Ever since discovering that I fractured the base of my right pinkie finger, and did something about it by getting a huge blue cast and curving metal finger-splint, about a week ago, I can't ride my bike. Which, as a car-less person, means I'm relegated to skateboarding, which is actually kind of nice. Life has shifted to another time and geographic dimension. There's something about heavily circumscribed parameters that is freeing, not to mention the after-work joy of barreling down the right-middle of one-way Franklin St. through downtown Oakland. The day is gray and cold, but after sitting at work for so long, it's nice to roll through space, traffic lights and cars, the light blue cotton hood of my light blue cotton jacket keeping my head warm and keeping just enough of the city chaos out and just enough of the rolling asphalt and echoing crunch of skateboard wheels in to create a semi kid-out-of-school, penniless joy.
The bus is being used a lot now, too, which is quite luxurious. With a tad bit of walking and rolling, it's like having a chauffeur. And it's not that cheap: $2.10 each way. That adds up. Went to get my hand doctor to sign a medical form for a reduced-fare pass on the bus, and his office assistant, the same one who said, "I don't know, where do homeless people go?" when I asked her what hospital emergency room she'd recommend after she said, as a health insurance-less peon, my out-of-pocket costs were likely to be thousands of dollars to fix my little finger, simply said she was the person that filled out such forms in the office and she would not fill this one out, because "we normally don't fill those out." Damn. Cold to the bone. I mean, that's some light-year high coldness; as Leopold Bloom ruminated, that was "the cold of interstellar space."
It's alright. Forgot about my chiropractic basketball friend doctor. But still. The world started spinning a little slower with that interaction. Let's go speed it up!
The bus tales continue today. Took my skis in to be sharpened and waxed for this pathetic ski "season" we're having in Northern California. It's a long ride - from downtown Oakland to North Berkeley, almost to El Cerrito. After work, I set off on my skateboard from home, red, white and blue K2 skis underarm, and roll to the bus stop, which sits near one of the crack hotspots of West Oakland. A cute young-ish Hispanic girl, with a big piece of luggage was sitting in the plastic-enclosed weather-mitigating waiting area. The bench was only big enough for two; a guy, right after I arrive and lean on the bus stop pole, reeking of piss, bleary-eyed, hobbling, sits next to her. She perks up, visibly uncomfortable; the bus is just a block away. He wants to ask for money but hesitates until just as the bus door opens. Damn, the desperation; it's all over.
I stumble onboard, one useless right hand, tall, lumbering skis under? an arm and my longboard skateboard in the other, good hand. I lumber to a seat, and the herky-jerkiness of the bus lurches me forward to the ragged-ish woman at the next seat. She puts her hand on my arm to help stabilize me; it was actually a nice, natural gesture, but she was in crazy land, and the incident brought that land to earth. She said, crazy eyes glowing, hands coming up slightly, held tilting a nudge, "Don't sue me for sexual harassment." I told her, "Of course not, it was nice; I actually needed the help." She looks at me for a half-beat, a young couple I can't see behind me beginning to make look-at-the-crazy-lady noises, and then says, "Young guys like old pussy." I said, "I don't think I've reached that age yet." She asks me how old I am. I say 33, and she gives a brief prurient look and says, "I'm 62; you can't see my white hair [actually I can see it, close-cropped, peaking from beneath the dirty, faded black bandana she's wearing]." Then, quickly, says, "You don't have to worry about me, I like girls." And then says something about guys not even wanting to pay $100 for pussy, and then quickly, "But I'm not a whore." This begins a loud rumination on sex, which the college-aged couple behind me giggle at in the uncomfortable way youth, naivete, ingenues can be around such subjects and cold, hard truth. "If guys weren't so bad to me, I might still like guys." I say, "Guys can be assholes," and then amend that, "People can be assholes." She says, "That's true, some girls have been mean to me, too. What guys don't understand is if they just did foreplay right, the vagina would open and not care, even welcome, what happened next. You could be terrible, and it'd be alright." I take that in a moment, make a mental note, perhaps for later use, and say, fairly genuinely, "Thanks for the insight." She says, that's why sex with yourself is best. This, I vigorously oppose, saying, "No way." She gets on a roll and talks loudly, rocking side to side the whole time, about "auto-eroticism" and its virtues. I steadfastly oppose, and the college-aged couple behind me are now giggling uncontrollably, in know-nothing discomfort. Crazy lady asks if we've passed 30th St., and I say we have. And she says, "Damn. I'm going to get me some crack," which, spontaneously, saddens me deeply, as I watch outside of the back bus window perhaps Oakland's re-eminent crack square, at San Pablo Ave. and 32nd St., recede from view. She stands up, wobbles with the jerking bus, and says, "Now I have to go backwards." As she's getting off, she tells the young couple that the girl portion is very pretty, beautiful, and that the guy should understand how lucky he is. He mumbles something, and she ambles off the bus.
The couple get off at the next stop; the girl is indeed beautiful with Run, Lola, Run black cherry red hair (dyed) and a comfortable thickness. As the bus pulls away, the guy, sheepishly and ineffectually, bends down to kiss/hug her on the afternoon sun-streaked sidewalk in Emeryville and ensure her he knows how lucky he is. She's flattered at the attempt, her body language says and her innocent, slight smile, but the half-longing left in her eyes indicates the gesture's fallen flat, a complete failure.
B marks the spot. Welcome to cracktown.On the return home from North Berkeley, on the same ride-up bus route, the one that runs the length of San Pablo Ave., which is probably the most significant East Bay north-south car route north of Oakland. From its terminus in downtown Oakland's City Center, San Pablo Ave., named for one of the massive Spanish/Mexican ranches that made up the East Bay, and indeed all SF-surrounding locales, stretches all the way north, unbroken, to the East Bay's northern terminus near the Sacramento River in the Bay Area oil refinery mecca that is Richmond.
Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, Calif. Photo via Richmond Confidential.I rode my road bike, on the tail-end of a long Contra Costa County country ride, along its length, north to south, once. Was imagining it would be a glorious run, but the stoplights got to be oppressive, especially once the Avenue hit Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland.
On that return bus trip, I noticed an older black guy with a cane get on. The bus was fairly full, some young hip-ish, dressed stylishly, black kids, with a bit of that internal strength and power borne from life in the ghetto, in back, and some middle-aged people in the middle, a young Asian girl and her mom, both with large purple suitcases, seated across from me, their suitcases and the edge of my skateboard making the passage narrow there on the bus; toward the front, there was a young black guy and a put-together older black woman he was semi-flirting with (she was flirting back), and the older black guy with a cane sitting in the aisle-facing seat just behind the driver, who was glancing every now and then at the older, though younger than him, black woman just to his right. You could read his thoughts in the brief intermittent glances he would give her, "I wonder if I could bed her." At moments his energy was excited by the real possibility and then an awareness of reality quickly stepped in and snuffed that flame, as he glanced away, cutting off his thoughts on it, again.
He had on worn sweats, but his energy was not disheveled; he had a regal air. On his wrist, a thick, textured gold band, cold, cool and elegant in that gold way, accentuated stunningly his dark skin and contrasted, compellingly, his attire, and harmonized with the openness, sincerity and semi-dignified history of his face.
Just south of cracktown, I decided to get off the bus. It was the older black dude's stop, too. When he stood up, and started shuffling, it was clear he was more feeble than his woman-glances suggested. It seemed clear he was making a brave foray into the world, beyond his ability, testing the world, challenging God and age. This bus ride was probably the big adventure of the day, if not the week. A fuck-it-I-need-to-get-out moment, rage at the bone-marrow suck of father time. He was barely making it. Skateboard draped over my right forearm, I was just behind him. He descended the bus steps, as the bus driver, attentively, and I looked on. He reached the bottom and slowly started leaning left and started looking for a support there, the bikes on the bike rack in the front of the bus missing his searching left hand, his right hand, holding his cane, drifted skyward. He slowly, slowly loses his balance, falls and cracks his head on the sidewalk. The younger (once-flirting) black guy on the bus is off in a second, with the care of a would-be grandson embraces him from behind and stabilizes him, and then he, the bus driver and I help turn him over and lift him up, and we see the bright red blood dribble on the sidewalk leaking from his head, a glazed, passive, though aware, look on his face, and, dotting the teartrack grooves along his nose, tears of blood.
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