The Bus Stop at 24th and Nicollet: I Still Got It

When the furnace cracked, the CO2 levels in the attic reached a level that actually seeped onto the/our second floor.  This explains the sore throat and the headaches!  The furnace was turned off and “red tagged” by the gas company – and so we were without a furnace from Friday morning to sometime Monday afternoon (today). 

Join me, won’t you, as I think back to summer, to the bus stop on a warm day that required neither furnaces nor large amounts of cash…

I am standing at the corner of 24^th and Nicollet, waiting for the bus.  I have just left George’s house.

Minnesota has days – made all the more precious for how clearly delineated they are, in the overall course of the seasons – that are perfect.  The sky is a high, clear blue, the temperature is comfortable, the humidity at neither science-experiment-hair nor at frizzed-tropical.  The sun will go down soon, and the light is warm and tinted. 

I stand with my face to the sun.  A sweet season made sweeter by its brevity, I close my eyes, feel the sun settling on my eyelids, pressing on the top of my head, my hair.  I feel wonderful, sophisticated.  In a charcoal pencil skirt, a salmon, belted knit top, my pointiest heels, I feel put together, I feel “city” in the best possible way.

I feel someone staring.

I open my eyes to see a man in front of me.  He is wearing baggy sweatpants and a tee-shirt advertising a 5K run held at a golf course in 1997.

He smiles at me, and I smile back.

“Mama, you lookin’ good today.  You comin’ from work?”

I nod. 

He nods appreciatively.  “Oooh, mamacita, you no eat more, you no eat less.  You is perfect, right now.  Total respect.”

I laugh politely, pull my phone from my purse.

Two minutes until the bus comes.  I look up the street – and there it is, maybe three blocks away.

The man is pressing his hair down with his hands, tucks his tee-shirt into the elastic of his sweatpants.  “So where you stayin’ now?”

I tell him that I live in Minneapolis, with my husband.

“You geev me your number, right?  We go to the park, sit and talk.  Total respect, you gnome sayin?”

I frown.  What did he say about a gnome?

“I want to geet to know you, gnome sayin’?”

Ahh.

Now I gno what he’s sayin’.

I smile at him.

And the bus pulls up.

The door opens and I step toward it, second in line.

“You know where to find me,” he calls out.  There is a slight pause.  “Mm-mm-mmm,” he says, almost contemplatively.  “You eat no more, no less.  You is my perfect woman right now, mama.”