The bus running from my house in Ann Arbor to downtown Ypsilanti takes a southerly route between the mall and Meier. You don’t think of that area as being part of town or of people living there, but development is surprisingly dense. There is a lot of light industrial, more than a few sprawling and obviously cheap apartment complexes, and offices for most of the social service agencies that operate in Washtenaw County.
At one of those social service agencies — the one that provides support services for people with disabilities — two men got on the bus and took seats in front of me. The first was a white man in his sixties or seventies wearing enormous orange gloves and a green ball cap decorated with eyeballs on the front and a red felt rooster’s comb on the crest. His beard was long and thick, white mottled with gray, and he wore small round glasses. In different clothing he would be indistinguishable from a man I know who is a lecturer in philosophy at UM-Flint.
The second man was younger, in his forties or fifties, and black. He also had a beard, but it was scraggly and clumpy, one would almost say nappy. His clothes were nondescript, noticeable only because of the layers. He seemed to be wearing a tee shirt, a sweater, a flannel shirt, and two hooded sweatshirts underneath his dark trench coat. He had one of those reusable grocery bags looped over his left arm, freeing both of his hands so that he could carry a clipboard stocked with blank paper and four or five packages of lined notebook paper.
The second man’s burdens complicated the process of paying the fare. He began by dropping to one knee and placing both the bag and the clipboard with its stack of paper carefully on the floor, taking a few extra seconds to position a ballpoint pen beside the clipboard. Satisfied with the arrangement, he stood back up and reached into his right pocket, immediately pulling out exact change for the fare. Upon receiving the transfer he reached into his left pocket, pulled out his unbelievably stuffed wallet, and filed the transfer neatly away. Once all this was done he knelt down again, put his arm through the loops of his bag, and placed his hands around his clipboard and stack of papers. He paused in that position for a beat, head bent as if in prayer, before standing up and taking a seat.
The two men sat at the very front of the bus, where the seats are along the sides and facing toward the middle. They sat facing one another, each leaning against the wheel well housing. As soon as he sat down the second man seemed to become agitated. Rocking back and forth with his legs crossed underneath the seat, he used the wheel well as a table for his bag, put his clipboard on his knees, got out his pen, and began to draw a vertical line down the center of a piece of looseleaf notebook paper. He worked with great care, but still tore the paper in a couple of places before finishing. When finished he pulled the page off the stack and handed it to the other man. “Here you go, Bob” he said.
Bob took a quick look at the paper, pursed his lips ever so slightly and nodded. Then he placed it face-down on the wheel well as if filing it away for later use. Seeing this the second man visibly relaxed. He leaned back in his seat and extended his legs out in front of him, bouncing his heels happily on the floor. When Bob got off the bus he reminded him to pick up his transfer, which Bob had absent-mindedly left on his seat.
1 month ago
