Posted: May 31, 08 8:38am
From my "Tenderloin Dispatches." I happened across this character again recently and recalled how I had first encountered him.
Van Ness bound on the 27-Bryant: a small, squat man boarded the bus at Taylor Street near the cusp of the Tenderloin. He was curved in on himself, slightly bowlegged and runty but powerful looking, the way rodeo riders are. He was completely apart from the usual herd and I was mesmerized. His hair was neat but looked self-barbered and curled slightly just above his shirt collar. He could have been forty or sixty and was clean-shaven with eyes the shape of almonds and the color of woodsmoke. His lips were thin and curly. He wore clean, long-lived Levis, the old fashioned kind with copper rivets at the pockets and bootcut legs, black walking heel western boots—without tooling and well cared for but tired at the heels—a hat of flax-colored felt with a beautiful curl to the brim but age and hard wear showing in its form, a heavy felt workshirt patterned in blue and gray plaid with a faded bandanna knotted stylishly at his throat—and a heavy leather pea coat the color of cinnamon. It had closures made from small silver discs, each with an eye of turquoise at its center. The coat was torn and gouged in places; I imagined run-ins with wayward bulls or tangled wire fencing. An altogether remarkable coat.
I was as if a bit of Big Sky country had boarded the bus. As he neared I smelled open space and tanned hide and high winds and sagebrush.
He looked at me and smiled and I commented on how much I liked his coat. “It’s an old one all right.” I suggested it could probably tell a few stories. “One or two,” he said.
A seat came open and he offered with a nod. I told him I preferred to stand and he paused a moment and then sat. I was able to watch over his left shoulder as he went through the contents of his wallet, an old one of black leather. First a “re-admit pass” to a movie theater—a faded, ticket-sized piece of paper printed on both sides. I couldn’t make out the print but the cowboy read both sides several times before tucking it back in the wallet. Next a plastic discount card of some kind, and then another similar. Neither of these cards held the promise of credit. A crumbling, faded Amtrak ticket stub. A tightly folded sheet of lavender-colored stationery. He unfolded this as tenderly as a father might caress his newborn son; there were several paragraphs of frilly cursive. I was able to read the signature: "Your heart, Cassie." As he riffled through the wallet I could see that it contained no money, not even a dollar bill. Where had he come from?
The cowboy smiled at me as I left at my stop. I felt we had shared some small, private story. I wanted to change my name to Cassie. I wanted to live in a small clapboard house somewhere on the Western prairie. I wanted to be the woman who had given him her heart.
I walked the two grimy concrete blocks to my apartment building and keyed the balky entryway lock. Someone had left a stained mattress on the first-floor landing, a note pinned to it, "FREE."
For the rest of the day I imagined I smelled sagebrush.
