Left Alone

Have you noticed when you are going someplace, unless you are the one driving, you don’t pay attention to where you are going. Funny thing ain’t it. It is especially difficult to stay engaged on public transportation, because dreaming off is the one way to survive the crowded stew of people. If you are fortunate to get a window seat, it makes dreaming all the easier, but still a challenge. Amongst those who believe that sneezing is an appropriate civic expression of sensitivity because they turn their head, and those who think all other passengers want to know how your mother made Lasagna; escape dreaming is a necessary and rational means of survival.

I would be the first to admit that escapism runs in my family. I have been told that I am antisocial, which I can only discern means, I dislike people, or would prefer to spend time by myself, or with someone else content to be alone in a crowd. I am not however, antisocial. I am, if I had to clarify my position on being around people by choice, is to say that I am socially selective. I have high standards for acceptance. Standards I at times, have to work arduously to meet. 

It was for this reason I find myself once again on a bus traveling to the downtown library to return a book, I was most dissatisfied with. I won’t bore you with the contents of the message as there really was none. It was, I supposed from the title and jacket advertising, to encourage me to be more outgoing; it did not. I found it made matters worse. I am now continually on the lookout for braggards, improvisational fraudulent types who want only what they believe you have, and for free. 

This person, author, who I shall not name, lawsuits and all, has obviously studied the wrong kind of person. He thinks, and I use the pronoun only as a reference point, it could have been a jackass who wrote the book, but I’m not one to judge, unless offended in dual like fashion.

If I understand the premise I am supposed to begin by engaging people in basic everyday conversation. The weather, sports, “How about those Lakers,” did you happen to watch…but I can’t bring myself to waste words on trivial nonsense, when the world is falling apart, and all because of arrogant fools who believe God talks only with them. What they talk about I have no idea, but it certainly can’t be about basic human values and the concept that all men and women, and some politicians are created equal. Some of them act like they are way more than equal.

Have you ever heard anyone go on for fifty pages about the need to show others how you feel. For God sakes, how I feel can’t be of any interest to anyone, I don’t even care to know myself. Then another twenty pages on why Freud, although he knew what he was talking about, was to emotionally impotent to express himself in the subtle ways that people could relate too. My immediate response, have you listened to the news lately? Unless you are an educated thief, liar, or one of those ventriloquist parrots we endow with the label, talking heads, there is no way to understand the whys and wherefores of what is going on. 

The man across the aisle just sneezed again. This time having the consideration to remove his mask so we could all watch the bacteria crawl down his plexiglass face shield. It was like watching the beginning of an epidemic caused by another person who believes being social, involves infecting those who are forced by circumstance to be near them.

I should explain about this book, I have to bring back to the library. I’d received a second overdue notice, and if I am nothing, I am religious about due dates. Even though it wasn’t my fault its return being late, the book having gone missing, I felt it was my obligation to repair the possible damage to someone else, wishing to repair their social standing by reading this book, and it not being available.

It was just last week, as I sat here watching it rain on the poor people who do not pay attention to the weather channel, become submerged in their own misery. It was raining torrentially. I noticed a small boy standing as though lost at the bus stop. He was searching his pockets for what I assumed was bus fare and beginning to look like he might drown standing there. I pushed up the window, and threw a quarter I always keep in my shoe, for such emergencies. 

I had no idea he would turn at the very moment and be struck in the eye by the quarter. He let out a banshee scream I’m sure they could hear on the upper side of town, and then as if I’d accosted him on purpose, everyone on the street and the nosy bodies on the bus, all looked at me. Well I became so flustered by the unwanted attention I got off the bus in hopes of apologizing to the young man. I remembered then that I’d left the ill-gotten remnant, of what might be called on a sunny day a vision of hope, the book, when the bus door collapsed and the bus sped off down the street. 

The boy had disappeared along with the quarter, and the other gawkers scrambled off to somewhere, and I was left alone on the street. The only bus stop I believe in the city where there is no shelter. I became drenched in a matter of seconds as the sky dumped buckets of water on me. No longer having the need to return a book I no longer possessed, I decided to walk back home. You can only get so wet you know.

Today I’m on my way to make amends to the library and its faithful card holders. I have purchased a copy of the book, hopefully the right one, and will present it to the librarian who knows me quite well, as we share a distaste for each other as well as people in general. 

I know I’ll have to waste valuable time explaining the entire fiasco to her, but it will be worth it to show her, I do have a sense of responsibility that I take seriously. For all I know there might just be some downtrodden person on the verge of mental collapse, suffering from the turpitude of loneliness, and this book, even though of no understandable value, may be enough to keep their mind occupied until the next big news story riles them up.

This episode has taught me one thing. I am going to read nothing but the old classics, as they have a certain aloofness that I find endearing. And they also, do not go on and on about how the characters are feeling, unless of course they are being shot, hung, drawn and quartered, or burned at the stake, in which case I know in my heart, it is only fiction and can be disregard as easily as I disavowed the lost book.

I never read historical novels because there is no way to overlook the stupidity of those that came before us, and most likely, those that will come after us.   

History I believe, should be lived in the moment, alone in peace, with a good book and a bus transfer, for a page marker. Some things we do, shouldn’t be forgotten.

I made it to the library just as they were locking up for the day. The librarian, Angel Dumont, was waddling down the stairs. Rather than go into details, I held out the book to her. She looked at me like I’d pulled a gun. I just wanted to return the book, even though it wasn’t the book I borrowed; Lost that one. But I needed to apologize and make amends.

She started laughing. “Honey, that book been sitting on the shelf for a good ten years. We had a pool going to see which year some fool might check it out. Congratulations, you is now our fool, whether you wanted to be or not.”

I wished I’d remained aloof and alone, as there is nothing worse that can happen to a socially selective person, such as myself, as to be given a moniker by strangers. 

I waited for the bus to come and found that I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I had, with the best of intentions, attempted to right a wrong, only to be ridiculed for what I read. 

So let that be a lesson to us all. If anything is to become of this world, it is going to have to take place in a history book in the future, because the present if just too full of opinionated people who don't pay enough attention to the weather channel.