The Question I Asked You a Year Ago. Public Transport Failure.

I meet a man years back who had lived all across the United States. He was a very approachable man, in that he never held anything over your head except your own words. I can remember on occasions using expressions in conversation with him to which he would than say, “ What do you mean?” I would than try to explain my intent in using the expression, he would repeat back to me the direct line I had said, “ What do you mean when you say this.” It bothered me a lot when I first met him, because I thought that he was mocking my verbal ramblings. In time I learned that he just simply wanted to know what I was saying. He was a factual man, and didn't play games in social graces. I would say its a fine way to be, because social graces are like I owe You's. Publically you pardon your friends blunders in the attempt that they too will cover your own debts in stupidity. This is what I am calling the “I owe You system”. My question to this man years ago was, “ How long does it take to know a city?” He had lived in so many places, that I wondered what he considered home, what cities he despised and what places he regretted moving from. It was a year later after I moved and was visiting my old home that he saw me on the street. He called out and asked me “ Have you figured out the City yet?” He didn't have a direct answer for my question, but it meant a lot to me that he still remembered the question.

My car had broken down and I was commuting to work by way of the public transportation system. I was thrilled to become accustom to it, and to daily see other people's lives as I go to and from work. The commute which I was taking required me to get on three different buses. I didn't know how much a bus ticket cost, or that there is zoning for buses and that traveling from one zone to another zone meant a purchase of a different ticket. I gave the bus driver five dollars he didn't give me change. I told him where I wanted to go and in turn he gave me a ticket for the rest of the day. I hung out very close to the front of the bus, because before in my conversation with the bus driver he told me that I would need to connect with bus line 82. How? When? Where? On my first morning I got to my destination, but on my trip home I was taken much farther out of my way. Every new bus driver that I talked to was even more complicated than the last. I would look at charts and routes on the bus wall's interior, but I often caught myself pretending like I understood them. In one moment I would have the security of a veteran bus rider along side of me talking to me, and in the next moment they were wishing me luck as they got off at their stop. Luck and daily commuting are not cool together. I can remember seeing a couple sitting together in the bus slumped against one another. A man leaned across the row to me. “ Its sad isn't it?” I nodded my head in a social agreement, but I was terribly unclear as to what he was saying. “ Its just sad.” He was talking loud, loud enough for this couple to hear him without fail. Than I understood that this couple in the bus were not even present with us but were on some fix from a drug. I looked closer at their behavior. The man from across the way began telling me of his experiences else where with public displays of drug use. The bus stopped being so magical, I got off downtown and made it in time to be a band practice. I was excited for the introduction, but I was ashamed that I failed my public transportation class 101.