Touche, Transient!

I always get the best ideas while riding buses. Usually, this is because for some reason, I attract the entire population of Seattle’s bus crazies. I recall taking the bus home one weekend next to what was essentially a crazy version of Samuel L. Jackson (which is actually probably just normal Samuel L. Jackson). He looked at me with his one cataract-free eye to say, “You know where the Safeway is?” If I hadn’t listened closely to his words, I would have assumed from his accusatory inflection that he had asked, “Did you just kill my goat, bitch?” But I replied politely nonetheless, “Actually no, I’m not from here.” His dreadlocks perked up with interest. “Where you from?” I hate that question—for me it bears too much explanation. So, I replied with my default hometown that I use for strangers (See also my default persona: Lily Blackwell, Canadian schoolteacher) “Savannah, Georgia.” “Georgia!” he exclaimed. “I heard it’s nice there!” I nodded and shifted uncomfortably. I really would rather have been listening to my iPod, as my fingers implied while fiddling with my headphone cords. “Yeah, it’s really sunny.” (I have zero idea of what Savannah is actually like). I began to turn away when he started to intrigue me. “Yeah, but people there gotta lotta AIDs.” I chuckled. “Really! I… I wasn’t aware of that!” He scoffed at me, “Yeah, girl! People there all got AIDs!” I shook my head. “I don’t think that I have AIDs.” “You probably do! You probably got all kinds of AIDs!”
Amused but still shifty, I turned away from him and escaped to musical funland. He morphed away to another seat like the impatient crazy that he was, and stepped in a newspaper that had evidently been placed over someone’s vomit to prevent people from stepping in it. Mr. Jackson slipped on the newspaper, revealing someone else’s stomach cornucopia, and, terrified, exclaimed, “AIDS!”
Excellent characters like these aren’t confined to Seattle. In Berlin, I apparently still possess my crazy-magnet. I was waiting for an U-bahn the other night when a man crumpled down in the seat next to me. He began to talk to me in English immediately, as if he were greeting an old friend rather than accosting a random teenager. “Where are you from?” He probably wouldn’t know Savannah. “Canada.” I replied automatically. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.” He dragged out that awful grating noise for about six minutes. It was difficult to pay attention to him because he spoke so slowly. Imagine a very small ent wearing suspenders. He then began a very long story about God knows what—it was too quiet and too slow to pay attention to or understand. He noticed. “Dur horst mir nicht zu.” “You’re not listening to me.” I was taken aback. He didn’t say it like he was upset, more like he was interested. Like, it was curious to him that someone wouldn’t find his story about some young Canadian gentleman terribly fascinating. Still, I have an overwhelming need to be polite always (thanks, mom), so I said “Nein! Ich hore dich zu!” He grabbed my hand, but the gesture didn’t make me uncomfortable. His eyes bore into mine and he said “Ich hore dir zu.” Touche, transient. Thanks for correcting my grammar.
He continued on with his grand tale of nothingness when a woman across from me started to babble in our direction. My vagrant put his hand up to her face and said, in English, “Excuse me, don’t interrupt our conversation.” I chuckled. Then, when he was mid-sentence (which was always), the train arrived. He simply said “My God.” And put his hand briefly on my knee, pushed off of it, and walked toward the train. And he never looked back.
Kelsi told me afterwards that I dealt with him very well. I considered this. For some reason this tiny little ent-man didn’t make me too uncomfortable. Even when he touched me, I didn’t feel threatened. We’ll probably get married. But in all honesty, I discovered that talking to strangers makes me more comfortable than talking to people that I know. First impressions are some of my favorite things in life, so to me, there’s nothing better than meeting new people every day. If I don’t have a reason to feel threatened, then I just don’t. I just can’t get over how interesting it is to hear other people’s stories.