Hard Hat

As blue collar as they come, the two young men board the bus and head for the rear. I'm seated at the extreme back of the bus again.

Paint stains cover their ragged blue jeans and their shirts are dirty. One of them, obviously the older and more experienced one, is still wearing his grey hard hat but removes it as he slumps sideways into an empty two-seat bench. The other sits in the sideways seats directly behind him, and they chat, with the younger one seeming to have more to say. I can't hear exactly what they're saying due to the noise of the bus engine directly behind me, but it's obvious they're not debating Jung vs Freud.

Hard hat man examines his hand for nicks and scratches, and picks at a tiny, gnarled piece of skin loosed in a scrape. He opens his bag and pulls out a chocolate bar, consuming it slowly but in large portions. The other one is holding an unlit cigarette, eagerly anticipating disembarking so he can light it. But he just got on the bus.

As we pass the historic intersection of Portage & Main, I see what I can only presume is a Downtown Biz tour guide in his distinctive red uniform addressing a group of 30 people. He's standing on the flower planters near the concrete pedestrian barrier so everybody can see him. But hard hat man and his colleague don't notice.

The colleague is the restless one. Whereas hard hat man wants to chill out and relax on his bus ride home, this other one is an annoying, foul-mouthed chatterbox. I sense a small degree of "Oh, won't you please shut up!" coming from the older one, and yet he doesn't let on. I don't think he's making a conscious choice to be polite - he's simply too tired to do anything else. He has done the math and knows it would take more energy to get his colleague to stop talking than simply to wait it out. I find myself wondering who gets off first, and what the thoughts of the remaining one will be as he is suddenly left alone.

There's my stop.