Every day, I get out of the house for an adventure.
Yesterday, it was hot out, so I caught the 7 bus on impulse because it had air conditioning and I had a few errands to justify the expedition. The climate on the 7 is slightly morose; the bus goes from North Philadelphia through Fairmount (white people in row houses), then Center City (brick, trees, college students, homeless people) down through the western edge of South Philadelphia (crammed two-story row houses with fake stone and wrought iron gates), then all the way across on Oregon, which is low-rent commercial (grocery stores, cheese-steak places, Goodwill, discount shoes, auto repair shops), then up to a big-box-store area on the Delaware waterfront (Walmart, IKEA, Target, Michael’s Crafts, and Home Depot).
When I get on the bus, I decide I’m not going to look at my phone today. I look around for interesting people. A granddad with long gray braids is in a double seat with a four-year-old boy. The little boy is wearing a bright blue ball cap, with a cartoon face and ears. The grandchild puts his ball cap on his granddad’s head, and then falls asleep on him.
At Broad and Oregon, an elderly white couple, unused to the bus, gets on and asks the driver if he goes to Weccacoe Street. He answers in an inaudible voice. I tell her it actually turns on Weccacoe Street. The woman, wearing a tidy flowered dress, thanks me and says, “We were so excited to go to the game, we didn’t realize we parked in a handicapped spot.” I don’t know what she means, but smile vaguely. She stands in the front part of the bus, but makes her husband sit down in the senior seats.
When we get to Weccacoe, the older guy with the bad teeth who is sitting next to me tells the woman where to get off, and I realize what she was saying: The tow lot for the Philadelphia Parking Authority is there. They went to a baseball game, probably, and then came out to find their car gone.
They stand on the verge looking confused, because they got off a stop early, but the bus pulls away.
After we leave them behind, I tell the guy with the teeth, “Oh, I don’t have a car, so I didn’t know where it was.”
“I got a few in there,” he says, meaning in the impound lot. “That’s why I’m riding the bus.”
I visit several big stores and, with my bags (vegetable peeler, LEGO kit, garden supplies), sit and wait on the bench opposite the closed Boston Market, so I can catch the 7 back home. I get to talking to the woman (shorts, t-shirt, cropped gray hair) who waiting there in the bench with me. She says she is my age, but she only just retired. She used to work at Michael’s, moving boxes. Her hip hurts like mine does, and her knee, too. We talk about Medicare, and about the ways we miss and don’t miss our jobs. I tell her it’s important to get out of the house every day. She says she goes swimming every day.
She is a South Philadelphia type, with her mannish hair and her loud voice. Even though I was born in Philadelphia and lived here most of my life, I’m technically not a Philadelphia type at all. Otherwise we are exactly the same.
The 7 bus comes finally, and I tell the lady I enjoyed talking with her, meaning we have talked enough, and she looks around and starts talking to someone else. The man with the four year old is also on the bus, going home. It’s the little boy’s fourth birthday today, he says. The South Philadelphia type gives the little boy a ten dollar bill. Another woman gives him three lollipops. The little boy cheers out loud and waves the bill and the candy around, the whole bus smiles, and then everyone goes back to staring at nothing. He sits on his granddad’s lap, sucking on a lollipop.