soundtrack

They cover my ears, blocking aural interference almost completely. The digital acoustics seem to emanate from inside my head. The outside world is drowned out but for what I can see. From the plane overhead to the scraping of my shoes on the sidewalk, the sounds are muted and I walk along as if inside a modern silent film. Almost all outside sounds are blocked.

The isolation is satisfying, like a cup of cold water on a hot day or a blanket fresh from the dryer on a cold night. A confused glance easily silences any stranger asking for the time or spare change. Interaction is reduced and it’s excused. Whether listening to music or not, the assumption minimizes conversation.

While the music fills my ears, my mind wanders to fill the gaps. Without hearing what’s really going on, I establish fanciful lives of those passing by or sitting across from me on the bus and rail. A woman may only be talking excitedly into her cellular phone, but I imagine she’s unleashing a horrific tantrum on the unfortunate person on the other end. A man may be talking to a friend of his a couple rows up on the rail, but I picture him talking incoherently to a stranger. Other times I wonder what’s really going on...

Sitting on the bus, facing forward, I watch her climb the stairs and sit in one of the seats that faces the opposite windows. Her hair is mussed and unwashed. Her tan,corduroy jacket is faded and worn. The purple scarf she’s carelessly tossed around her neck has holes and is frayed in many places. Her jeans are a size too small and the thighs of them are worn thin. Her off-white boots are stained with mud and covered in splotches of green paint, the soles are flimsy.

She starts to talk emphatically about something, but no one around her even glances in mild attention. A couple stops later, she starts to make disgusted faces. She takes the second-grader’s scrunchy out of her hair. It falls in clumps across her shoulders. She stashes the hair tie in her tattered backpack and pulls out a couple alligator clips. She twists her hair, wraps it around itself and hastily clips her hair up against her head. Chunks of greasy hair spray out from the clips like shoreline ferns after an oil spill.

She gestures wildly to a woman across the bus in the row of seats that faces her. Her face contorts into varying expressions of disgust and she pulls out her aged purse. She reaches in and takes out a compact. The powder clouds around her. Then she grabs a lipstick and paints her lips bright red. She puts everything back, re-crosses her legs and leans back. She looks satisfied.

The songs from my mp3 player acoustically mask anything coming from her mouth. Is she throwing insults at anyone that looks at her? Is she talking loudly to herself? Is she making sense? Is she homeless? Is she asking people for change? Is she cracking jokes?

Everyone around her pretends she’s not there. Their eyes dart back and forth, stare out the window or down at a book. They ignore her completely, but she still appears to yammer on. She shifts her position often and the woman next to her looks irritated, but doesn’t say anything.

After a few stops, the woman stands, flings the backpack over her shoulder and hooks her purse onto her arm. She steps off the bus and looks around. She looks confused, but everyone getting off the bus with her is walking quickly in either direction, ignoring her...

I lean against the Plexiglas wall of the light rail car, looking across at a couple standing only a few feet away. The woman is portly, with blond hair and a tote bag filled with books and what look to be work supplies. A Tupperware container of sauce is perilously close to falling out between the fabric handles. She’s leaning against the man’s chest, her face turned away from me into the nylon of his discount winter coat. He has a round face and bulky frame and looks about my height.

He rests his right hand over the hanging handle, his left cups her right butt cheek with his thumb in her jeans pocket. He’s talking to her with a smirk-like smile under the bill of his baseball cap, from someplace in South Dakota. He appears to be talking solemnly about something, leaning in and kissing her and hugging her close to him at random intervals.

A few times, she responds, but has no power behind her statement. She seems defeated. She looks up at him, he leans in and they kiss awkwardly. She pulls away from him slightly. They talk a bit and then she walks across the train to a seat beside where I stand. She puts her bags on the ground, slumping against the window with her chin resting on her arm. She looks through the window but doesn’t seem to see anything.

He still has the same, almost jovial, expression. His eyes dance around the car. He reaches into his worn backpack, pulls out a novel and starts reading. His head drops and his face is hidden behind the bill of his cap. He shifts his feet, enclosed in low-end tennis shoes that look like hiking boots.

The rest of the trip, they don’t make eye contact. He never raises his head from the book. She glances at him a couple times, shaking her head slightly before returning her eyes to the distant point out the window.

Did he just admit to cheating? Is he meeting his buddies after work for a drink instead of meeting her for dinner like he had promised? Is he trying to cheer her up after some terrible news, to no avail? Does she feel trapped in a thankless, unsatisfying relationship? Did they have an argument this morning that blew up into personal jabs and emotional roundhouses? The music blasts through my headphones as a new song reaches its crescendo.

The train comes to a stop and she slinks out the door with her bags. She looks over at him. He looks up, smiles inanely, and gives a small wave with the hand hooked over the handle. I wait for my stop, step off the train and make my way toward the office.

The sounds of the traffic to my right, of the dozen people I walk past and of the typical city bustle are blocked almost completely by whichever song is randomly selected by my player to send music through to my headphones. No one takes a second look or attempts to get my attention.

secluded

I round the corner and he’s sitting against the wall of the grocery store about a block away. He’s furiously sketching in a small notebook. His clothes are somewhat raged and his hair looked unwashed. A woman, walking toward me, stops when he says something. She shakes her head slightly, says something and hastens her pace. After the woman passes, he turns his attention back to his notebook. He has a backpack against the wall next to him.

Days are getting warmer. Those without homes or jobs will be out more frequently. They rest at the corners and lurk in the shadows. They try to make money the only way they can, without bothering those they ask for it. They stand at freeway on-ramps with ripped Coor’s boxes, announcing their desperation with messages ending in “God Bless.” They ask politely for spare change, they write poetry for pennies and they play instruments for the people that pass them, pretending not to notice.

I see them with their metal cups resting in their hands. I see them hovering around bus stops. I hear them asking for change on the light rail platform while people flock from their jobs to the sanctuary of their homes. “Could you lend two dollars for bus fare?” “Could I get a few dollars for a sandwich?” “Have any spare change?”

I sometimes give change or a couple dollars to some that ask. Maybe they’ll spend it on booze and end up inebriated at a bus stop later that night. Maybe they’ll use it to buy cigarettes and perish next to a dumpster in the dark, all alone. Maybe they’ll go back to their south-side apartment, put the change into a gigantic jar and relax next to their television before making a sandwich for dinner. In any case, sometimes they need it more than I do.

In Los Angeles, one man asked for a couple dollars to get a beer down the road. My friend gave him the money because he admired the man’s honesty. Later, we saw a man laying in the fetal position in the center of the sidewalk on a quiet side street. “They’re all over around here,” was what my friend told me. We passed him, giving him distance, and resumed our conversation as though he’d never been there. Even in plain sight, blocking our direct path, he was hidden.

Most of them remain invisible. They spend their days in a public library or wandering around a park. They talk to themselves or converse with others. Hundreds of people walk by them without seeing them. They’re on their Blackberries, making a phone call, adjusting their shoulder bag, staring ahead blankly or talking to the people around them. They are too busy, too hurried or too oblivious.

I cross the alley and the man with the notebook hears my footfalls. He glances to his side, shifts slightly, but waits until I’m closer to ask, “Any spare change?” I shake my head slightly, trying not to be emphatic. I continue, careful to keep my pace even though he wouldn’t be offended. He sees it all day. But, if I rush off, it would seem like I’m embarrassed.

I justify it. I need to do laundry by the end of the week. Still, the two quarters feel heavier in my pocket. They’re from the post office where I just mailed a cash-back rebate for my new phone. They bump against one another with the sound of clash cymbals. I try not to seem embarrassed, but maybe I am.