chapters five and six: sisyphus and godot

For Joel and Lilia - two more chapters (and one to go!!), both from one year ago today, May 1, 2006...

Chapter Five: Sisyphus
I got to 4th and Townsend a couple minutes early, bought my monthly pass for May, and boarded the train. Having discovered on Friday, when Michael got on the train and interrupted my conversation with the woman with the hypnotic eyes and amazing smile, that she was going to Point Reyes for the weekend with "John", my Chronicle perusing stayed uninterrupted and unencumbered from trying to keep a seat free to 22nd. When she got on I politely asked how her weekend was, but reined in my award-winning grin knowing that they were in short supply and that I'd need to reserve them for whoever I was foolish enough to envision growing old with in the urban equivalent of a house with a white picket fence this week. Or at least that's how I'd expected my Monday morning to play out as I walked down 4th Street in the sun.

I bought my Chronicle from the little old Chinese man who always tries to up-sell me to the New York Times, freed $139.25 from my bank account for the monthly 3 zone Caltrain pass, and headed out onto the train platform and up to my regular seat. The train remained surprisingly empty for a Monday morning, and I didn't suspect that it was due to a lot of the Peninsula commuters participating the in the "Day without Immigrants" protests and marches. Still at 4th and King as I finished with the front section, I wondered if I still worked in the restaurant if I'd have been taking the day off to stand in solidarity. While pondering that, hypnotic eyes and perfect teeth takes the seat opposite and across the aisle with an extra measure of bounce, and smiles at me.

"How was Point Reyes?", I politely ask over the edge of my paper.

"It was great - one of the guy's mom owns a little cottage up there, and we just hung out having drinks and BBQing all day, and then yesterday there was another BBQ. Lots of eating for the entire weekend. How did the dinner for your friend come out?"

I tell her that it came out fine, and settle back into the paper after an uncomfortable silence. Michael stops by her seat and rests a knee on the edge of the adjoining one, and asks if she was OK on Sunday morning. She answers that she was, that she just needed some coffee to get rid of the headache - he laughs at her, she says no, really, that once she'd had the coffee the headache went away. He removes his knee and heads back to his seat, I head into the Sports' section hoping the Red Sox can pull it out against the Yankees later in the day, and she and I meet up at the crossword about the same time. She seems pre-occupied, almost sad or disappointed, the capped end of her pen pursed between her lips.

I finish the crossword just as we pull out of Palo Alto, put the Classified section's crossword and cryptoquip away in my bag along with my pen, and get up as we jerk past San Antonio.

"Have a nice day," I say. She looks up and says, "See you tomorrow."

Chapter Six: Waiting for Godot (with a beer in hand, on the 383)
I'd planned to leave work at 5:00 to catch the 5:10 shuttle to Mountain View for an exciting evening of dipping into my earthquake preparedness kit, Jeopardy, and Law & Order re-runs. At 5:05 I knew that wasn't happening... let's just say that the reasons I'd taken this gig had passed months ago, and the levels of incompetence flying around made me want to leave pronto. But since quitting on principal wasn't an option after a year of working on my own project and running up the credit cards, I swapped out my usual scowl, and suggested we could revisit issues in the morning. And then I strolled out the door.

Standing on the northbound platform at Mountain View, doing the math in my head as to when my bills would be paid down and I could quit, I watched the train pull in just on time. Once the seven bicyclists got off, I got on, and made a left into the forward-most car, where hypnotic eyes and perfect smile was sitting next to Michael.

"Would you like a beer?", she said to me as I cleared the doorframe into the car. "I'd love a beer," I replied, was given an ice-cold Tecate, and took the seat behind them on the west side of the train, against the window so I could see the sun on her face through the back of the seats. I drank my beer and smiled as she finished hers and cracked open another, and pretended to do the Classified's crossword.

Things learned: Michael's moving to Atlanta to be with his girlfriend; neither of them know that the history of having a lime in your beer was to prevent scurvy; she has a garden and likes Powell's Soul Food, didnt' realize they'd re-opened over on Eddy and Fillmore, rides a purple Specialized messenger-bike style bike, and has a great black-outlined flame tattoo way down on her back.

She stayed on until 4th and King. I broke the Caltrain rules of bicyclists getting off the train after the walkers, letting her detrain before me. We walked together to the terminal, and I thanked her for the beer, wished her luck with her gardening this evening, and said "see you tomorrow". She smiled back with a smile that said more than the absence of words in the din of the train station.

Tomorrow: The Final Chapter!