Eyelids half closed, a wiry man in his sixties angles toward me. Dropping in the aisle seat at my side, his landing seeming to slam shut his lids, he leans into my shoulder.
Though we’re zipping down a straight stretch of Chicago’s Clark Street now, his shoulder presses harder into mine. He’s that worn out. It’s a good thing we’re like conjoined twins since the bus suddenly rolls left. I lean into him to counter the centrifugal force that could send him onto my lap, and perhaps headfirst into the hull. Got him! “I’m okay,” he mumbles as if he doesn’t want my assist.
I get it. He’s proud. Clean-shaven and wearing a pressed tattersall shirt, he takes pride in his appearance. Refusing my help may instead stem from his not trusting the white man I am.
I’m not dissuaded: as the bus slows to a stop, and, just as slow, he starts leaning forward, I quickly but softly catch his shoulder with my right palm before he can slide off his seat. I gently move him back into place. His eyelids raise a bit. “You can lean on me,” I whisper to him, the heartfelt Bill Withers’ song rolling in my mind.
With his lids closing I sense that he finds comfort in my words as he starts to breathe, his exhales cooling my left arm on this July day. I’m feeling and breathing his air. Could we be listening to the same tune? Then again, is he hyperventilating? Worse, is he going to have a heart attack?
I know mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A poetic notion as I’m already breathing his air. But what If I have one of my panic attacks? I’ll scream, My friend’s having a heart attack, driver! But what if the driver slams his brakes?
Before I could play out the scene, the bus, as if reading my mind, goes into a jerky, hydraulic-squeaking stop. Fearing my seatmate will topple into the aisle and suffer broken bones, or a concussion, my hand this time clamps his shoulder like a vice to firmly guide it behind mine.
“Maybe this’ll help you rest in place,” I tell him. It does. Back asleep, his breathing to my relief is deep, strong, healthy. I notice how his face takes on a sweet, almost childlike repose that gives me a familial feeling about him.
After his catnap which seems like five minutes with our moving through space and time, but is less than sixty seconds, his eyes open wide.
“How long since you slept?” I ask softly.
“Two days,” he replies, and for the first time looks me in the eye.
“My record is three,” I respond.
“Three days?!”
“I was a young man then, and I passed out at my desk.”
“My mind wants to keep going, but my body is not cooperating,” he confides with elegance and, like we we’re old friends, transparency.
“You work?” I ask.
“I do alterations when the tailor I know runs short,” he says softly
“I noticed that natty shirt you’re wearing.”
“My favorite this time of year; got a long sleeve version, too.” With my shoulder securing him during our exchanges, he turns back his head, and closes his eyes.
Seeing that my street is coming up, I stretch my fingertips so I can still keep him in place while I pull the stop cord.
As the bus slows, I whisper to him as I begin to pivot from my seat, “Maybe you’d like to slide over so you can lean against the window?” His head moves down and up once which I take as a yes. And in one coordinated motion with him, I rise while pivoting around to place my hands on his shoulders to assist his simultaneously sliding over. And into place. I marvel at our teamwork. It was as if we had practiced it before.
Standing in the aisle now, I face the front exit some 20 feet away. And though the bus is stopped, I stop. And turn toward him to make sure he’s secured. It’s as if he is tucked into the hull, reminding me of my mom tucking me tightly into bed so I wouldn’t roll out.
Maybe it made a difference I was there for him. That I cared about him. That I care about him now. And that if not for Rosa Parks, I wouldn’t have had such feelings for my fellow man.
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