Traces of Strangers

A bus rolled up to the stop. 12 SANDY BLVD to PARKROSE, not hers. Normally she waited standing. As the back exit door opened, the people inside began to drop out onto the curb at her feet. She tucked her crossed legs out of the way and regretted spontaneously choosing to sit in the little metal chair. Both doors closed and some other switch or lever in the drivers compartment made the bus let out a pressurized shriek.

Down the block, a man was running awkwardly with an arm in the air, backpack bouncing against his painful gait. He was too late. She looked left to him and right to the side mirror that the driver might see her in, then left and right again while limply lifting her hand in the direction of the mirror. The bus left.

“Well, you can only run so fast,” the man said out of breath. As he leaned over to take the chair next to her, clear drool spilled out of his mouth.

“Sorry.” In her pocket she felt her confused hand and its weakness. Sorry he had missed it or sorry she hadn’t been useful? She was unsure and hoped that with the one word, the man might understand that she felt his disappointment.

After resting a minute next to her he said, “off to find a train. Have a good day.”

“Good luck!” Did it have anything to do with luck?

Another bus stopped. There was a black hair stuck next to the back wheel. On the opposite side of the arched cavity, there were two more of the same wavy black strands. A head shouldn’t be anywhere near a bus wheel, or a curb, or losing so many hairs at once that they all ended up in such a weird place.

Forcing her eyes to look anywhere besides these disturbing traces of some stranger’s life, she decided that a woman must’ve combed her fingers through her hair as she stepped out onto the street. A last minute preen before going to her job. That’s how they got there. Good enough.

Her fixation with lost hair had started after that time she went fishing with her dad. They had been at their usual quiet spot off the side road. In summer the lake was always busy with kayakers and boats towing water skiers or kids on inflatables. Her line had snagged again. Moving around to see if there was an angle that the lure might free itself, the line slacked and she reeled. A bright copper hair was curled around the hook.

She remembered the time her mom had found a little hair in her pasta when they had gone out for her aunt’s birthday. All of the adults at the table and the workers pacing around were very serious about the whole thing.

The hair frightened her. “I caught this hair, Dad.”

“Huh” he said with his eyes out on the water. She waited for him to show concern. He didn’t.

“Do you think there’s a body down there?” He laughed and said probably not. She wasn’t comforted.

The hair was physical evidence. Wasn’t she a witness of some awful violence stuck under the happy surface of the lake? She cast in the same direction and it snagged. Again the hook brought in a new identical red curl. She couldn’t stop her mind from seeing the point of the hook scraping against the jaw of an unmoving face.

Now she was sure that a dead, red-bearded man lay in front of them. Who had sunk him? Was it in the dark? Did they park in the same gravel spot her dad’s car was now (except they would’ve kept their engine running) and drag him down? Or did he go for a swim alone and never get out of the water? Wasn’t someone looking for him? She began looking for him.

Hoping and dreading to find another hair, she cast in the same direction again and again, more excited each time. Then her dad reminded her to cast in different spots. They were supposed to be looking for fish, not a dead man’s body.

Maybe he was one of those dads out on the boats. It had been his turn to waterski and his life jacket had pulled out these hairs and he hadn’t even noticed. That’s what happened, she decided. Okay, that’s what happened.

Years later, the secret routine of solving mysteries and making up good lives, lives she would never be a part of for people she would never meet had ingrained itself in her daily life.

The usuals were gathering on the sidewalk now: the man that wore purple dress shoes, the heavy set lady that sat at the front of the bus, and the woman that—with failed discreetness—habitually picked her nose and rolled whatever she found up there between her fingers.

After the bus showed up they made their way to the next stop on MLK, which the computer voice pronounced “milk.” Then that mystical, paralyzing thing happened: a spiffy old man stepped on that she instantly knew but couldn’t remember why she knew him. He walked with a cane, always wearing a fedora and a small smile. Right, he was a regular at the restaurant she worked at. She could never figure out if his smile was oblivious or wry or where it was directed and it annoyed her. He took a seat on the lower level so that she was looking down at the back of his head. Should she say hello? A straight white hair lay on the shoulder of his wool coat. It sat there lightly, pillowed up by the pad in his jacket. This was his wife’s hair, she decided. He was on his way home to have dinner with her.

He had always come into the restaurant alone though, hooking his cane on the chair next to him. And his wife wasn’t sitting next to him on the bus. And there had always been a needing from him.

Once, he had asked her for an eighth of a cup of soup and another time for exactly five fries. Right when the rush hit it was like he got charged up by all that energy around him and that’s when the questions would really start. He wanted to know if the owner also owned the land between the restaurant and the lake, how long she had worked there, and how long each of her coworkers had. She had asked her manager where the restaurant's silverware was sourced on his behalf. Any hints that she might need to step away to check on the—scanning how her section was looking now—eight other tables were met with almost threateningly intense eye contact and urgent speaking and sometimes even a hand on the shoulder. With some older folks this was common. The physical service of their food became the least important act in her professional role. No suggested pairings, no need to ask how everything was tasting, they didn’t need any prompting.

After each interaction with him, she congratulated herself on her patience. Good job for not telling that nice old man to shut up and eat and get out for the love of god.

His wife was so full of life and love though, why did he have to be so needy? His wife was gentle and good natured and loved him completely. He would tease her and she would match the raise in his eyebrow and they would twinkle together. They shared graham crackers and she wore colorful glasses. She liked to go on walks and, although she had never gardened herself, always took the routes by the houses with the best yards. On their walks they would argue about which yard was the best. They cooked and ate and slept together. She could see a whole head of long white hair, styled pretty and smelling like lavender.

Now, as they traveled silently together, she wanted to throw her old pride away. Chuck it out onto the side of the road, slurp down some antibiotic that would kill it fast, boil or bleach it off of her, rip it out of her head so it was like it was never there. She turned to the window. It must be that after so many years of companionship he had found that a trip out on his own did him good.

Neither of them got up from their seats until the last stop. She didn’t say hello and she didn’t ask him if he had a wife or if he was going home to have dinner with her or if she was in good health. She would have another chance the next time she saw him at work. Which she found herself looking forward to a little now. Maybe it would be a breakthrough and they could mend their rapport by chatting about his lovely wife. Then they might have a silly-grandpa-and-pleasant-granddaughter adjacent relationship and it would be nice to have a regular like that who looked forward to seeing you and you were equally happy to see. She’d remember to ask him about her next time.

After a couple blocks, her nerves had been dampened by chilly air and hustling uphill. In her peripheral, she saw a homeless man beelining toward her. He was saying something at her. All she heard through her headphones was “money?” But the lights changed and she crossed the street resolutely without glancing in his direction once. She really didn’t have any money. Her shoulders were squared and she walked strongly, but like a nun, she mortified her eyes. Like a catholic, she repented. Instead of helping that man, she knew she had stolen something. But she wasn’t a catholic or anything, so probably no one heard her.

That night she rolled in bed alone, thinking about the old man and the people on the bus and the other girls that she worked with and the boy that worked at the grocery store that she blushed too hard around and stared a bit too long at. What could she say next time to break the ice? “I like that you check that the eggs aren’t cracked before you bag them, that’s very professional of you.” No, she’d have to just avoid his line from now on. When she slept, she dreamt that her cousin, Amy, had moved back home.

“I’m taking the same bus as you to my new job!” dream-Amy said. Amy had always been so cool and fun, the previous owner of treasured hand-me-downs. When she was a kid she had hoped maybe her cousin's easy bubbliness was instilled in the knick knacks and t-shirts. So she kept them around like holy items, hoping they’d rub off on her. “Come sit with me, we’ll hang out.” Then from the nape of her neck, Amy pulled out one of her auburn hairs that went to her waist. She handed it to her. It was as normal as if she had passed her a scrap of paper with her number in the way things just become normal in dreams. Like when a house that is not your house is your house and you know it as soon as you look at it. And then as if the two dream-facts were a package deal, Amy was gone and she forgot ever talking to her cousin.

There was a hair in her hand. It for sure wasn’t hers. Must’ve come from somewhere. Huh. She dropped her hand and there was no hair and her brain went on showing her different faces.