the wind suddenly turned vile this afternoon. and with the BX 55 bus as rare as sunshine on third avenue, the strange man and i were forced to take a jam-packed bus that stops two long blocks away from where we were going.
we were straphanging on the same free grip near the bus accordion. and on the empty acrylic ad space above us, i could see him reflected, sniffing out my nape.
as we disembarked, i asked him what that was all about. "that's it," he said, "i remember you. i was with you in a bus." "what? when?" i asked. "long time. we didn't know each other yet," he said.
as i walked behind him, we passed by a pizza place. he looked back at me as if to ask for my permission if he could have a slice. what right do i have to say no to this man?
on the curbside, waiting for him, i touched my nape on the down low. like i was only trying to discipline an unruly collar. but truly, i was expecting to find my scruff altered in some way i could not account for. perhaps, like the wind itself, that had been brutal earlier but now was all balmy and reeking of burnt cheese and pepperoni.
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an unprepossessing restaurant by 187th and crescent avenue. a chair just slightly across the shiny red mahogany stand of the maitre d’. so serene, richly devoid of pouf. could have been a chair pilfered from a mission church. could have been made by a zealous monk or a newly converted native convinced that one day, just one of these days, god, in all of his blinding glory, would come down from his puffed up, sufficiently upholstered cloudy perch and sit on it.
