Chapter Two Cities
I am in love with cities. All of them. Each one had their own thing going on, a unique spice they add to the world, but they all had one thing in common: energy. The frantic movement of cars, and buses, and people as they avoid collisions. The street food, greasy and paper wrapped—sold from trucks, and rusted carts, and metal fryers that hiss and steam in the middle of the sidewalk. Everyone had somewhere to be, and it all happened in a speed walk. Peacoats, rain boots, cell phones, the spray of water as it tussled with a tire. It was beautiful in all of its distracted, impatient ire. People came to cities to thrive. They hooked themselves up to the blood flow and tried to live their best lives. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn’t. For me, it had always worked out, but my expectations were low.
My current city: Seattle. I crossed 4th in a pack, all of us moving together like fish in a current. Some of us had our headphones in, some were looking down at phones, or shoes, or regrets. I was focused, eyes ahead, teeth grinding. I had to be at work early again. I still wore the remnants of last night’s eyeliner, a battered black line that used to have wings. I looked down at my finger. You couldn’t tell there’d ever been a splinter underneath my skin. How many minutes had our exchange been? Five…ten? Yet this was the fourth time I’d thought about him since he’d come into the bar yesterday.
It was just all so strange, I told myself. That’s why I was thinking about it. And who wouldn’t be thinking about a stranger who showed up out of nowhere and used duct tape to pull a splinter out of their finger? I was so distracted that I stepped out into the street in front of a car. The driver slammed on his brakes and I lifted a hand in apology.
Unlike New York, in Seattle, there was an absence of car horns. Reserved and polite liberals maneuvered their cars politely through the traffic, their Starbucks sitting in cup holders beside them. The driver—a man in his mid-thirties nodded in a way that said we all makes mistakes —and waited for me to clear the road.
The air smelled wet and mossy. I bought a bag of Cheetos and a newspaper from the corner store, my morning ritual. I paid with a ten and the clerk dropped three dollars and thirty in my hand. On my way out I handed my change to the homeless woman who sat outside the store. Six days a week my three dollars and thirty cents was put into her hands, a consistency I felt we both needed. She lifted her eyes and nodded at me and my heart swelled. I was the only one she looked at, and this simple gesture made me inexplicably happy. For everyone else her eyes were downcast, glued to the sidewalk. I unfolded the paper as I walked, the headlines glum. People at work made fun of me for my newspaper obsession. Just look on your phone like the rest of us —they’d say. But, I liked the smell of the paper and the black smudges the ink left on my fingers. For someone who moved around every six months, there was something rewarding about doing the same thing every day. Creating your own ritual. Besides, technology couldn’t replace class. I opened the door to The Jane and everything felt normal and right. The spot on my finger where the splinter had pierced my skin throbbed lightly.