good luck, mr gorsky

yesterday on the bus: i was sitting diagonally in front of a visibly homeless man. he began loudly talking with (at) the woman sitting behind me. she was very soft-spoken and patient, told him her name (which he proceeded to mispronounce at least ten times), and advised him to find jesus. "i'm not big into that stuff" said he, at which point i can guess that she probably demurred and turned away, because he switched gears immediately. "oh yeah, only book i have with me is the bible" he said. i heard him thump his chest. "keep it right here. oh yeah, it's a good one." "i need to get off this bus" he added. "i really should get off. i'm going to the hospital. i really need to get off. i'm gonna have a long walk if i get off now. i got to get to the hospital." a young guy was sitting across from him at this point and politely asked him what was wrong. "it's my damn ear" he shouted. perhaps his volume was so enhanced because of this otic malady? "i think it's a tick." "maybe you got water in it" the young guy suggested. scornful tone: "i'm homeless! i live in a damn tent. i didn't get water in it. i think it's a tick."
the young guy was asking him questions i would have loved to have the cajones to. how did he get his tent? goodwill. how long has he been homeless? three years. three years in the same spot, on the west side of magnolia. he's gone through five tents. came from omaha. it gets damn cold there.
i got off at the bookstore and read "the sweeter side of r crumb." he is fucking amazing. there are many drawings of french buildings and alleyways. he focuses on the wiring and plumbing, the exterior drainpipes half-buried under centuries of stucco and brick. his women have bodies that seep sex and life and warmth: legs that would pin you to the sagging mattress. there is one portrait of a man with a beard, sunglasses, and a baseball cap, waiting at a bus stop, dated mid-eighties, and it was so familiar- i could almost picture the street, the august sunshine slanting orangely, shadows quick and lissome, cigarette smoke mingling with the smells of barbecues and diesel and dumpsters and flat beer- i stared at it for about five minutes. it almost made me forget about the man on the bus.
today: scrungy and unclean (i bathe lazily come late afternoon on my days off), hair in a bun, i am at fred meyer to buy toilet paper and the shredded-pine cat litter that they only sell there. i see one of my coworkers. we smile awkwardly: "hey! how are you?" "doing good!" this is a novel experience, running into a coworker in public- it was rare that i would commute to tacoma, say, on my days off to procure minutae. thank god i wasn't holding star magazine and a box of monistat, i guess.
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the office building across the way just turned off several floors worth of lights. so did the one next to it. it is six pm in seattle. it is when things end.