It’s a quiet afternoon at work, but I’m worn out from not sleeping well and decide to head home early. The regional rail is all messed up right now, so I take two subways and then walk a few blocks to wait for the bus. As I get to the stop, a woman asks if I know when the next —– bus is supposed to come. I tell her I don’t but that I think one might have come through a little while ago. She says she feels nervous waiting there for the bus and is reassured when I say I’m going to wait there too. Her nervousness surprises me a little as it’s the middle of a sunny day with lots of people going about their business, but she’s pushing a cart piled high with bags, apparently homeless, and I figure she feels vulnerable carrying all that stuff with her. The bus is taking its time, and we chat intermittently. She asks if I’m coming from work, and I say yes. Are you a caseworker, she asks. No, I say, I work at the University, in the library. I ask if they let her take her cart on the bus, and she says yes.
And then bit by bit, she’s telling me pieces of her story. She says she was in a house fire and was glad that she had her two cats in a cage because she was able to get them out safely, but then she had to put them in a foster home. That she was staying in a back room someplace and somebody (cops? thieves? does it matter?) broke down the door looking for someone who wasn’t there. That she was raped by men wearing security guard uniforms in a park I know well. And now her nervousness about waiting at the bus stop takes on a different meaning.
I’m trying to take it all in. I look at her with sad eyes, I nod, I shake my head. I tell her how sorry I am that all that happened to her. I have a twenty in my wallet and think about handing it to her, but she doesn’t look sick or hungry, and I don’t want to be insulting or make this interaction about money she never asked for. I figure the best thing I can do is just listen and let her know that somebody gives a shit about her experience. That she matters.
Finally the bus comes and we both get on. She struggles a bit to maneuver her cart onto the vehicle, but she’s done this before and knows what she’s doing. You can’t block the aisle with that thing, the driver says. I won’t, she promises, and he lets her through. She moves toward the back and I make eye contact with her one last time. Good luck to you, I say. And then I sit down.