Late. The BART at San Francisco Civic Center to Walnut Creek. The crowd waited, shifting, chatting, or silent and just anxiously looking down the dark tunnel.
I reminded myself that I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t have any work to take home for the weekend for a change. What on earth would I do with a whole weekend to myself? That gave me a sudden feeling of panic.
Nothing was waiting for me but a cold, lonely house without a stick of furniture but a queen-sized bed, a Formica table, two chrome leatherette dining chairs, and a twenty-one inch flat-screen TV that was really my computer’s monitor. The fridge was as empty as the house. The whole place had seen happier days.
Yeah, those happy days. Twelve years of marriage. I thought they were good, but I guess my now ex-wife didn’t think so. She settled for the tennis pro instead. I got the house, and she got everything else. My heart was heavy as usual, and I felt dead inside. Being dug into my own little world inside my head was the usual state of affairs for me. Something I rarely even noticed. For some reason, I did at this moment.
Then a staccato voice got my attention. I looked to the back of the crowd. There was a young man a little too exuberant about a young girl walking on her hands wearing a skirt without any underwear. It made me look for a second, but Outlandish is San Francisco’s middle name. She came up from the handstand, and I looked at her face. I wondered what type of person would put on such a display. She was unwashed, with a pimply face contorted into a grimace.
Then for the first time in years, I actually looked around the platform, not just looking at a surging, faceless mass of humanity, but I looked at faces. I recognized emotions: boredom, anger, fear, disappointment, happiness and maybe even serenity, though I could hardly see how someone could be serene in the cutthroat world of the San Francisco Financial District. However, it surprised me that the crowd was so alive with emotions.
I had not noticed that before.
So many people crowded around, all with their own concerns. A station full of people anxious to get home, thinking about…what? Bills, worries, what to have for dinner, family problems? Or maybe not problems, perhaps some kind of thing they loved to do besides work. I tried to imagine what each person did for fun. What did I do for nothing but enjoyment? Fun? What was that?
There was an obvious beggar near the platform edge, his clothes dirty and torn. He held a cane in one hand and a large filthy plastic shopping bag in the other. A small, dirty, white dog peeked out at one end, a ratty pillow rose out of the rest of it, along with a cardboard sign, all dog-eared and grease laden. The man’s eyes were wild looking. If I had to characterize him, I would say crazy or on speed or the latest chemical cocktail put out by big pharma. He wasn’t just down on his luck, he was the walking dead.
I could not keep my eyes on him any longer as I started to wonder if I could end up like him someday. Of course, not, I chided myself. But life deals people strange hands sometimes. Oh, never mind. I had a good job. Well, didn’t I?
I shifted to a mousy-looking, anorexic girl, probably about twenty-five, who continually looked left then right, pulled her shoulders in further, looked left and right again, and then tried to make herself smaller yet. Her face was tight, eyes like a deer in the headlights, and a mouth drawn into just a slit across her face. She had her hand deep in her knock-off purse, and I would have bet a hundred that she had her hand wrapped around a pepper spray can.
Next to me, a slightly obese man in an off-the-rack dark gray suit with a power tie was talking non-stop on his cell phone. His eyes were angry. He seemed irritated with whomever he was talking. He listened for one or two seconds and then the volume rose. “Look, everyone has problems, Hazel. Hear me? Everyone! I need that report done. Type it and get it out with FedEx tonight. Hear me? I. Need. That. Report! Or look for another job!” The whole time he was shaking his index finger at poor Hazel.
I wondered what problem she had. A toothache, had to get home to kids, what? Anyway, he immediately cut the call and noticed I was looking at him. He said to me as though he was my mentor, “Don’t ever hire a single mom, they’re nothing but a pain in the ass, no matter what they look like.” He pushed forward to try to get to the front of the crowd and, from a small squeal, I figured he stepped on someone’s toes.
I shook my head and thought, not much humanity there.
Next to walk up beside me was an attractive, mature woman in a business suit. She was holding up her left hand trying to read her wristwatch, but with a briefcase, an overcoat, and a bouquet of flowers in her hands, she was having a problem.
She smiled at me and actually looked me in the eye and said, “Do you have the time?”
I noticed she had a very nice complexion, her dark hair pulled back loosely with a ribbon.
“You bet, it’s 6:40.”
“Ahhh,” she smiled, “I’ll make it.”
I was suddenly a bit drawn to her and curious. “Where are you headed with those beautiful flowers?”
“They are beautiful aren’t they?” She looked them over and smiled wider, obviously pleased with herself. “I’m on my way to my niece’s piano recital. I know she’s nervous, but she’s been working so hard, and I thought a little bouquet for the budding Martha Argerich would make her feel special.”
“What a lovely thing to do. You’re a thoughtful aunt.”
A blast of stale air blew into the station ahead of the train. There was a hiss as it pulled up and stopped. As usual, people edged closer to the still closed doors, anticipating the whoosh-thump of the portal opening. The crowds started packing tighter and tighter, not pushing and shoving but contracting their personal space, focusing on the opening of those doors.
I didn’t push forward with the rest of them. I didn’t want to lose track of the lady. I suddenly got a whiff of her perfume. Roses? A hint of citrus? The doors finally opened and the crowd surged forward intent on finding a seat. We were nearly the last to enter, and I held the door so it would not crush this lovely lady or her flowers. We managed to sit together and talked all the way to Walnut Creek. Her name was Clare. I felt revived, maybe not happy, but certainly feeling better than a half hour ago.
My stop came up, and I stood. My heart did a little thump because she stood up also.
“Your stop, too?” I asked.
She smiled at me and said “Yes. You know, I’ve seen you on this train almost every night for the last couple of years.”
“You have?”
“Oh, sure. All the time.”
I was aghast that I didn’t notice such a beautiful lady at my stop every night. I felt my face flush a little, “I’m ashamed to say I’ve not seen anyone on this train for a long time. I mean kind of stuck in my head, in my business and my problems. I guess people do that, just not see what’s around them.” I smiled at her. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Just thank you for being so nice.”
She laughed. What a lovely laugh.
As we stepped off the train, our eyes locked for a bare half second and we both smiled again. We moved away from the people getting off. I said, “Clare, I was wondering if—
“Sure.”
We broke out laughing.
Maybe I did have something to do this weekend.