Waiting With The Happy Man

Years ago, The Vancouver Sun newspaper posted an ad on the side of BC Hydro busses and also on bus benches. No wonder it stuck in my mind and became part of the landscape of the younger city I had grown up in:

A Happy Man on the side of a big old trolley bus, drinking his morning coffee... ... ... gliding away to uptown.

Besides the busses and the time I had spent waiting, I remember the longing to be home.

Home was Grandma's and she would invariably set the table and serve percolated coffee in a cup like this:

There existed various souls in the South Vancouver World and two in particular stood out. Tall twin lads who would go up or down the street to somewhere and back again. And sometimes I'd beat them home by waiting for the bus.

Like I said in my last post:

(https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@haileevalley/hailee-valley-a-place-called-home)

That thing about patience and waiting and Maria Rilke and all that.

This is as much about waiting as it is getting anywhere.

The following was something that percolated up, long after my Fraser Street Days when frogs still hopped around in Grandma's garden and I was:

#People Watching#

WAITING WITH THE HAPPY MAN

Those two again, bobbing past. I ... will wait for the bus.

As always, I'll get home, sit drinking coffee, and then I'll see them again, outside my window. It's 1975; the future is only a bus ride home, down the street, not decades away.

A bus trip home on a dark wet afternoon is a tortuous activity ranking only less painful than the preceding part of the journey--the long, cold, poorness of pedestrian waiting.

Waiting for blended bus culture, waiting to stand underneath some tall person's armpit as they grip the upper rail.

Maybe I should bring a step stool too. More paraphernalia. Umbrella, guitar, book bag...why not bring something else. Then I could comfortably avoid the sweat stains; instead, gaze at all the shoes. Maybe not.

Experienced Bus People always weigh their options; if they're lacking, they make them up. They struggle to be optimists, looking for bright sides in odd places like caves.

"Well, at least we missed the rush hour," the familiar refrain came only from those whose faces bore the loose lines of patience, those who had missed countless busses.

Here you could always tell the rookies apart from the veterans; they knew the benefits of waiting; the end to rush hour meant available seats, sparsely peopled in the trickle homeward. And the rookies hadn't learned the Bus People talk.

"Well, the bus should be here soon... it won't be long now." (Yeah, Christmas too), or... "Wednesday, we're over the hump now." (Yeah, I'm working the weekend).

Even still, the veterans know how to cheer each other up.

"Piece of gum?"
"Sure, thanks."
"Honest Natts is having a huge sale this weekend. Fifty percent off."
"You don't say."

Veterans get excited about small talk. Rookies just sit and bounce a knee.

Veterans bring books and needles and hooks... and balls of yarn... Or, they apply a different strategy entirely.

A lot of effort goes into purposeful waiting. It isn't a passive affair. Pacing is involved, walking, stopping, looking. To wander out to the curb, set one foot down on the street and gaze longingly into the distance requires timing.

Five minute intervals are Bus People's typical intermissions.

Whenever busses have reverted back to every half hour instead of every seven minutes, the five minute" walk ups" become the hopeful's assumption that the busses are "off" schedule and a straggler is coming soon, but if that doesn't happen, each venture to the curb is a pivotal moment, breaking the time down by sixths, fifths, fourths...whatever sounds less.

Fractions. They sound small. 1/16 of a gazillion. Puny.

After several trips to the curb, while the Car People swish comfortably by, interest is lost. The wristwatch is forgotten.

Bus benches become a source for venting:

Their ads, too cheerful; glossy models with bleached white teeth, smiling like cats.

Why must they torture us? It's too much for Bus People.

This one is advertising for the local newspaper. A man in a business suit has a steaming hot cup of coffee raised above his balding head. He's toasting me. And he's smiling. Obviously. Because he doesn't have to wait for the bus. Or does he? I hate The Happy Man. I want to close my umbrella and hit him over the head. Instead, I shove my guitar in front of his picture, a small satisfaction.

The wind pulls my umbrella inside out. I move into the five and dime's entrance cubby, near the "closed" sign in the dark window (a bright side). People from a connector bus get off and join me. We huddle together under the awning. After the heavy downpour the rain stops and I'm back at the bench. I pull a rain drape out of my pocket (more paraphernalia).

"Move over Happy Man, I didn't mean anything by it."

Finally, the giant, with trolley antennas, comes crawling towards us. It stops neatly in front of our little clan (driver must be in a good mood). The doors open and we enter one by one. Seats! This is Bus People jubilance. Choosing a spot as I approach the back of the bus, almost clubbing someone over the head with my guitar, I plunk.

Car people slip into their vehicles. I'm a bus person. Bus People must climb in, stoop for dropped change and cling to poles; by that time...
any leftover grace gives in to the plunk.

The window provides a good view of swishing cars. Busses never swish. They groan. They lag. I'm settled though and safe from their watery spray.

With Bus People down to a few stragglers, the painfully slow stop and start...

The process of going home... begins.

The wipers play a metronomic sound upon the windshield. Person on. Person off. Change clinks. Transfer given. I think they should give out sympathy cards instead of transfers or write happy sayings, like fortune cookies.

At last, I'm home, or at least a block from home, but finally I am actually walking... walking home, and finally...

Coffee percolates on the wood stove; Grandma serves it in fancy teacups, christening the evening... then the window... integral to the ceremony, we watch:

Those two again, tall twin men, identical beards, receding hairlines, bobbing up and down.

Funny thing. Surely, they must have had lives. Surely, they were more than the object of our chuckles or a subject for improvisation.

I would bob. Grandma would bob. Mom would bob. We weren't malicious. Still, they never knew our humour.

Maybe they laughed too. Snickering at Gliders and Slumpers. I wonder. Did they find girl friends; marry bob-less women? A sad thought dislodges as I stir the satiny cream into my coffee. The swirls disappear. They can't grow old. They'll lose their bob.

It's 2007. Grandma's house is gone. I think Mom and Grandma will find me someday; they'll pick me up in a Cadillac. But for now, part of me is watching from the window, and part, in 1975, is waiting at that stop. I miss The Happy Man; those two again, bobbing past.