It’s Like Capistrano Up in Here; or One of the First Signs of Spring

I’m on the 1:26 bus out of downtown Minneapolis, a much earlier bus than I normally take. 

And these are not my people. 

I sit, as I always do, near the back, just past the rear exit, behind the plexiglass but in good view of the fish-eyed camera lens.

Should anything untoward happen, I want it to be fully documented.

“It ain’t gonna be like last time.  You got to sleep and I had to stay up, keep you from running out naked.  Why you gotta run out naked all the time?”

My iPod is on, both earbuds in.  The volume is low.

I turn it off.

“Okay, okay,” a man says.  “Don’t get riled.”

I turn casually in my seat, make as if to adjust the yoga bag I am carrying.  There, on the bench seat that stretches across the back of the bus, is a couple.  Weathered, rough-looking, he is smiling at her in a “aww, honey” sort of way, revealing more gums than teeth. 

There is something about them that leads one to believe that they might steal the laundry off your clothes line. 

I turn back around, pull out the little book I carry in my purse for just such occasions. 

Click, my pen says.

“I’m just saying.”

“I heard you, I heard you.  But you got more than I did.”

There is silence.

“That’s ‘cause I earned it.”

“Shuddup!” the man says, “I don’t want to hear about it!”

“Well I’m gonna tell ya!”

“Shuddup!  I said I don’t want to hear about it!”

She cackles a bit, simmers down slowly.

There is silence.

“I could go for one, though,” he finally says.

“Oh, yeah,” she say.  “I could do one.”

“I could totally go for another one,” he says.

Ding!  Someone has pulled the cord, and the couple at the back of the bus walk by me and push at the rear exit door.

And off they go, in search of another one.