Riding The Bus With My Sister Some Girl

Given my early inclination toward kissing boys, I don't know how much "in the closet" I ever was. At any given point, somebody else always seemed to know. It's true that my actions were usually behind closed doors. But those the doors were definitely made of shatterproof glass. At least, I always thought so.

Of course everybody didn't know. I wasn't one of those swishy kids who everyone looked at cross-eyed as he sashayed around the playground. I was almost always Superman when we played SuperFriends - hardly ever Wonder Woman (although who could resist wearing the bracelets and tying people up?). In early high school I even dated girls a little. Granted, nothing ever came of these brief experiences. But keeping in the closet has had it's advantages from time to time. For instance:

One day a few years ago I was traveling on the bus to get to work, which was odd since I usually took the train. But I was on an odd schedule, so I couldn't take my usual train. It was a particularly packed day, so I did something I never do: I went straight to the back and found an open seat. (When riding the bus, I usually prefer to sit in the middle by the exit.) Almost as soon as I sat down, she saw me. A thin, pretty, blonde got out of her seat and asked if she could sit down next to me. It's a free country, was how my internal monologue responded, but this wasn't one of those free-spirited-girls-meets-uptight-boy-and-love-ensues romantic comedies. So instead I said, "Sure." "By the way, are you gay or just really feminine?" I must have looked offended, so she backpedaled. I finally just lied: "No. And I didn't think I was feminine. Thanks!" Silence would have followed for a normal person, but she kept going. As people in these stories tend to be, she was very forthcoming right off the bat - small talk at first, then the big guns come out. She was riding the bus all the way into Downtown. Fair enough - I was only going about halfway there. She had to pay some money back to someone. OK. I was headed to work. And then the details started to draw me in.

It seems this girl (I never did catch her name) had recently given up a pretty bad crack addiction. She lived for a while in one of those rundown hotels L.A.'s got so many of downtown. She was hooking for a while and running with some gang - Sixth Street, maybe? where they didn't like her because she was white. She was jumped in and spiraled pretty quickly. But she was all better now - she'd moved back in with her father, gotten a job and definitely given up crack. She was very proud of the fact that she'd put on 10 lbs. (I was hard pressed to find it, for the record.)

At last, it came time for my stop. As I stood up and announced my exit, she asked for my phone number. I hesitated, but gave in finally. I wrote down a number that hadn't been mine for years, never to hear from or see her again. I often wonder if she ever came back or if the city swallowed her up that day.

It's the little decisions in life that always make the difference. If I'd taken the train, I'd never have been at the back of the bus. If I'd sat in the middle of the bus, she might not have seen me. And if I'd come out to her, the conversation we had might never have taken place. I'm not advocating being in the closet at all, but my brief return that day gave me this story to tell. Go figure.

-J.

This post was sponsored by the Staying In Committee.