Jimmy
Written late January 2015
Bone white shoulder-length hair, light blue eyes
Fifth-highest crime rate
Second on the list of number of people wanting to move out of the state
Worked for FedEx, been to 30 out of the 52 States
Worked in the aviation industry 'til he got laid off
Not the biggest truck but the next size down
His ex-wife
His girlfriend, from the west coast, has been to Australia, Italy... Been out six times
He was surprised once he had calculated my age; moved to Australia at twenty, been there for three and half years! Gee, I don't look it, he thought I was eighteen!
"What do you work as, a doctor or somethin'?"
The short answer should be Admin in a financial company, but I always forget and want to start with Special projects or Stockbroking firm.
For the first time someone regarded me as more Australian than Malaysian. He asked some about Australia, and not at all about Malaysia.
Crab cakes from Phillips near the harbourplace, said he who had lived here all his sixty-one years. You ain't getting a recommendation more local than that.
I met a man who had been to see the Beatles live, when he was eleven in 1964. He didn't actually want to go but his then 18-year-old sister brought him along anyway and now he has bragging rights.
And to him, I was the first person he'd ever met who lives in Australia, not just visited it.
When he grinned you could see his side teeth but not his front ones, and you knew it was a real smile.
He was sad for me, that I only had one day here and that one day had to be in such drab weather.
He was getting off soon, he said. About three stops to go. Started wishing me well and reminding me of where to get crab cakes, to keep watch, to know what I was about.
I didn't want my time with him to end either.
"Maybe I'll see you again sometime," he murmured in the hope that knows the odds are just about nil but cannot help hoping anyway, same as was in my heart.
He got off near Roseville.
I didn't get his name! Dislike not knowing the names of people I have significant encounters with.
____________________
Twenty-four hours later I found myself climbing up those same steps, only this time I was dry and knew where to find my bus.
I was thinking about the bench on the far side I had picked yesterday, and if we would sit near there again, when I saw - him! My old man from the bus, at a little square table on his own, newspapers neatly folded before him.
He had told three or four people yesterday that he'd met somebody from Sydney, Australia! The pride in his voice made me smile.
Black ice
I thought he would never stop asking about what I'd seen and where I'd gone in Baltimore; I wanted to ask about him - did he always come here in the morning?
Funny how we should both have met our 'man from the bus' again, this morning.
His name is Jimmy. How glad I am to know his name! for there can always be another 'man on the bus' with white hair and blue eyes, but not one named Jimmy whose grandparent died shortly before his parents divorced before his mother passed away, whose father then moved to the west coast and then to the inner west then down to Florida and then came back to Baltimore to breathe his last.
Bone white shoulder-length hair, light blue eyes
Fifth-highest crime rate
Second on the list of number of people wanting to move out of the state
Worked for FedEx, been to 30 out of the 52 States
Worked in the aviation industry 'til he got laid off
Not the biggest truck but the next size down
His ex-wife
His girlfriend, from the west coast, has been to Australia, Italy... Been out six times
He was surprised once he had calculated my age; moved to Australia at twenty, been there for three and half years! Gee, I don't look it, he thought I was eighteen!
"What do you work as, a doctor or somethin'?"
The short answer should be Admin in a financial company, but I always forget and want to start with Special projects or Stockbroking firm.
For the first time someone regarded me as more Australian than Malaysian. He asked some about Australia, and not at all about Malaysia.
Crab cakes from Phillips near the harbourplace, said he who had lived here all his sixty-one years. You ain't getting a recommendation more local than that.
I met a man who had been to see the Beatles live, when he was eleven in 1964. He didn't actually want to go but his then 18-year-old sister brought him along anyway and now he has bragging rights.
And to him, I was the first person he'd ever met who lives in Australia, not just visited it.
When he grinned you could see his side teeth but not his front ones, and you knew it was a real smile.
He was sad for me, that I only had one day here and that one day had to be in such drab weather.
He was getting off soon, he said. About three stops to go. Started wishing me well and reminding me of where to get crab cakes, to keep watch, to know what I was about.
I didn't want my time with him to end either.
"Maybe I'll see you again sometime," he murmured in the hope that knows the odds are just about nil but cannot help hoping anyway, same as was in my heart.
He got off near Roseville.
I didn't get his name! Dislike not knowing the names of people I have significant encounters with.
____________________
Twenty-four hours later I found myself climbing up those same steps, only this time I was dry and knew where to find my bus.
I was thinking about the bench on the far side I had picked yesterday, and if we would sit near there again, when I saw - him! My old man from the bus, at a little square table on his own, newspapers neatly folded before him.
He had told three or four people yesterday that he'd met somebody from Sydney, Australia! The pride in his voice made me smile.
Black ice
I thought he would never stop asking about what I'd seen and where I'd gone in Baltimore; I wanted to ask about him - did he always come here in the morning?
Funny how we should both have met our 'man from the bus' again, this morning.
His name is Jimmy. How glad I am to know his name! for there can always be another 'man on the bus' with white hair and blue eyes, but not one named Jimmy whose grandparent died shortly before his parents divorced before his mother passed away, whose father then moved to the west coast and then to the inner west then down to Florida and then came back to Baltimore to breathe his last.
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