As I board the bus and sit down, a grizzled man, a little beat-up looking, sitting sideways opposite me, says, “Nice nose ring.”

“Thank you,” I say, putting on my N95 mask.

“I bet that hurts.”

“No,” I told him. “It’s not cartilage.”

He fondled his ear and thought about that. “There was a shooting over at 34th and Girard a little bit ago,” he said meditatively.

“Oh, that’s why the police cars were racing all over just now. Okay.” The cop cars had roared up my street the wrong way, a few minutes before I got on the bus.

“I just got out of jail after 25 years,” he went on.

“That must feel nice.”

“My wife claimed I beat her. She lied.” 

“I don’t need to know about that.”

“I got you.” Pause. “I was looking at buying that laundromat down here.”

“I would never buy a laundromat. People would be coming in all hours wanting to steal your money.”

“They wanted $125,000. There’s never anybody in there.”

“People have their own washers and dryers now. When I lived around here in 1974, I used a laundromat, though.”

“1974! I was four years old,” he said with blank astonishment. I had managed to get to him with that, I could see.

“I’m a lot older than you,” I told him.

“How old?”

“I’m a lady. Ladies don’t tell people their age.” And I got off, because it was my stop.