It was raining. Hard at first. Then slow. Mildly, at irregular intervals the sky opened up and bled down onto the street. The air was cold. Gusty. Everyone walked with quickened purpose and direction. Each step on the sidewalk, if one wasn't careful, could be drenched in disaster. So long, new suede shoes. Puddles gathered as water fell in splashes and sprinkles and torrents. It was just after sunset so the rain was semi-camouflaged in darkness and could only be accurately measured when seen in a cone of street light, or the headlights of a car. My feet, after a while of walking, had become so wet that the tips of my toes were cold. A little longer and they'd be totally numb. Waiting for the bus I noticed that my stomach was swollen and warm. Compared to the rest of my body, my belly seemed immune to the damp cold. Earlier I'd eaten a large bowl of spicy ramen inside a restaurant owned and operated by a bunch of young Japanese people. They were attentive, friendly, and fast. The ramen was deliciously spicy and flavorful. My favorite part was the egg. Existing somewhere on the spectrum between hard-boiled and perfectly poached, it melted in my mouth something sweet. Like honey the yolk drooped slowly out from its soft, white casing, and seeped into the stew. Sometime during dinner my nose started running and I had to use two napkins - each soaked all the way through - to stop the leak. Now that my nose had opened, the broth smelled wonderfully of garlic and pork fat and it had an almost sinful minerality to it. My entire mouth and throat were awash in a rich, salty, seaweed and mushroom and egg noodle ocean. The soup's temperature, combined with the heat of the added chilis and spices, made my mouth so hot that I would have stopped eating, were it not for the irresistibility of the taste. I brought my greedy lips to the spoon once more and bowed before the broth's small, silver altar. I drank it in. Over and over I repeated this ritual until the soup was gone. Its beauty bathed me; sanctified my tongue and teeth. It was a meal so hearty it comforted me even as I stood under the meager shelter of the bus stop in the rain and wind.
Beside me appeared a homeless man with an old shopping cart. The cart was blackened with grime and covered in filthy blankets and plastic bags. It was wet and it stunk badly. Entranced by a metal newspaper dispenser next to a street pole at the bus stop, the man bent over and began pounding on it and muttering something unintelligible. Much to his dismay, it seemed the newspaper tin didn’t understand his message. He began flailing spasmodically and speaking in tongues as he drove his point home in fanciful expository to the box. But the box didn’t budge. Still undeterred and ever resilient, the man began yanking on the dispenser door, opening and closing it forcefully while he laughed and shouted, so that the box appeared to be chewing on the wet air. Suddenly he jerked his head up at me. I feared the box had finally told him something. Something about me. Suspicion spread over his face and he snapped upright. He cocked his head and pushed out his lower jaw as he eyed me like Popeye. The sign next to me said the bus wasn’t coming for another 7 minutes. As if realizing only now that I was able to see him, he recognized that perhaps he had been staring at me a bit too long; that I might be onto him. His eyes jumped away and he twisted his body 90 degrees to the left, away from me. It was at this time he began consulting with the tin again. In an attempt to lubricate the conversation which had dwindled between the two of them, he began slamming the door more frantically than before and making sounds with his mouth that an ape would make while on methamphetamines. The sign said the bus wasn’t coming for 7 minutes. I shifted my weight uneasily and briefly broke eye contact in an attempt to make him more at ease. I took out my phone to check the time and noticed I had no service.
6 minutes. To pass the time I scratched my head, coughed loudly to prove I was capable of making sounds, and did a couple of quick twists at the waist to show that I was spry and could whip his fucking ass if he were to try something. When I looked up the sign still said 6 minutes. The rain had picked up again or I would have waited under the awning of the adjacent building. He was looking at me and riffling through his shopping cart for something as inconspicuously as he possibly could. He even smiled as he did it. Never before had I wanted a bus to come so badly. Sure, there were times I’d needed a bus when diarrhea was knocking at my back door, or when I needed to be at a store before they closed, but this was different. This was life or death. I couldn’t believe I was going to die like this. 6 minutes. C’mon, was the fucking clock broken? Dark, nightmarish thoughts began to dance around my head. I remembered recently, maybe 4 months back, when a homeless man had been found standing at the corner of Market Street with a suitcase full of body parts. Had anyone ever been convicted? Fuck.
The man started to giggle. Now he had something in his arms. Because of the angle, and the way his shopping cart stood between us, I couldn’t tell what it was. The way he was eyeing it though, it bothered me. He was craning his neck and looking quickly at it and then me. He’d whisper something and then shhh himself. 5 minutes. God, had only two minutes passed since I’d been here? I began inventorying my defenses; keys in my pocket, and a scarf - surely I could make a weapon out of those, right? Desperation. I’d reached it. Keys and a scarf. Holy fuck, buddy, I’m gonna die. I remembered how when I was a kid, to protect myself from thugs in my neighborhood I would carry around a dog chain, to which I’d fastened a big combination lock, so that I had a modern equivalent of a medieval mace. Later, when I was in highs cool, I considered myself more sophisticated and upgraded my weapon of choice to a fashionably concealed, 5-inch pocket knife. How had my youthful resourcefulness rendered me so unprepared? I was utterly defenseless. Did he have a knife? A sword? A bayonet? A gun? A machine gun? Assault rifle? Grenade? Bomb? Weapons of mass destruction? 4 minutes.
Rain continued to fall in sheets. The bum now sat nearer, on one of the bus stop seats. Whatever he had, he had under his coat, talking to it and petting it as though it were a infant. I shuffled my feet and stretched my neck a few times like Rocky Balboa’s anorexic, malnourished cousin, Cocky Ballblowah. Then the unthinkable happened. I pulled a muscle in my neck. Searing pain spread out all through my neck as I felt the muscle strain and cramp up all the way down into my shoulder blade. I couldn’t move my head to the left. Instead I had to turn my entire body to see the bum. I must have hissed out in pain because the bum stopped his baby talk. When I turned to face him he was staring dead at me. I didn’t look at the sign. I knew it was 3 minutes, or that maybe it had gone all the way back up to 5.
All of the times I’d had sex lasting longer than 7 minutes now seemed an eternity. I marveled at my endurance and briefly contemplated the mysteries of my sexual prowess. In the bedroom I was an Adonis. Now, I was a dead man. 3 minutes. Well, there we were. It had all come down to this. Thirty years, for this. I waited to see what he would do. I meant him no harm, surely I wasn’t going to be the first one to attack. The toothless old man, with his nicotine colored hair and beard, reached down into his dingy, wet, navy wind jacket. I backed up, slightly, to put a little distance between us in case it was a sword or a crossbow full of hypodermic AIDS needles, and I heard a noise. It sounded like a cat meowing. Jesus. That’s what the name on its red collar said. He smiled and reached toward his cart and pulled out a can of cat food.
Wow. I thought...
Wait a god-damned minute! But, then, I couldn’t; the bus had arrived.
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