Chapter 1
“The RIPTA is turning.”
I looked up from my Kafka novel and caught a glimpse at the angel at the bus stop just ahead. The sun on this crisp autumn day put her in a perfect light.
Out the window I saw that a soft purple turtleneck covered her top half, and boy was it a top half. Her breasts, well, they had me removing my glasses to clean them off- just to make sure I was on a Rhode Island Public Transit Authority bus, and not on a dairy farm in the Maine countryside.
The bus came to a stop as I put my black frames back onto my face. The doors opened and she glided up the stairs, heading towards a seat.
“Ma’am, you have not paid,” the bus driver told her. She backtracked and stood in front of the scanner that was next to him.
The bus was still as we waited. She put her phone up to the scanner and each time a loud buzz would ring out; outing the fact she had no money.
Phone up. BUZZ
Phone up. BUZZ
Phone up. BUZZ
If there were more than five people on the bus, we would have started a riot. From my seat in the back, I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the show.
Phone up. BUZZ
“Your machine is broken and so I will just sit down, thank you.” She moved towards the seats and was stopped by a hook. The driver’s hook; that was in place of his right hand, had pierced a hole into this dame’s leather purse.
“Oh no ya don’t. You owe two dollars for the fare.”
The lady began to grope her own body, feeling for places where she would have two dollars worth of cash stashed.
“Me oh my, I did not know you were such a big stud.” Her feeling hands went down her skirt and onto her legs as she began to bend over. As her body got lower she kept eye contact with the bus driver.
My groin began to heat up to the point where I placed my finger into my surrealist book and squeezed hard. I needed to dull these sensations.
“Pffffttt,” a fart escaped from her butt as she bent all the way down. With her legs she made a bobbing motion, “Pfft, Pfft, Pfft,” letting loose three wet ones in a row- all synchronized to her movement.
I lurched from my seat, leaving the Kafka book behind, and ran to the front of the bus, “Your honor, I will pay her toll!” As I got to the front the two adversaries continued their stare.
“This is the bus. Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before.” The bus driver then took in a deep breath. He held it in for a moment before breathing back out. “The toll is now $50,” he growled while turning his eyes my way.
Into my pocket I dove to pull out a one hundred dollar bill. I tucked it into the crevice where his wrist ended and his hook holder began.
The man chuckled and removed the hook from this fine ladies purse and gagged the gas pedal.
The movement of the bus caused her to fall into my body. The two of us made a noise when our bodies hit. It was a cashmere sweater, and her long blonde hair smelled of jasmine. We looked at each other for a moment before she said, “My name is Misty, thanks again for paying my bus fare.”
No words came to me as I looked back at her with my mouth agape. She moved her face up to mine and began fogging up my glasses with her breath, “Anybody in there?”
“That. Um. That is such a nice name. If you are free tomorrow night, I’d love to take you out for dinner!” The rest of the passengers paid no attention to what was going on before them; their loss.
“Tell you what,” Misty started. She pulled out a pen and a sticky note and began writing down something to give me. “Here is my address. Meet me there tomorrow around 5pm and we can go to one of the places near where I live.”
She slid the sticky note into the front pocket of my shirt. My blood was rushing now.
“Now get off. I am sick of looking at ya,” Misty said as she gave me a smile and a wink.
The bus came to a halt, the doors opened and she gently pushed me towards the exit. “I feel like we can save all of this small talk for tomorrow, sorry to be a burden hun.”
“But my book, my book is still on the bus!”
The doors of the bus closed. I was on the outside and Misty was looking down at me from inside the bus.
“Don’t worry, I will have your book waiting for you tomorrow! Now I can be sure that you will not stand me up!” She pressed her bosom up against the glass and stuck her tongue out.
And with that, the bus took off through the underground tunnel near Waterman Street. I scratched my head and gave myself a moment to take it all in. Across the street at the First Baptist Church in America, was a sign with quotes that change from time to time. Today it read, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
I started up walking up the steep incline of College Hill, wondering, if it was time to plant that tree.
Chapter 2
Walking up College Hill was not too bad I told myself. In fact, if anything should come of this chance meeting with the one called Misty, it would be the motivation to get my body looking better. Not that I was in bad shape. No. Having grown up with parents who would point out fat people to me in public and say, “Look there. If you keep it up, you are going to look like that when you are older,” made me never stray too far from a quote unquote, ‘acceptable weight’. This was also just the sort of thing that lead me to be attracted to a person that had pushed me off the bus- after I paid their fare.
I had reached the top of the first section of the hill and took a right on Benefit Street heading south towards my apartment. It was a school day in early October and the streets were full of students buzzing around. Being near the Rhode Island School of Design, I was accompanied by the usuals.
A tiny woman in overalls and blundstones was rushing down the street carrying a black portfolio case that was bigger than she was. Five androgynous looking fellows sat on the steps to an old church, now RISD’s Memorial Hall, each taking turns lighting their new cigarettes with the ember of the cigarette that had just been smoked. An asian man with dreadlocks and a cape.
What did I look like you ask? I looked tired. As I continued my walk the wind was blowing up from the south that day; bringing with it the stench of burning tires and rusted metal from the industrial buildings along the Providence River. Maybe a coffee would cheer me up.
The bell rung as I opened the door and stepped into the first coffee shop I saw. The aroma of coffee greeted me as well as the fanfare of young adults hitting their keyboards and coffee beans being ground up into dust- everything under piercing LED lights. I strode up to the cashier and began looking at the chalkboard menu that was behind them.
“Welcome to Callous Coffee, may I take your order?” The cashier had a bald head and a grey beard; yet they had the face of a twenty year old. I looked at them and then back at the menu. The price of a single shot of espresso was $20, and a bran muffin was $70.
I turned my back on him to look at the clientele enjoying their purchases. Just as I expected, brown students. Not their skin color, but where they attended school. Turning back to the cashier I smiled, gave them a nod and headed to the exit.
The stench hit me again as I got back outside, “I’ll just make myself a coffee when I get home,” I thought. I took a left and began walking up Power Street. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the note Misty gave me.
“Oh fuck you,” I said out loud after I read her note.
She had told me that she wrote down her address, but all that was scrawled onto this sticky note was, “I live at the intersection of Happy and Healthy <3.”
I crumpled up the sticky note and threw it on the ground and kept walking. So long Misty.
The rest of the walk home I was pissed off. “Way to go,” I thought to myself, “Not only am I out $100 and Kafka’s, ‘The Trial’, but now I have no way of finding Misty.”
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