Monday, August 01, 2005 brakes on a bus, brakes on a car, breaks to make you a superstar
Today one of the dudes who hangs out on the next block over from where I work, if he had a livejournal would have put "Current mood: off my medication. FUCK you FUCK fuck FUCK GRAFLLE SNARL argle BLARGH!" I wish he had a livejournal. Last winter, one of my co workers called the cops on him, because he was down in the bathroom punching walls and yelling. The cops were like, "Oh, that's Mike. We'll come get him."
Until a few days ago, I didn't realize that the guy who beat up the bathroom was the same guy I see hanging around all the time when I go to the bank or the corner deli, because he's not wearing a hat anymore, and because the guy I always see isn't usually yelling. Then the other day one of the stylists and I were talking about a different local dude who is less than coherent, and she mentioned this guy. She told me he'd attacked people in the past, which I hope is just folklore. "You should be careful," she said. "You especially..." and she trailed off, because the reason that I especially should be careful is that what the man was yelling at the bathroom about that time was the mingling of the races and how much he disapproves of that, and because all Charles Village knows my bidness, including that guy, because I commit hand-holding and similar acts in public, but it just wouldn't do to finish that sentence out loud.
Today, though, the dude just seemed to be free stylin', or if he wasn't, he was doing a terrible job of staying on message. I got a little worried when we were briefly just across the street from each other around noon, and he was bellowing and bright red, but I don't think it was anything personal, and I'm not sure he even saw me. I got worried again when I heard him out in the street when I was closing today, and I hesitated a little when it was time to leave. I didn't want to be sitting at the bus stop and have that guy pop up and get enraged. I told my work buddy (not the one who couldn't finish the sentence) that I wasn't sure I wanted to go out there. "Well, I don't hear him," she said, and that was all it took to put my mind at rest. Of course! I'd hear him coming. If only everybody who was potentially violent also yelled all the time! As my housemate said when I told him the story, "He's practically wearing a bell."
No one accosted me at the bus stop, and then things got better and better, because my darling 61 came and picked me up. Unlike the 3, whose schedule is an outright lie, the 61 is rare but consistent, and it always seems to come through for me just when I need it the most. Naturally, the 61 is one of the lines I think the city is going to cut all together this fall, so my ride was bittersweet.
As I was walking back towards the house, I pass a guy on the street, and he was grinning, so I smiled back. Once we were a step or so past each other, he turned around and said, "Miss!" I turned around. "Do you want to see the prettiest baby in the world?" he said.
"Yes," I said.
He took out two envelopes of photos and showed me all of them. "That's my son. Here he is sleeping. Look at all that hair! He was born with all that hair. Here he is about to cry. Twenty days old, can you believe it? He's getting so big. Isn't that the prettiest baby in the world?"
I said it was. The best of the pictures showed the man holding the baby, who looked so tiny in his arms. The man was looking at the camera straight on and biting his lip, shocked at the luck he had had to conceive the prettiest baby in the world. He showed me every picture he had. Then he thanked me for looking and we said goodbye and smiled. I guess he went home to see the prettiest baby in the world. posted by Frenz | 8/01/2005 07:53:00 PM
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