IN TRANSIT
A Short Story by Sarah Boone

A man is his most mysterious when traveling. As a woman who spent the majority of her workday on public transit, Lisa Nolan knew this to be true. The realm of the moving vehicle was a dead zone when it came to her profiling radar, no matter ho many hours she'd spent at the university studying the discipline of investigative journalism. Still, the impossibility of judging the male species while in limbo did not keep Lisa from wondering.
Take the man across the row to her left. Plain blue jeans. White knock-off running shoes. Black knit sweater. Thick-rimmed glasses. Maximum age: 30. Height: 5 feet eleven inches. Weight: 170. Far-sighted, judging by the two-inch gap between his newspaper and his face. Only one thing could be determined by this man's appearance: he was a native San Franciscan. And Lisa only had that much figured out because it was a San Francisco Muni Train that she rode. And we've returned to square one.
It was the stillness of a man in transit that knocked her investigative arrows off course, not knowing where he'd come from or where he was headed. What also stunted her was their fascinating ability to sit completely still and stare at everything, one thing, or nothing for the ride's duration; it was like judging an entire life based on a picture. Even a coffee shop added more perspective, or a bench in a public park. Here, on a train, where everyone has no discernible past or future, all Lisa could do was guess. He didn't have a wedding ring, but that could mean a number of things. His hands were clean, but not manicured. Lisa zeroed in on a shark tooth hanging from his neck, swaying back and forth from the rocking train. So he was a surfer. Or maybe he went to Hawaii. Or someone gave it to him, and it doesn't mean anything at all.
This is where Lisa forced her train of thought to derail. When she started guessing what when it was time to quit. Journalists don't guess; they know. The mantra ran through her head where it would permanently stay, implanted by her favorite professor. Mr. Ian Kirpatrick was the one who'd found her a job in San Francisco post graduation.
“I know it's your dream to be big criminal buster, and I know San Francisco isn't the ideal place. But no city is without criminals. So start small, dig deep. I'm sure you'll find something. You're one of the greatest students I've ever had.”
Lisa remembered feeling surprise when this hard-assed old man said such encouraging words to her, and a small smile crossed her face. She could examine any man on that train and, despite her strong profiling skills, be able to come up with a conclusion that was banal at best.
The train slid to a halt. Lisa watched various people get on and off while pulling her right leg under her, a distractive motion used as an excuse to look the other way down the car.
Man in the corner. Lanky. Mid-twenties. Wrinkled gray suit. Ear phones. Slim back briefcase. The model for a human bobble-head, his only perceptible motion was the rhythmic jerking of his head left and right. He was most likely an entry level professional on his way home from work, headed back to an empty spartan apartment.
Memories of Professor Kirpatrick's lecture flashed through her mind. “You're assuming again, Lisa.” He approaches her seat, bushy eyebrows looming overhead. “The problem with your intuition is that it rest deeply in what you know about yourself and not in the scene before you.”
Oh that's right, Lisa thought. I'm an entry level professional on my way home to a spartan apartment.
“Lisa, if you want to be successful in this business, you need to find your inner voice. Find it and tell it to shut the hell up.”
Duly noted teach. Lisa snickered. The man directly across from her, the man she'd tried not to look at, glanced up at her and asked what was so funny.
Lisa stared, mouth poised to speak, frozen by the attention of the most mysterious man of all. Those eyes, masked by mirrored sunglasses that were deemed superfluous by the foggy weather, those eyes, attached to that one kind of man - the kind that stands on a train despite plenty available seating, those eyes that take in every detail of their surroundings with brazen curiosity.
“I was just wondering what made you laugh,” he said, his voice low and raspy, like the sound of a paper's edge running along another sheet of paper.
Lisa shrugged, pulling her other leg up to her chest, eye bouncing from ceiling to floor, and her radar shouting, “MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” She said, “It's nothing really. Just a memory. I don't think you would find it very funny.”
His sunglasses made it impossible for her to tell which way he was looking. Sighing, he tilted his head upwards. “I wish you would tell me anyway. I've had a shitty kind of day.”
He'd always been good at reading people. In his business, he had to be. But this was a girl he couldn't quite get a handle on. Most girls kept something to occupy them on a train, something they needed to block out their surroundings, a book or a magazine, a music player, a cell phone. Something to fiddle with. Something to divert an observer's attention from their female transparency. All this girl fiddled with was the fringe on her shirt sleeve. All she needed to occupy herself was to feed her youthful eyes with the people around her. It intrigued him that in one moment she would study the other passengers with a deep-seeded confidence and in the very next appear withdrawn and fragile.
And she'd refused to look at him.
When she released a little giggle out loud, he tried to initiate conversation.
“What's so funny?”
Silence. The ruffled sound of someone shifting in their seat.
“I was just wondering what it was that made you laugh.”
Silence. A car horn beeps in the distance.
“It's nothing really. Just a memory. I don't think you would find it funny.”
“Well I wish you would tell me anyway. I've had a shitty kind of day.” And he had. Three phone calls from Uncle Vince and it wasn't even sundown. He'd had to stop work early and jump on the first train headed across town.
“I'm sorry.” She shrugged, sinking into her seat like a turtle into it's shell, hair folding down like a mask over her face.
He harbored a reactive need to turn away from her. Or perhaps it was the urge not to that kept his focus trained in her direction. Disappointment rattled in his thoughts like a sore throat. She was just another faceless woman. No book or other media to hide behind, but it was still the same M.O. Living life eyes wide shut, just as scared of strangers as the rest of them, unable to hold eye contact or simple conversation with someone they don't know.
She continued to sink inward, still and obscure like a rock under lake water. And then, looking up, she asked his name with the self-assured force of a geyser blast from that very same lake.
He said, “My name's Bobby.”
“Bobby, can I ask you a question?”
He nodded, head angled to the side as if to say, “Hit me.”
“Does it ever fascinate you the way people on the same train, plane, or bus cross eachother's paths without making any kind of connection or acknowledgment of what they have in common, even if it's the sole fact that they have the same general destination and the same general origin?”
“Sure it does...” his voice trailed off, looking for a name.
“Lisa.”
“Lisa, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Do you begin every conversation with this question?”
She shook her head. “Nope. It just occurred to me. Right now.” She laughed. “So, where are you headed?”
“I'll know when I get there.”
Silence. The train halted again, brakes screeching like the whines of a hundred abandoned puppies. A long row of people lined up on the platform, waiting to get on,
Lisa motioned to the empty seat beside her. “Would you like to sit?”
“No thanks.”
Silence. The doors slid open.
“How about you stand instead?” he suggested. “The view's better over here.”
Lisa followed Bobby to the small compartment in between cars. Maintaining a two-foot distance from him, she wandered the small space and feigned preoccupation with the small sliver of cement she could see moving beneath them.
“I didn't know you could stand in here,” she said.
Bobby remained static, arms crossed across his chest. He leaned against the side wall, studying her. “Well you can,” he replied. “They just don't like it very much.”
Lisa nodded to his sunglasses. “Too bright for you?”
“I wear them so no one can see what I'm looking at.”
Silence. Lisa looked down.
He chuckled softly when she looked over at him again. “Maybe you should invest in a pair.”
Her eyebrows rose behind her bangs, mouth half-open. “How did you -”
“Ha,” he teased, “busted.”
The train stopped yet another time and Lisa braced one arm on each wall to keep from falling. Bobby exerted no movement at all, completely balanced on the tips of his feet. “What I want to know,” he continued, “is whether you were trying to figure people out based on what you saw, or if you were just making shit up to pass the time.”
“I'm all about the facts,” she said.
Bobby pointed to a woman through the window. “Tell me what you get from her.”
Lisa looked the woman over. Suit jacket and skirt. Bright red. Short spiky hair. No wedding room. Spike heels tapping against the floor. Fidgeting with her cell phone. “Business woman. High up. Used to power. Independent.”
Bobby leaned over Lisa's shoulder to better see into the car; his closeness distracted Lisa from her analysis. “You're wrong,” he said.
“What? How?”
“Trust me, Lisa. That woman does not work in an office.”
“You're so sure?”
“I'd bet her ridiculous shoes on it.”
“That woman is a prostitute.”
The woman's head shot up suddenly, as if she'd sensed the utterance of the word.
Lisa pulled back from the window, hands on hips. “Where's your proof?”
“No proof about it, kid. I just go with my gut feeling. I just know.”
“What do you mean you just know?”
Bobby sighed impatiently. “Look at her, Lisa. She's too polished and way too impatient to be the woman you described. If she were some powerful CEO or something, she wouldn't be that skittish, and maybe it's a long shot to say it, but she'd probably have a car. Her blouse is unbuttoned halfway, and see that little rip on the inside of her sleeve? It's exactly in the place where department stores attach security sensors to their merchandise. Stolen suit. Too much make up. Excessive fidgeting. That is your stereotypical junkie whore.”
Lisa stepped back from the window. “Whoa. All that from your intuition?”
“I look at the answers before I look at the questions, see? Facts are the 'why' of someone, not the 'who,' if you know what I mean.”
The train bucked over an obstruction in the tracks, causing Lisa to stumble forward. Bobby caught her shoulders so she wouldn't fall. Through the window, he noticed the woman in red on her knees. She too had been thrown by the train. Now she crawled on the floor, fervently gathering a large sum of cash that had fallen out of her pocket and scattered to the floor. The train stopped and a man in ripped jeans and a beanie grabbed handfuls of her fallen money before dashing out the door.
“See,” Bobby said to Lisa, still holding her up, “that woman is a prostitute.”
Like every woman in a new place, like every woman ever in any place, Lisa wasn't fond of being touched. Especially not by strangers. But when Bobby snatched her from gravity's pull, she didn't spaz out as expected. She was comforted, even soothed by his touch. She'd never had such a connection with a stranger before, never been able to talk or examine other people or feel comfortable in the grasp of someone she knew nothing about. But she trusted him, though she wasn't sure why.
“Why didn't anyone stop that guy?” Lisa asked. “He just took her money!”
Bobby lifted her upright all the way, almost like an animal by the scruff of it's neck so he could look at her directly. “How new in town are you?”
“I moved here three weeks ago.”
“I knew it. Graduated from college last May?”
“Yes.”
“Not a city kid.”
“I'm trying.”
He let her go. She took a step back, allowing stagnant air to come between them.
“For your own safety,” he said, “let me give you a crash course on living in the city. Any city. You can't trust anyone, not completely. There's lots of good people, especially in this city, but you can't assume that their good on the spot. There's crime everywhere in the city. Rate has nothing to do with it. Statistics have nothing to do with it. Time of day has nothing to do with it. It happens. All over. All the time. You have to be vigilant, got it?”
Lisa said, “Thanks for the advice, but I'm not as naive as I look.” Her voice had grown weary and agitated.
The train's loudspeaker announced the next stop, “West Portal Station.”
She moved past him to the main car. “This is where I get off. Hope your day gets better.” She let the compartment door slide closed before he had the chance to reply.
Bobby grimaced when he realized he'd crossed a line. He stared at the door for a moment, at the small window through which he could see Lisa weave through the people in the car. Then he pushed it aside.
“Hey! Hey, Lisa!”
She turned in front of the exit door, her eyes emitting an irritated, “What is it?”
“Look, I'm sorry if I offended you. I have this jackass habit of assuming I'm always right about everything.”
“Forgiven.” The door opened and she stepped out. “Good bye.”
He pushed through the incoming people like a salmon upstream. “Lisa! Hold on a minute.” Bobby wedged himself between the car doors so the train couldn't move.
She turned around again. “What?”
“I was thinking about what you said earlier, about people meeting each other in transit and never bothering to make a connection, and I was wondering if – I mean – you're new in town – you must not know that many people...”
The train driver struck her head out the window at the front of the first car. “Excuse me, sir! I need you to move.”
“For better or worse, Lisa, I'm a good friend to have. If you're single, well that's not what I meant, but I was hoping that, uh...”
“Hey!” yelled the guy behind Bobby. “You're either in or you're out, douche bag.”
“Do you have a phone number, a way that I can reach you?”
Bearing the same reserved smile that had caught his attention before, Lisa reached into her pockets. “I have a card somewhere. Hold on.” She turned them out two by two: cell phone, keys, tape recorder. “Shit, my wallet's gone!” She looked up, mouth agape. “My wallet's gone!”
More angry shouts erupted from the train.
“We all have somewhere to be, pal!”
“Come on, dude! Move it!”
Lisa's mouth grew even wider at the sight of her open wallet in his hand. In the other hand he held one of the business cards that she had stashed in the sorely empty cash compartment.
“Got it.” Grinning, he tossed the wallet over to her. “Don't look at me like that. I was just trying to make a point. You might want to close your mouth before you hyper-extend your jaw. And about my day, you said 'hope it gets better?' Well it did. Because of you.”
Her mouth snapped shut. Sparing him one last conflicted glance, she turned and wandered off the platform, her wallet still clutched in her hand.
He watched her go, then went back inside the train. Time to go see Uncle Vince. Every city thief had to pay his due.

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Publication Date: 03-16-2010

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