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I’m not psychic and I don’t judge, but people give little clues about their details in the simplest of ways, and this young woman is no different.
I locked on to her face, studying the flare of her eyes and the line of her mouth as a matter of first assessment, but she didn’t have the confidence to stare me down unabashedly. Instead, her eyes climbed up from the floor and back again as if on a circuit. I waited for the opportunity they would present when she finally allowed them to round the bend.
Ah, there it is.
“Excuse me,” I greeted with a smile. I gestured to the seat taken by her bag, directly to her left. “Is this seat taken?”
“Oh,” she mumbled nervously as she glanced to it. “No, sorry,” she apologized—something I’d noticed women did a lot—and moved it to the floor between her feet.
“No problem.” The simple words won me another smile.
“So, where are you headed?” I asked, always eager to make conversation with the randoms I encountered during the day. They always had some story to tell, some experience to offer that I might want to seek out. And maybe most intriguing, they were almost always horrendously gullible.
“Just to lunch.” She shrugged. “There’s this cool place on Polk Street, the Crepe House. But it’s all the way down by Washington. This is the fastest way to get there.” She looked to the ground and tucked some loose hair behind her ear before meeting my eyes again. “What brings you here?” she asked and then gave a little laugh. Self-conscious on one hand, flirty on the other, she was obviously still learning her way around her own wants—particularly how to go after them. “Besides agility.”
“Ah, my entrance.” I lowered my voice and glanced around. “Can you keep a secret?”
She looked a little surprised, but her eyes twinkled, and that was all the invitation I needed. I geared up for one of my absolute favorite pastimes now that outings of questionable legal station were off the table—lying.
Sure, on the surface, it sounds bad. We’ve turned it into a dirty word. But by and large, people love to be entertained, and I endeavor to do it. That’s all.
I was actually a law-abiding citizen now, with semi-responsible tendencies. I went to work, I paid my bills, and I respected other people’s health and safety. And, if I was being honest, my past history of criminal activity had mostly revolved around peaceful protests in college and trespassing into old, run-down buildings that’d provided one hell of an adrenaline rush if the roofs were used for free-jumping.
But a guy’s got to get his kicks somewhere, and playing with the gullible nature of individuals interested me way more than any of the other avenues I’d explored.
She nodded.
“Well,” I whispered. “I got in a little trouble.” Her eyes rounded, and I nearly laughed. As if I’d have actually told her if I had been breaking the law—yeah, right. Accessories to your crime were always a liability. “Nothing dangerous.”
She visibly relaxed.
Just like the long arm of the law, she jumped at the chance to accept something I said as truth because I said it like I meant it.
I must have been born with a different gene, one where skepticism and investigation were healthy staples of my everyday certainty. If you wanted me to believe you, it’d take more than a sweet smile and caring eyes to make me.
“Just a simple misunderstanding,” I went on. She nodded like she understood, but the truth was, she couldn’t. She had no clue what I’d been involved in that morning—quite frankly, not much of anything. Or hadn’t—a jewelry store heist, perhaps—and instead, accepted what I said as truth because being truthful was the kind of thing she would do. She based her assessment of me on herself because that’s all any of us can do, really. It’s hard to truly know anything about anything you don’t know. Writers, creators, storytellers live by that very creed, and the rest of us, unwittingly as it is, live by it too. That’s what made doing this—toying with this very complexity of human nature—so much fun.
“But I had to get out of there before they caught up.”
“They?” she asked, reaching up to grip the charm of her necklace in the clench of her hand.
“The police,” I stated matter-of-factly. Her throat bobbed with a forced swallow, and her gaze jerked forward to see if anyone else had heard me. I had to bite my lip in order to maintain my composure and the integrity of my story.
“Trust me,” I cajoled, “I’d have let them catch me if it was a big deal.”
It was, perhaps, the most ridiculous statement I’d ever made, so ripe with bullshit I could hear the splat of it behind trotting hooves on the old street. But she ate it up, smiling as I smiled and leaning into our conversation rather than running away. I only hoped the next gentleman she encountered wouldn’t take advantage of her trusting spirit. Because, sure, in a way, I was taking advantage—but I did so without malicious intent.
Rather, I loved seeing people’s most prominent personality traits on display and happened to have a natural talent for bringing them about. I’d leave her as I found her when the time came, with nothing more than an interesting tale of a chance encounter with a no-good stranger. We hadn’t exchanged names or vows, and when all was said and done, I doubted if she’d even remember the color of my eyes—even as memorable as I’d heard they were.
“What…” she stuttered. “What did you do?”
I glanced to the sign on the street as the trolley scooted past and recognized it instantly—almost home. At least, close enough to hoof it.
With one last look into her wide, expectant eyes, I reached out for her hand and waited for her to slip it into mine. “Nice to meet you.”
She startled at the abrupt end to our conversation but put her faith in me and hand in mine nonetheless. “Nice…uh…to meet you too.”
With one last smile, I rose from my seat and descended to the bottom step at the back of the car, leaning out over the rapidly changing pavement and waiting for the right opening. Clear of obvious danger, I let go of the brass bar in my hands and jumped down just as the trolley slowed at the bottom of the hill. Several trolley riders, including my temporary companion, looked on with varying reactions, but I didn’t play into their interest with anything more than a smile and a flick of my hand.
Anyone who’s lived in San Fran knows that your location can really be pinpointed in terms of fog, and I lived in the Fillmore District, right on the edge of the fogbelt. In other words, we get our share, but it burns off quickly and isn’t as bad as it is north and west. As far as entertainment, I’m within walking distance of just about everything, including some great food and a pretty nice art scene, down in the Mission District. But the true gem of my location is proximity to one of my favorite hangouts in the whole of San Francisco: Dolores Park. To me, someone as obsessed with human behavior as I am, Dolores Park is like an actual dream.
But I was too tired for the park now, fresh off an extended night shift down at Pier 45 near Fisherman’s Wharf on a new gig, unloading fresh catch and delivering to several of the restaurants. It wasn’t the most glamorous job, but it was better than some of the others I’d had over the years, and I loved the stories I got to hear from some of the fishermen. These guys weren’t playing at some hobby, and they weren’t doing it out of convenience. They were born fisherman, you could smell it in their blood, and that kind of truthful existence called to me—kind of like that smell.
An aroma I knew well drifted up from down the block and into my nostrils and changed my planned course from home to heaven.
No, really, the name of the coffee shop was Hallowed Grounds, and in T-minus fourteen seconds, I was going to be in it.
The street buzzed with young professionals as I weaved my way through them, fish stains tingeing the fabric of my shirt. Luckily, the darkness of its color camouflaged their obviousness, but I wasn’t sure I could say the same for the pungent smell.
Nonetheless, I met their eyes and studied their thoughts as much as they would let me before they moved on, rushing through their lunch hour in hopes of not being the last one back to the office. Some of them seemed at peace, but others wore their misery higher than their hair. And for those, I mourned; the life they could have led, the things they could have accomplished, and the confidence they lacked. I wished for them that one day they would find the things they were missing and let go of the things they thought they had to be—and when released, wouldn’t miss at all.
The bell over the door jingled as I walked in, and a man behind the counter I knew well, Tony, started fixing my cup of coffee without direction. I wasn’t a man of habit, not with much of anything, but when it came to coffee, it wasn’t hard to know what I liked.
“New job, Reed?” he called out with a smile, and I shrugged. He shook his head in amusement but not surprise as I took a seat at a table directly across from a woman sitting by herself. It was crowded and it was the only seat in the place, but that didn’t stop her from glancing up at me with surprise—and a little bit of disgust.
I bit my lip but said nothing as she picked her paper back up in front of her face and continued to read. She was a different kind of woman from the one I’d met on the trolley, the blind trust of my previous acquaintance replaced by the blatant distrust of this one. She peeked over the paper once more as Tony dropped off my coffee, and her eyes narrowed at the way I sat there without preoccupation. I had no paper. I had no phone. I had nothing to distract me from my loneliness or the people around me, and I found, most of the time, people had a hard time relating to my approach.
