! Yes, we did. I'll correct it!
Thanks, Robert!

9:20 PM  

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