Poor in Spirit

As the evening Max train passes through downtown towards Northeast and fills up, I'm sunk into a story about our U.S. Congressman, poor David Wu, and thinking how truly Portland weird it is for him to appear on the front page of the Willamette Week in a tiger costume. I barely notice the woman who takes the seat next to me. But then she gets on the phone for a personal conversation. She's intermittently loud, talking to a girlfriend, and streaming regrets: she can no longer keep a dog, she hasn't spoken to Benjamin for a year, she shouldn't have left San Francisco impulsively. And I'm hooked.

I peek: her camelhair coat complements her golden locks, which are pulled back in a sleek French braid. She's about 37, healthy, intelligent, middle-class or above, more like one of the lawyers I used to work for than their assistants. She's wearing an ostentatious diamond wedding or engagement ring on her right hand – a row of rocks shooting sparks. How badly off could she be?

I was soon annoyed, both because she couldn't suck up a few ordinary setbacks, and because she was half out of earshot. I stretched my left ear towards her, covering my morbid interest with occasional soft humming and page turning.

She was slamming Portland. “I'm stuck here, and want nothing more than to get the hell out.”

She whined about her small room, grumbled that she was only making a couple hundred dollars a week – not enough to leave. She had left her heart in San Francisco.

“And I need money for shampoo, books, cookies . . . “ She laughed. At herself?

And what's so bad about Portland?

“No one talks to anybody they don't know. When I first got to town I went out a few times. I couldn't get served because I was alone. It's all about couples.”

Well, huh. I sure wasn't going to talk to her.

She laughed again, this time bitterly.

“Aliens came and took all the men my age. . . Sure, I can date, if I want to date a 26-year old. There are plenty of those.” Her voice reminded me of no one so much as Terri Gross, the NPR interviewer. It had a pleasant warm tone and something like curiosity in it, all but ruined by her constant discovery that the world is not full of beautiful souls and fascinating mysteries, but poor choices, unfortunate turns of fate and a jungle of indifference.

She brought the volume down and for the next few minutes I strained in vain for an earful. In retrospect, I should have given her the article on Wu. Such a gesture would have shown her that sometimes, in Portland, strangers do make contact. Maybe she would even have contemplated the possibility of networking her way to Wu – hey, he's over 26, single and powerful [was].

But in the moment I sat like a lump, hoping for another tidbit that never dropped, and then she was gone.

THE ALL-AMERICAN GAME

I'm riding a five p.m Blue Line crammed with Portland's huddled masses. Most everyone is guarding their bubble of personal space -- plugged in, zoned out or just plain inscrutable.

“But how can that be?” A young man loudly takes the floor. Standing with a friend, he shakes his head and keeps shaking it. “It is just unbelievable, you have to admit.”

The friend admits. “Yeah, wow.” Nods his head sheepishly and keeps nodding.

Battered backpacks hang over their shoulders. What news, what wonder of the world is this vagabond bringing to light? Alien abduction? Resurrection from the dead? The minimum wage? A 1,000-year tsunami astonished Japan. Can he top that? I remember when I was his age. Standing on a mountain peak for the first time. Following the moon landing. Watching Richard Nixon resign. Unbelievable.

“If you had a 1953 Willie Mays, for example, that card would be worth $12,000. More, if it was signed in perfect condition.”

Baseball cards. Amazing.

“That was the first year he played, know what I mean? If I had that card and showed it openly on the street in San Francisco, I'd get jumped, man. That card is like a $12,000 bill, do you know what I mean?”

At the next stop, the “friend” escaped. Disembarked without saying “goodbye.” The loquacious kid took the seat across from me, made good eye contact and continued the spiel. Out of all the strangers on all the Max trains in the world, this budding old-school flim-flammer had landed the fly on me. I try not to advertise it, but I'm a sucker.

I once gave $12 to a guy begging on the street who said he needed a shirt for a job interview that afternoon. Very sincere. He was at the same corner the next day, still needing a shirt. And I gave $8 to a fellow I met at a laundromat in L.A. so he could get back to his apartment where he had left the key to his parents' nearby house, which he was caretaking. Nice guy. I gave him my address so he could return the money, but he never did. And I lost $20 in one throw on a three-card monte game on a San Francisco bus.

I steeled myself against handing over any cash.

It turns out a Willie McCovey could be worth anywhere from ten dollars to a few thousand, a Michael Jordan is too recent to have much value unless you've got a complete set, and a signed LeBron James will someday be worth a house down payment.

He came back around to Willie Mays and, to let him know he wasn't doing all the thinking, I told him I'd seen Mays play when I was a kid.

“Yeah?” He paused, waiting for the story.

Had I? I thought fast. Mays played in the National League and my hometown was Detroit, an American League town. My uncle did take me to see a Cubs game on a visit to Chicago when I was about six. All I remember from that game was, in the ninth inning, upchucking three hot dogs.

“Oh, yeah. He was amazing. Incredible.” The kid looked suspiciously at me so I cleverly asked him if he'd ever seen a clip of Mays' famous one-handed catch.

“Of course,” he lied.

Now that we had a level playing field, it was time to talk business.

“I've got some toys here,” he said, and, glancing around, pulled a black binder from the backpack.

Inside, on top, in a clear plastic envelope lay an 8 x10 of Willie Mays swinging a bat. It was signed: “Willie Mays.” On the back, the envelope was notarized with some legal verbiage about authenticity.

I said, “It looks real.”

The kid exploded, but softly, in a conspiratorial whisper. “No one can forge Willie Mays' signature. That's a federal offense.” I was reminded of a dollar bill I'd recently defaced with a mustache.

The binder contained maybe a dozen album pages, each one designed to display six sports cards (or, e.g., expired TriMet passes). It was about half-full.

He read them off. “Michael Jordan. LeBron James. Five years of Magic Johnson.”

“Lakers,” I said, testing him.

“Kobe.” he said, testing me back and pointing to another card, but looking me in the eye.

“Bryant,” I said, looking back into those glittering marbles between his forehead and nose without glancing at the name on the card. Letting him know the playing field was as flat as a polished basketball court.

He became quiet. I asked if he wanted to deal.

He said, “No, I'm just making conversation.”

Somehow, I knew that the strongest move I could make at that instant was silence.

A few seconds went by and the kid said, “Yeah, I could use some money.” Like the thought had just occurred to him. He was good.

I said, “Do you take credit cards?”

Obviously, he didn't want to appear too eager because he packed up and got off at the next stop, which happened to be the Lloyd Center, saying “See you later.” Not that I had expected a phone number from him, but talk about strong moves! Unbelievable.

IN THE GHETTO

In the rear of a Max car – old-style with the padded seats, not the newer plastic design – the seats face backwards. The car is symmetrical, I'm sure you've noticed. There's a driver's cab at each end, and no matter which end is in front, the seats nearest the driver face forward and those at the other end face backwards. No doubt several years of well-paid engineering effort went into figuring out this scheme, and in engineering terms, it may be brilliant. In rider terms, depending on who shows up, those 15 seats are a ghetto.  Or a rez, a barrio, a hood, if you like. 

I sat down in the ghetto across the aisle from three loud riders. Not my homies. One greeted me, so I greeted him back, “How are you doing?”

“Flying like a hawk,” he said. He made a flying bird with his hands. He was sitting alone but turned towards the aisle so he could talk with his friends, a man and woman sitting right behind him.

I stuck my nose into How The Irish Saved Civilization, about my homies, which I badly wanted to enjoy.

A moment later, a young man in a leather jacket garlanded with chains and a ball cap customized with many buttons sat in front of me. As he passed, the woman said “Nice shirt,” in a tone unmistakably mocking.

“What color is your underwear?” the man in front said to the kid. The provocation drew a shrug.

The man in back said, “It's probably brown.” Now they were laughing. The kid hadn't turned his head, but was sitting tensely. Maybe thinking of getting off the train?

“No,” the woman said, “it's lavender.”

The man in front said, “Indians don't wear underwear, you know.”

The other man said, “Rough riders. We're tough.”

“Tougher than fucking cowboys.”

The kid turned to them and said, “I'm half Cherokee.”

They were all quiet for a moment, then the woman tried to remember a movie she'd seen. It turned out to be Powwow Highway. “That was a good movie about Indians. Funny, too.”

“Indians have a good sense of humor,” the front man said. For the first time I looked squarely at him. He was smiling through a face that was recovering from a recent violent encounter with something solid. I looked away.

He said, “Each face has two sides, you know.” He was looking at me. I didn't know what to say.

His friend saved me, saying “What is that, a Kiowa proverb?”

“No, I made it up myself. Pretty good, huh?”

“You must be a shaman.”

“Defrocked. I'm a defrocked shaman.”

The woman said, “You can only get focked, not de-focked. ” We all laughed hard at that one, including the kid, who turned to look. He did look Native.

At Pioneer Square they were out the door, discussing how much money they had all together and whether they should spend it on food or drink.

When the kid in front of me got up to leave, I saw he was wearing a knife on his belt.  He caught my glance.  I asked him if he was really half-Cherokee. He stopped cold, smiled at me sweetly and said, “Navajo, but I didn't want those Chinooks to mess with me.”

"How could you tell they were Chinook?"

He shrugged.  "I'm from the rez."  

The End

Nick O'Connor 

copyright 2011

HOLLYWOOD STYLE

I hit the Hollywood Trader Joe’s at least once a week. T.J.’s has deals, like $2.99 for a bottle of drinkable wine or a can of organic beans for $.69. (My family is as organic as a benzene ring.) And the store is on the way home.

One dark, wet, cold evening, I was in my T.J.’s, loading up. Into the shopping cart went deals on two pounds of organic, fair trade coffee for about $12, a couple of chocolate bars for under $2 each, a bunch of (organic) bananas, and a few jars of (organic) tomato sauce.

The store, which is always either busy, or some level of busier than busy, was busier than usual. Carts were jammed in every aisle. Despite the usual friendly efficiency of the employees, eternity gained ground. Lines got snaky long.

At last, my turn came. The cashier rang up $22 and change. I slid my debit card. Tick tick tick -- the moment got snaky long.

“No, it’s not working. Please slide it again.”

I slid it. Tick tick tick.

“I’m sorry, it’s disapproved. Showing insufficient funds. You can try it again, as credit.”

Only midly surprised, I slid it again.

“No, sir. It’s not approving.”

All right. I probably sighed loudly. I asked the cashier if she would keep the bag of groceries at the checkout for a moment. She nodded and turned to the next customer.

I sat down on a kid-size bench kept near the front door. I pulled out my phone and tried to reach my wife to have her move some money over, which would take no time, problem solved. But she didn’t answer.

After a couple of tries, I looked up. A woman I didn’t know was standing there, smiling warmly and fanning some currency at me.

She said, “Here, let me take care of your groceries.”

“No,” I replied politely but with some force. “No thanks. You’re very kind, but I’ve got it handled. Thanks.”

She went away. I tried again to reach my wife, while entertaining resentful thoughts, like “I’ve got a job,” “I’m not at the end of my resources,” and “Do I look like I need a handout?” Again the electronic connection failed to materialize.

There was nothing to do but leave. I zipped up my jacket tooth by tooth, pulled my hat down and adjusted it, over the left ear, over the right ear, took my gloves from my jacket pockets one at a time. But the call did not come.

Then the cashier was coming at me. She had a bag of groceries, which she set down at my feet. I could see my tomato sauce and bananas.

I said, “Did that woman pay for these?”

“Yep. She said to pay it forward.'”

The angel was still at the checkout; I caught her at the door and thanked her.

“Enjoy,” she said pleasantly, without slowing down.

“Do you want to exchange names?” I said,

“No, just pay it forward.”

THE END

The Coolest

Every Thursday evening, the Liberators’ comedy improv class ended at 9:30.  Like the clockwork inside a $20 Rolex, I left the class and the Falcon Building.  Feeling funny, I walked the half-block to the corner of Albina and Killingsworth to catch the 72 bus eastbound towards home. 

There was always someone at the busstop whom I would have crossed the street to avoid, but the tentacles barely visible in the shadows over on the other side - though they beckoned in a friendly way - kept me on this one. 

I always said “Hello” to the driver, who was almost always the same woman.  I flashed a smile along with the transfer obtained two and a half hours prior.  She coldly read every word on the uncrumpled scrap of newsprint as if it were a ransom note, and assessed me as if I had typed it and were delivering it for her approval. 

“Go ahead,” she would say. 

One Thursday evening, the bus arrived ten minutes late.  Otherwise, everything was as usual.  I said “Hello,” flashed the transfer and the smile, and she said “That’s expired.” 

I wanted to say, “I thought you were my friend.”  Instead, I pointed out that she was late, and that if she had been on time the transfer would have been ---

“… almost good.  Almost good is still expired,” she said.  “This line runs every 15 minutes, so you would have been expired even if you caught the last bus.”

I’m expired?  I’m expired?  I pulled out my wallet, containing a lone $5 bill. 

I said to the dozen passengers, “Does anyone have change for a five?” 

Blank dogfaces dared me to further disturb their peace. 

I thought I heard the driver say, “I’ll take you by a store and you can get change.”   

“Excuse me?”  She said it again.  I would have been more surprised if she’d given me a pair of free Blazers tickets, or a fresh caught salmon, but not much. 

I stood just behind the yellow line while she drove from stop to stop to stop.  Just as I was thinking I’d slip through the barrage of stimuli and demands she was fielding – checking fares, bantering, driving – she stopped, gestured at a convenience store kitty corner across Alberta Street and said, “I’ll wait for you.” 

We were at 10^th Avenue, more than a mile from where I’d boarded.   I ran into the store, waited for two customers to get what they needed to make it through the night, broke the five on a box of spearmint TicTacs and ran back to the idling bus.  I paid up and thanked the coolest bus driver I ever met. 

THE END

Nick O'Connor  Copyright 2011

THE GIRL AND THE HONORED CITIZEN

I boarded the 75 bus northbound at Sandy Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Burger Bar about 6 p.m., like I have a hundred times before. The driver was a big fellow, who said “Hi” like he meant it, as always. About a third of the way to the back of the bus I stopped shuffling and stood, because my back hurt and standing felt better than sitting. It's the last leg of my trip home; I was probably daydreaming hard.

There was a shout from the back and then another shout and eventually, slowly, I turned around.

A blind man (white cane, dark glasses, uncoordinated Goodwill clothes), and therefore a TriMet Honored Citizen, stood by the back door. He held a folded wire shopping cart under an arm and was talking seriously with an agitated woman in business clothes, whom I recognized as a regular rider.

She pushed roughly by me to the front and complained quietly but emphatically to the driver about “she.” The driver pulled over, heard out the complaint and made a garbled announcement over the P.A. to the rest of us. Only the last few words came through clearly: “... will be out on the sidewalk.”

A glance at the rear of the bus was inconclusive. The half dozen teenagers were all innocent looks and faint smiles; the few adults gave off blank indifference.

At the next stop, several riders boarded, so to get out of the aisle I sat down, ending up right in front of the back door.  To go easy on my back, instead of settling into the seat and then straining to get out, I sat on the edge facing about 45 degrees into the aisle. The Honored Citizen had taken a seat in the middle of the bench facing the back door, putting him at my left, across the aisle.

At the next stop came a shout and scuffle and a young woman – a girl, really, about 14 – was attacking the Honored Citizen. She was right on top of him, cursing, punching his face, and spitting. He managed to get his feet up and kick-shoved her away but she came around the legs on my side for another go at him.

She was by my left elbow, facing away. Without really thinking, I reached my left arm around her neck and grabbed her right upper arm with my right hand. She struggled for a few seconds, but I had a solid grip and to my surprise she calmed down.

A skinny middle-aged guy wearing a “CSI” cap paced up and down the aisle, yelling for someone to call the police and saying that he saw it all, that the girl started it. I held on. The girl resumed cursing at the Honored Citizen but was not fighting me at all.

It's hard to estimate time when violence and adrenaline are flowing, but I'll guess that no more than 20 seconds into all this, a couple of the girl's teenage friends made their way from the back up to the situation. The two boys were bigger than me. The girl was between me and them. One said to me, in what I took to be a neutral tone, “You can't keep holding her like that. That's not right.” Still, I felt vaguely threatened. I took my hands off the girl and she and her friends bolted out the back door.

A second later, before the door could close, she stuck her head inside and spit and screeched at the Honored Citizen one last time. I couldn't understand what she said. Then she was gone.

The driver announced that he would wait for police. The Honored Citizen stood and walked calmly to the front, cart under his arm. I looked for blood, bruises, torn fabric, but saw none. On my way to the front door I overheard the Honored Citizen talking. 

He said to the driver, “I was just sitting back there and that girl next to me was making rude remarks. Saying somebody was filthy and smelled like you know what and should wipe himself before going out in public. And then I realized she was talking about me. . . . “

The whiff I caught of him was not fresh, but more like a dirty shirt than soiled underwear.

Not wanting to take time for the cops, I jumped off. The girl and her entourage were nowhere to be seen. My heart was still racing, with my breath right behind it. I checked over my shoulder for a posse all the way home.

THE END

Nick O'Connor - copyright 2011

A MUSIC LOVER'S LAMENT

Sometimes the Max from Hillsboro is already packed when it takes on the homeward bound commuter swarm at the Sunset Transit Center. Then we have to suck up one another's garlic breath, intense perfume, loud (but private) cell phone conversations, and, now and then, the ranting of a sociopath. But on this particular Wednesday evening the crowd is light and I hit the Trimet jackpot – a seat next to an empty seat. Ahhh! I unfold the Willamette Week and leaf through like a cool breeze.

At Pioneer Square, the train stops. And stays stopped. No matter; even without reading it's going to take me ten minutes to tear ten pages of music ads into confetti. A Wednesday practice of mine. For someone who never learned to actually play music, it's satisfying to virtually destroy the hopes of scads of earnest young musicians, to imagine being Darwin, God and a radio program director all in one. A few geniuses will slip through and have careers, sure, but that's life.

I've reduced a couple hundred band photos to chicken coop fluff when, into the corner of my eye, up the aisle and to the very front of the train just three rows ahead of me, strides a seven-foot tall man tricked out like a tinker from a fairy tale, in swaddling rags and a matchingly grimy but cute hat. I mean King Hippie in layers of motley, multiple scarves and fingerless gloves, a homeless leprechaun with giantism. He takes off the hat, which is bumping the ceiling, and places it upside down on the floor. He faces the half dozen of us he's now trapped. We face back at him as if summoned up for his performing pleasure. He smiles lovingly and says “Hi, I'm Allen. I'm going to give you a music lesson.”

Shit, he's got a didgeridoo. Now I'm pissed off. Isn't this disturbing the peace?

“This is a didgeridoo and I'm going to teach you to play it.”

I remind myself that this guy was once his mother's baby. To calm myself, I read my horoscope. Rob the astrologer says we Virgos should be more open to experience, especially the eccentricities of others. Okay, Allen: You've got one minute.

“The didgeridoo is an ancient instrument of the Australian aborigines. It's basically a hollow reed, as you can see.”

Oh, I get it. Allen's on a mission. He's a white, upper-middle class American who found himself wandering in the outback, had an epiphany and has returned from the dreamtime to “so-called civilization” (as I imagine him saying) with a vision of tribal rituals going viral. Or maybe he's a sophisticated robot constructed at Burning Man.

“To play requires a technique called 'circular breathing.' The player keeps the air flowing continuously through the instrument by inhaling through the nose while exhaling through the mouth.”

He's gesturing circularly, with an arm as long and fibrous as a didgeridoo. A couple of my fellow captives try to read. One young woman, however, is beaming. Smitten. Transported. Well, there's no accounting for animal impulses.

“If anyone cares to give a small donation, please use the hat.”

I have not been transported. In fact, we're still at Pioneer Square. Allen raises the mighty instrument to his lips. I stand. Make my way to the aisle. Allen pauses politely. Loathe to break the delicate trust we've established, I suppose. He gazes at me lovingly but I keep moving, on and out. The deep, crudely modulated mooing begins, and as the train doors close and the Max grinds ahead, I see that Allen's admirer is mesmerized, swaying in her seat like a hollow reed in a desert wind. 

Copyright 2011 by Nick O'Connor