Friday

Friday.

In the morning, I search your face as the sun seeks you under the overpass. And writing now, hours later, I can't recall what I'd hoped to find.

At the performance, arriving late, just as it had begun, so waiting further off on the sidewalk, while most everyone gathered in a parking lot, encircled by runners.  A beginning.  Feeling left out, ceremony.  People wearing name tags, I wondered if I should have one, too?  (And when we entered the lobby after, I did make one, though it was unnecessary.)  Instructed to move closer when the dancers/runners stopped, a story began.  New ways of thinking about the streets (what was before, and before that?  What ghosts walk alongside us?)  Wondering about the whales, was that just part of a story or are they here, waiting along the waterfront? (Someone saw whales at Deception Pass, not the southern pods, who only eat fish, these ate a mammal, perhaps a migration.)  And then we marched solemnly together through the neighborhood and into the theatre, smoke sat heavily along the floor and the performers gathered and waited on the stage.  And so it continued.  I was a witness, though I don't know what happened.

Going home after, as I got off of the first bus, a man lying on his back on the sidewalk in front of me, hands at his side, luggage three feet south of his feet.  I stopped and watched his breath, not sure if I should approach any closer. Not sure if he was alive.  He did breath, then his left hand twitched, as I continued to watch him, he rolled to his side, eventually sat up, I asked if he was all right, he nodded, I can only guess if it was in answer.  He lay back down.  A woman further down the street waved me over, asked if we should call 911, neither of us had a phone.  A bus pulled up and she told the driver, he proceeded to get off of the bus and walk over to the man, said something to him, told us he recognized the man, that he was drunk, that he would call someone.  Her bus arrived, I crossed the street to wait.  He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, unbalanced legs wide. Sat down, pulled his luggage (a blanket in one of those plastic zipper things they come in) over to him, zipper broken.  I began to read, when I looked up again, he was gone.  Just his luggage there. I worked my eyes to the corner, he was talking to another man, then stumbled into the street, traffic coming, he made it across and wandered off into the night, I prayed any angels to spare to watch him tonight.  As my bus pulled up, I heard another man say, "oh, shit" and then the sound of piss hitting the sidewalk as I got on the bus.  No inhibition.  Sirens blare in succession the whole time I wait.