7

4:48 on the 320 north

I’m looking at two little girls trying to look, walk and talk like they are in their twenties, and I’m sad because they won’t realize until
1 STD
2 or 3 kids and
4 or 5 abusive boyfriends into their thirties that they should have cherished thirteen.

I’m seeing a couple walking together at an even pace holding hands with neither pulling the other, signifying to me that they are in love.

I’m sitting across from a kid rattling away on his phone about everyone and everything in his world, loud enough for everyone and everything in his world to hear him without it. He complains that his computer lab teacher doesn’t like him much and he has no idea why.

I have no idea why he has no idea why.

There is a black girl, in her early teens I think, sitting behind me reading a real book, and I am glad if not proud of this child that isn’t even mine.

I am pondering the point of long distance relationships.

Transfer to the 300

Transit center

I am listening to a handful of younger brothers exchange vulgarities with each other, sucking hard at the tit of bravado as they feign masculinity, adopting a brutish indifference they will wear like a warm insecurity blanket with the word ‘machismo’ written across the front. I watch them with a pity and a fervent hope my own son will never suffer from the peter pan syndrome. I call my 3 year old little girl who tells me she is having fun with her aunt and tells someone in the background she is on the phone with her daddy. She returns, tell me she loves me, and hangs up. I love our converstations.

Boarding the 1L north

I laugh at the man cursing and slapping at the side of the bus as it pulls off and leaves him after it had been laying over for 10 minutes. He makes me wonder when it’ll finally be cool to pay attention. I get a good feeling from the laughter shared by the two brothers at the front of the bus. Being a man means not worrying about what will or won’t make you look like one.

Transfer Center

The schedule sign at the transfer center tells me I have about twenty minutes to walk the store and walk around. I pick up some instant coffee and head to the express line. A woman walking behind me calls for her son to hurry up in a frustrated tone as he scurries up as fast as a 6-8 year old boy could. “Come on stupid!” she says. “Do you want me to punch you?” I had a sudden urge to call the woman who gave birth to me and punch her through the phone, giving her a dose of the medicine she found it so easy to administer. I realize that my addiction to anger stems from a failure to get angry when I should have, the lack of empowerment birthed from never being able speak my mind as a child without the applause of one hand clapping against my face or a fist in my chest, throat or back. It’s made regression apart of my nature. I have to say that if there is a chicken soup for the soul, malevolence is the cotton candy. My sister called, telling me our youngest sister just had her first child, and that my 2nd nephew may be autistic, which wouldn’t be impossible for a child related to us.

243 north to home

I get on the bus to go home and recognize a black man and a white woman, a couple I normally see on my work in the morning, together with their kids. The boy is listening attentively as dad explains the sights we pass. The daughter sits next to her mother, a confidence on her little face she could have only received from being a loved child, like her brother. The father recognizes me, and asks if I want to sit. Before I can respond, he motions to his wife, asking that she place her little girl in her lap so that I could sit down. She looks up and recognizes me, and pulls her little girl to her so I could sit down, and I feel as welcome as I would were I guest in their home. Her daughter sits content in her lap while mommy embraces her baby with an evident, enveloping, effortless love
that only mommy can give while she lays a soft kiss that says ‘forever’ on the back of her head. I show them a picture of my daughter and we talk about our children, and agree that we hope they don’t grow any faster than they need to. I can tell that their children mean the world to them, and for that matter they mean just as much to each other. Love, is its own race. They get off at their stop, trade goodbyes with me and head home. There’s just a handful of us now, including a married couple and their two little girls. The father sits with one girl on his right, the other on his left, both close to him and holding his arms as they looked out the window with daddy as their tour guide. Momma sat in the seat in front of them, content that they are headed home, and that her two daughters just behind her were safe with the first man they would ever love. The oldest girl blows me kisses just like my daughter does, and I wonder if it’s because she knows I miss mine. Maybe she knows a sad daddy when she sees one. I show pictures of my little girl and the father and I nod in kindred unison.

I believe that there are no greater titles a man will hold in his lifetime other than son, brother, friend, husband and Daddy.

The older woman sitting across from me sits with a small smile on her face, not a nervous smile, just a smile. It’s as if she knows something we don’t. I wonder if I’ll ever be old enough to know what she knows. I get off at my stop, waving goodbye to the family as the little girl sends me off with a few more kisses. I walk down a cold dark street alone, with just a few lights along the way, hoping it’s something I never have to get used to. As I come around the corner I see my friends are there, which says I may not have to. I walk in to warm welcomes and words that say under the surface that we are each grateful for each other, and call each other friends as if to say family.

Love, is its own race.