Watching People

After I pumped the gas at the station, I went inside to pay with cash.  Two men stood in front of me, one very short and the one closest to the counter very tall.  The clerk smiled at everyone automatically, and she had long bangs dangling down across her face.  I wanted to snip them shorter so she could see better.  She looked up at the hulking man swaying slightly across the counter from her.  He wore size 16 shoes, maybe larger.  His jeans were slouched down below his black t-shirt and gray hooded sweatshirt.

He mumbled something.  She smiled and moved here and there, back and forth, glancing up at him, always smiling.  He turned away to leave and his face was that of a person worried about their digestive system and their hangover.

The next man, much shorter, more wiry, fully alert said, "Wow, he's messed up.  Look at him out there."

We looked outside and the big guy was trying to find his keys in his pocket, eyes focused on the middle distance and body barely balanced on his big feet.  He groped in the pocket for some time, pausing to negotiate the swaying pavement, then continued.

The short guy said, "If I were that big, I'd be playing in the NFL."

The short guy and the girl with the long bangs and incessant smile chatted quickly and he turned to leave, too.  She flashed him the finger and when she caught my eye she laughed.  "I know him."  

A little later, at the Farmer's Market, where no one flips anyone off, I walked slowly past the SPCA pens where small dogs are displayed.  Dog people come over to pet them, consider adoption, make kissing sounds and silly talk to the dogs, who stand on their small paws and look up at the people.  Who knows what dogs think.  One of them was a small wire-haired terrier mix who looked like furry energy with paws.  One small boy wearing Crocs, jeans, a diaper and a t-shirt stood away from the wire pen, hesitant, fascinated with the dog.  His eyes danced.

He began to make a noise that, coming from the mouth of an adult, would bring medical attention very quickly.  From him came "Aaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee," up and down, and he walked sideways slowly to the left and to the right, tilting his head and eyeing the dog as it scurried around.  The sound of discovery and animal kinship all blended into one squealing wail.  His body was eager to move to the animal, but he couldn't.  Sideways tiptoeing and quick up-and-down squats became a dance of eagerness.  His hands clenched and opened and then clapped.  He didn't know what else to do, how to understand Dog.

His mom caught his hand and led him away, but his eyes were riveted on the little dog.  She pulled his arm up and behind him with his hand clenched in hers, but his other arm reached for the dog.  He was transformed by the moment, mouth slack, eyes wide.  The dog, moving in the stiff-legged tip-toe way that small dogs move, kept studying faces, looking for an exit.

As I was leaving, I recognized an elderly woman I see often near the college after my swims.  She is very short now, but she was several inches taller in her prime.  Her hair is white, cut straight across just above her shoulders, wiry, held in a barrette at one temple like a schoolgirl.  She has narrow shoulders and she walks as if on eggshells she fears breaking.  She wears polyester slacks and large running shoes.  

The bodies of very old women often take on a particular proportion with big long feet, large noses, skinny spines and wide hips.  I always see her shuffling on the roadside from her neighborhood to the college, in the middle of the road.  She stops walking when cars approach her and then starts again, satisfied she has not been run over.  She was walking down the middle of the stalls at the market, very slowly setting one big foot down after the other, but getting there under her own steam, going where she intended to go, looking straight ahead.    

Gone Missing

How odd.  The laundry is all clean again, but there are five socks without  partners.  The hampers are empty, the floor is picked up.  He and I wore two socks apiece, each day, one pair at a time every day, but now there are three white socks and two dark ones that don't match anything else.

It makes me think other things could be going missing that I may not be noticing.  And Halloween is coming, you know.

I started thinking of this about 15 minutes ago when I was folding the laundry and putting things away.  As I thought about it, a sudden wind sprang up outside and all the windchimes started thrashing around and, well, chiming.  Pretty spooky.  I guess, though, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's about a 2 or so.  But, could it mean something?

The unexpected things that happen without warning seem a little creepy this time of year, a mood prompted by neighbors who have strung fake spider webs in massive quantities in their yards and by all the pumpkins showing up everywhere.  I mean, where do those darned pumpkins come from anyway?

Weird things happen, like lightbulbs that pop suddenly right overhead, a bottle that falls off a shelf in the bathroom, a pile of magazines that gives way and slides to the floor.  No warning, just goes.  Makes you want to, you know, DO something.

I'm not a person given to wild screaming and panic.  No, I'm the opposite.  Dead calm, like the albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck.  Or something.  If I get a little on edge, you can imagine that truly nervous people would be vaulting into total bug-eyed hysteria.  My approach is:  Admire their energy, which is really something to see, and then settle down with a good book.

A few missing socks do not seem like cause for panic, and yet it does give one a sense of unease.  It is perplexing, you know, to have an ever-increasing supply of singletons no matter how careful you are about your laundry routine.  I'm going to chalk it up to a little spirit, a trickster having some fun.  I'll leave the screaming and panic for times when I might need them.  Like if suddenly the socks' partners appear.

The Face of Change

When nothing becomes something, does god laugh?  Emergence and change are constants in nature, artifacts of forces and substances intermingling in a dance that sets its own pace regardless of our observance.

A stone grew teeth, or seemed to when I saw it.  Big laughing teeth jutting right up out of the ground.

At the moment that I recognized the stone to have teeth, I became interested in it.  Until the very moment of being recognized, it was just stone, plain and simple.  Igneous rock sandwiched between sedimentary rocks, substances formed over a span of time we are barely able to conceive, form the grin.  It's easy to see the bits of things they are made of, but now those things are becoming something else.  They have never stopped changing and never will.  

I once recognized Clint Eastwood driving in his Mercedes in Monterey.  Until the moment his face became a face I could identify, he was just a driver in a green car at an intersection taking his turn to pass through.  Ho hum.  After the surprise of recognition, the moment became important, and I talked about it to a friend.

I wondered what else changed, but now I know that the simpler question is what did not change because the answer is:  Nothing.  All of every single thing changes all the time.  Force and substance always do their dance together.

Former classmates from high school have faces that time has weathered and gravity has worked on.  I feel my mind clanging through data banks, opening drawers and closing them quickly in a search of a match with old images captured long ago.  "Is that...?  No, can't be."  But it is.  A face once solidly familiar has changed and become nearly entirely unfamiliar.  

Children you first saw when they were born and last saw when they were two walk up to you in high heels 15 years later and say hello, and your mind does a stutter step as it looks for a familiar landmark on the face before you, one that identifies this young woman as the same child you last saw in diapers a short time ago.  A blink of an eye, and everything seems different.  I wonder if it's me changing, rushing through time while everything else stands still.  It feels like that.

Old trees and landmarks seem imperturbable and abide changes, show us how to do the same.  I stand next to old trees and think that they have seen a lot, endured much, withstood change every minute of their lives.  Strong and gnarled old trees, warriors dancing in the wind, defy the forces around them but change constantly in spite of themselves.  

The toothed rocks will be there for a long time I imagine. I just saw them for the first time.  They seemed the very grin of god.  I wanted there to be eyes, too, and a big resounding laugh that would echo off the hillsides and roll up into the clouds.  What's next to emerge, what will come into being and what will be lost eventually?  I happened on a grinning rock that laughed for having emerged, whether I was there or not.  Knowing it's there, I smile too.

Bearded Woman Robs 7-Eleven

Three fictionalized accounts based on a short report in the local paper two years ago:

“This is 911.  What is the nature of your emergency?”  

“I think I saw a robbery at a 7-Eleven.  It was really hard to tell.  I was driving by and...”

“Is the incident in progress now?”

“No.  There was a big tall woman, I’m pretty sure, but she had a beard.”

“Why did you think it was a woman?”

“She was wearing a skirt and panty hose.  Really tall, long legs, wig, black purse.  She needs a shave.”  

“Did you see her carrying a gun?”  

“I think so, but it might have been in the purse.”  

“Where did this take place?”

“Just now.  Like, just a minute ago.  My hands are shaking.  The robber is driving a brown car and you can tell it’s the car because the panty hose is flying out the door.”

“Where is the 7-Eleven.”  

“Oh, man, he’s back. I can’t believe it.  Hurry up and send the police.  Oh, I see her or I mean him.  He’s running in these black pumps and...”

“Is there a gun, ma’am?”  

“I don’t see one, but this has to be a guy in drag.  I’m telling you.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Across the street.  Hurry!”  

******************************************************************************

“Can I...?  What do you want, mister?”

“Shut up.  Gimme the cash in the drawer.  Just shut up.  Move it!”

“Don’t shoot.  I got kids at home.  That’s it.  No more here today.  Go away.  You're very ugly in that wig.”

“Down on the floor.  Now!”

“Okay!  Okay!  I’m innocent!”

“Adios, bitch.  I’m outta here.”  

“Hello, boss?  Oh my god, you should see what happened down here.  You gotta come now, come here.  I got robbed by a big ugly man dressed like woman.  Yeah, big wig, lipstick, beard.  Yeah!  Even wearing a skirt and panty hose.  I saw him.  He took off.  I’m okay.  I gotta call the police.  I’m okay, but all shaking all over.  I can’t believe it.  I want outta here.  No more for me.  That’s it.  I’m going to have nightmare forever.  This is very bad luck for me.  He might know me now, come after me.  He got the petty cash in the drawer.  He had a gun.  I think I pissed myself.  Man very, very ugly.  Really tall man with beard.  Yeah, I call the cops now.  No, just money.  Oh, oh! He is coming back!   

I have to run away now!”

**********************************************************************************

“I didn’t think he’d really do it.  Yeah, he’s a freak all right.  I told him Thursdays people buy the lottery tickets and that 7-Eleven gets a lot of cash.  He went for it.  No, never before.  He’s so freaking ugly, and he put on women’s clothes, man.  Yeah!  Panty hose, wig, lipstick, the whole nine yards.  Guy’s a freak, man, no brains at all.  Took his girlfriend’s stuff and put it on and went out after he’d had a few.  Broad daylight.  Cops caught him, got him down at the jail.  Thought he could fool someone?  No way.  Not with all that hair sticking through the panty hose, man.  Ugliest thing.  Yeah, he’s about 6’5” or so.  Black skirt, all done up.  I can just see the look on that Korean lady’s face at the 7-Eleven.  She’s, like, five feet tall, lookin’ up at this hairy freak.  Yeah, black beard, dude.  Lipstick and a wig his girlfriend had.  He wanted the money I guess.  Did he think it was a joke or something?  Man, you do not go waving a gun at a crazy Korean lady and get away with it, not dressed like a freak.”

Watching From The Cheap Seats

I knew the Giants had a lead in the series against the Braves and would either win it tonight or be tied and have to return to San Francisco to play again with Tim Lincecum pitching there Thursday.  I watched the last three innings.  I don't watch baseball much, but I've been reading the sports page.  I wanted to see what the game looks like now.  


I saw the players chewing furiously on things and spitting bits of those things out while they stared intently off camera.  I watched the team managers, older men with large paunches, walking out to pat the pitchers on the butt or talk and spit with them on the pitcher's mound and walk back again.  I heard the cheerleading PA system blaring a tom-tom drumbeat and saw fans with big red puffy hatchets waving them back and forth like railroad signals.  They chanted on cue and stood up to yell.  There were a lot of big sweating American men and women screaming and yelling earnestly and loudly, waving signs, wearing Braves hats mostly and team colors.  


The television announcers recapped every move, used special yellow arcs to show again and again the path of the pitch.  There were dozens of replays of every catch, every tag, every swing, every throw from angle upon angle, down low, up high, overhead, and everything in between to analyze and examine every last twitch and scratch of every player on the field.  Nothing escaped scrutiny and analysis.  


The Giants won.  Another series begins soon to determine who moves on to the final level of championship prowess, the world series.  The men on the Giants' team hugged one another, grinned, slapped shoulders, hit backs, and howled loudly, smiling and laughing.  All the players were allowed into a special champagne-spraying room that was hung all around with plastic.  Players ran into it, were handed large bottles of champagne and sprayed it over each other and throughout the room while they howled and embraced.  They carefully dropped their emptied champagne bottles into blue plastic waste bins and found more champagne to spray.  


I thought back to the World Cup soccer matches when I watched players race madly in circles on the field when they won, hugging, piling up, leaping into each other's arms with wild abandon.  Baseball players trot and then stand still, chew rapidly and spit.  They look like they are going to have a stroke.  


Big, large strong men, some of them very fat, wearing the traditional baseball uniforms played a carefully groomed game.  There were telephones, headsets, special gloves and gear that players wore.  All angles of movement, play possibilities and batting stances, trained into their bodies for years and years, were watched by the thousands cheering and yelling.   Players earn millions of dollars, receive catered extravagance at every turn, providing surprise and no surprise at all.  Wild pitches were balanced by prompted cheers.  Big swings of large bats were balanced by quickly edited replays of the same swings from four directions.  


In spite of appearance of luxuriously equipped players and their support crews, I imagined a few thousand people in the high seats of the stadium who have followed the ups and downs of their team perhaps for all their lives, perhaps even for generations before, who keep score cards and stats and for whom their team endures the storms of glory and ignominy.  


Baseball is different up there, for those folks, the ones who only ever come as close to opulence as the nosebleed seats at large stadiums one a season or so.  Baseball players are big and fat so those guys way up there can see them.  They swing big, and the guys in the cheap seats can feel the fan of the bat.  Way out there in the weeds, where real life is going on, lives the game of baseball, one much more modest in scope and size but still big in the hearts of its fans.