I board the #36 bus almost in front of our house, the day beautiful, the prospect of lunch with a friend enticing. Yet, as the bus descends our hill toward the Mission District, so do my spirits. Just enough to notice. And why? Partly because on this particular day, at this particular moment, I am aware in a generalized way of loss. Mine. That I recall driving this very hill not that long ago. And general. I haven’t made all that many trips like this via bus in this era of eternal, or at least persistent, pandemic.
It hasn’t felt very safe. Buses are crowded. Airflow limited. And this is the very reason that I am getting out of the house now and glad to be doing so. In reality, there is almost no one on the bus. Maybe four of us. And when I get to Mission Street I change to a bus that, well, feels perfectly safe. Why? Not that many people on board either. Windows rolled down. The ride is four minutes long.
Stephen, opera composer friend, isn’t there when I get to the plaza above the 24th St. subway station. I’m early. So I find a place in the sun. A small crowd has gathered along the sidewalk and spilling into the brick plaza area. People with tables sell detergent, costume jewelry, cheap shoes, tamales, electronic toys. And so on. A couple of policemen stand in the background. They seem to be doing something along the lines of neighborhood policing. Their presence isn’t oppressive. They’re not hassling anyone for likely infractions. The obvious questions, “where did you get your 25 bottles of Tide?” apparently aren’t being asked. After all, it’s a nice day in a nice town that just happens to have a cavernous division separating rich and poor.
“How are you doing?” A man sidles up to me while I wait. He sounds, but does not look, Hispanic. “How old are you? 70? I hope someday to be as old as you.”
This appears to be an attempt at starting conversation. But where this conversation might go, and why someone would want to go anywhere, elude me. Being in a wheelchair, and a victim of violent crime, even an innocent encounter like this sets off distant alarm bells. Not to worry. The police are just a few feet away.
“Yes,” I say. “70.”
Where is Stephen? It occurs to me that I may have gotten the day wrong. Not without precedent. The man is still here. “Excuse me,” I tell him, “have to pull out my cell phone.” Fortunately, I am even telling the truth. Even more fortunately, Stephen is arriving. I say goodbye to the man.
For a moment Stephen and I pause in the sun debating our lunch location. Everything in me screams Salvadorian, that is to say, La Santaneca just up the street. But my better self cautions no. Beloved Café up the side street is quasi-outside and has better anti-pandemic airflow. That’s where we go. That’s where we have our usual, mine being their wonderful dal soup. We follow this with coffees next door at La Bohème. This café has been there for decades. The proprietor, Middle Eastern of some description, makes excellent Turkish coffee. His style is gloomy bustle. Business is bad, he tells me. Thus the pandemic. Something about his melancholy strikes a welcoming chord in me.
Over lunch I open up a bit more to Stephen than I usually do. But he’s a guy I can do this with. After all, he writes operas. Hard to say why this makes him a good listener to tales of personal emotion, but I just know it does. I tell him about the pervasive sense of loss. I tell him that transferring from bed to wheelchair and vice versa has become challenging. I get it off my chest, into the sunny day, and voilà, I feel better.
I am now adequately caffeinated and prepared for anything. Even the afternoon. Crossing Mission Street, a man pokes me in the arm and opens a bag of frozen steaks. I ignore him. Nothing untoward meets me inside the BART station. And in no time at all I have reached Glen Park, rolled into the library branch for the first time in a couple of years, picked up some cranberry juice at Canyon Market, and roll up the hill. Life is, by any sensible measure, good.