CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Waiting in Line, Just Like You
Four walls always seemed to give a man the illusion of safety, so Blair decided that he and Horace should stay in public places whenever they could manage to get into one. People that Blair cared about were being murdered all around him, and he didn’t want to end up joining them. So he dragged Horace over to where a bunch of people were standing in line and waiting for a bus to take them over to the MUSED program on the eastern side of the city. MUSED stood for Macomb’s United Shelter Emergency Diplomacy program.
Horace didn’t like all the waiting, but he admitted that a shower would be nice, and Blair agreed. As they stood there, Blair examined the people around him with great care. The glass fragment that had flown into his right eye was long gone, but the eye was still red and tearing. Even with this handicap, no one passed him by unnoticed. After his talk with Connery, everyone seemed suspicious now.
Most of the people there either had a cigarette in his or her mouth or was begging for one. They were dirty and tired-looking, as if they just couldn’t wait to lie down somewhere. What conversation Blair was able to hear was flavored with some of the most offensive vulgarities he’d ever heard. A couple of guys behind Horace were bragging about the jail time they’d done. One man was trying to outdo the other by proclaiming sordid incarceration tales even Blair found hard to believe. Horace listened for a time and then started chuckling; he obviously didn’t believe what the self-proclaimed crook had to say, either.
An old guy with a hump in his back was standing in front of Blair, and in front of him was a big, Hispanic fellow. A young man with a woman holding a newborn baby was standing ahead of that man, and so on. All the woman seemed concerned about was keeping the baby bundled up and dry because the wind had picked up and it was starting to rain. Her man held a dirty, tricolored umbrella over them to provide what little cover he could until the bus arrived.
The Hispanic man standing behind the couple seemed annoyed by their umbrella. Blair was six feet tall, so this guy had to be at least six-seven. He was holding a knapsack tight in his hands as if everything he owned was inside, and he had a tattoo of Betty Boop in a pink bikini on his right shoulder. A sleeveless shirt allowed him to show it off along with biceps about the size of the tree trunks lining the roadway.
Every now and then the Hispanic fellow had to dodge the rib ends of the umbrella, stepping back to get out of the way or otherwise getting poked in the torso. Because the wind started blowing harder, it became more difficult for the young man to hold onto the red, white, and blue striped cover steady. And on top of that, the baby had started crying.
“Lost my job,” the old man standing in front of Blair said as he turned around. The old guy’s face was a mass of dark red sunburn and wrinkles, and was dotted with thousands of blackheads Blair had at first mistaken for freckles. Those bow-legs of his and the hunch in his back made him appear to be at least one hundred years old. Obviously he was a lifer on the street; anyone with skin that thick and body odor that permanent had to have been roaming for a long, long time.
“That’s too bad,” Blair said in response to the old man’s unemployment situation. Blair glanced over his shoulder as Horace took a slow drag from the cigarette in his hand. If Horace hadn’t been standing behind him, Blair would’ve had every right to be afraid of this maniacal-looking Rumpelstiltskin. They’d been standing there for over three hours, and this guy had finally decided to talk.
“I lost my job, too,” Blair told him.
“Jobs are hard to come by these days,” the old man said, scratching his head. As he did, dandruff danced away from his decrepit scalp and settled farther up on several strands of his oily hair. His nails were black. “I was workin’ in a restaurant, but it got closed down.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Unsanitary conditions.” He picked his nose and then took a good look at what came out before wiping it off on his trousers.
“I hear that most restaurants give out free food to employees,” Blair said.
“That’s right. Every shift. Four bucks’ worth. You can drink ’til you pop. They give you all you want. I’m gonna miss that job.” His deep-set eyes and hollow cheeks reminded Blair of a skeleton’s face with some skin still attached to it. Pulling a collar over his ears as the wind and rain picked up again, he asked, “What line of work are you in?”
“Dentistry.”
“Janitorial work for an office? Assisting? What?”
“I’m a dentist.”
“A dentist? You mean a real dentist?”
Blair nodded.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Waiting in line, just like you.”
The old man cackled. For the first time in years he seemed satisfied by the state of things. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch! I met an IBM fella standing out here just the other day. A couple weeks before that, a school teacher and a lawyer, too. Educated folks. I remember that.”
Someone pushed the old man, and Blair grabbed him so that he wouldn’t fall. Before anyone could tell what was happening, the Hispanic man had the younger man with the umbrella down and was stomping him in the face with the scuffed up, black leather boots on his feet, which were easily size fifteens. The injured fellow became unrecognizable in a matter of seconds, just like a Houdini act. Now you see him, and now you aren’t so sure anymore.
As everyone else in line looked on, the woman held tight to her baby and started screaming. Her white face was streaked with rain, and her brown hair was hanging down past her shoulders. And the family’s patriotically-striped umbrella was being carried off by the wind as the baby howled above the commotion.
When the Hispanic man was through, the fellow he’d assaulted was lying on the ground. His legs twitched once, but that was it. The Hispanic’s straight, black hair gleamed in the rain as he watched for any sign of movement, just like an agitated bull would have. He still seemed furious.
For no reason, he stared at Blair as if offering up another fight, his fists still clenched from the last brawl. It was peculiar to watch Betty Boop wiggling on his arm like a belly dancer every time his biceps and triceps muscles flexed and relaxed. After using his feet to put the younger guy down, Blair couldn’t understand why the big man thought his hands were so important now. Each of his fists was about the size of a grapefruit and looked just as lethal as his hooves.
“Show me your green card!” the Hispanic said in perfect English. “That’s what the bastard said to me!” He stared at Blair for so long, Blair felt like running for his life. There had to be at least fifty people standing around, but Blair was the only sucker getting this deranged bastard’s full attention.
“Show me your green card!” he repeated, finally looking at someone else. He shook his head as if offended. “I was born in Fort Worth, man!”
As the big man walked off, his feet pounded mud puddles so hard that he sent water dancing all around him. Meanwhile, the young man who’d been beaten was still lying on the ground, the rain washing the blood away from his face. The mix of water and blood made a most handsome shade of pink, which settled on the stiff, pale yellow grass under his cheek. And his woman was ranting and raving now, her anxiety and fear had long since turned to bitter anger. It took awhile, but Blair soon came to understand that she wasn’t venting her anger at the fellow who did the damage, but rather was yelling at every man in line who’d stood by and did nothing to stop it.
“Sons of bitches!” she declared, kneeling beside her man and caressing his brow while still clutching her baby. Her fussing seemed to lull the child into a state of enviable contentment, as if so used to the sounds of angst that he was able to find comfort there.
When the bus pulled up, everyone else started boarding. Blair’s feet felt frozen to the wet grass. He just kept staring at the woman, her baby, and her man. Eventually Horace gave him a nudge. “We’ve been standin’ in line for three hours to get a couple of spots at the shelter,” he said. “If y
ou don’t move, you’ll make us lose ’em.”
“What about them?”
“What about them,” Horace said, glancing down for a moment and then focusing on the door of the bus. “He’ll be all right.”
“How do you know that?”
“She’ll look after him.”
“And what about her place at the shelter? And the baby’s?”
“All I know is, if I took time to worry ’bout every mother who crossed my path, I’d never have time to think about nothin’ else.” Horace started shoving Blair along.
“Do you think he’s still bleeding?” Blair asked, trying to see through the rain, which was now coming down hard and fast enough to obscure his vision.
“Nah,” Horace said, stepping up on the bus platform. He took one last drag from the cigarette in his hand before plucking it from his fingers.
Finally Blair got on the bus and took a window seat. He stared out at the family until they disappeared from sight. Then he sat back in the seat and closed his eyes. Guilt fell heavy on his shoulders; he should’ve stepped in to help that man. If that fellow were to die from his injuries, Blair would never forgive himself.
When Blair opened his eyes again, he found Horace resting easy in a seat across the aisle. Already Horace seemed to have blocked out the misery of the family that the bus had left behind.