Stand Deftly

After having made the call to the bank and getting the automatic lock off of my bank account removed (long story, but as it was negative $1.80USD at the end of last month, I didn't have access to any of my recently deposited money), I took out enough money to eat on and to ride the bus for a few more days. This had to happen at our local market, which is just two miles from the house, as I don't have an ATM on my front porch.

So armed with a fresh pack of smokes and twenty minutes to spare, I walked to the closest bus stop, which is at the rear of the shopping center that contains said ATM. Not wanting to stand in the wet grass for long, I instead took up residence standing on the firm cool concrete that makes up the parking lot.

This lot has cars in it constantly; I think some of them have been there longer than both my children have been alive. There are age-old black gunks splattered in various assymetrical patterns, broken glass, and varicose cracks splintering the entire concourse. It sits in a nice neighborhood, but unfortunately neglect has worked its magic over the past fifty years.

Anyway, I'm standing there smoking almost religiously. I'm trying to wake up, trying to ignore the fact that I'm utterly dependent upon public transit to get me to the place that gives me the stuff to pay for the things to survive. I'm standing there, smoking, and suddenly I realize I'm being illuminated. I can clearly see my nose in my periphery, very bright, shiny with sweat and nose oils, in the otherwise dark September morning. I'm standing there smoking because I didn't want to stand in the wet dewy morning grass and because my car is, once again, not moving of its own accord. I'm standing in the parking lot, the nasty, grimy parking lot smoking because I clearly have nowhere else I can go.

I look for the source of this new light, not sure if I'm about to cease breathing, or if aliens decided right then and there was the best time to make contact, or if some kid was playing with a flashlight two hours before he had to be at school. I look to my left, and realize a car is sitting in the parking lot. The lights are on. The engine is on. The car is sitting in the nasty parking lot, everything on, and it is sitting at an angle blocking a car that has been there for centuries. This new car is aimed right at me, but it isn't moving.

I turn away, thinking that someone is just dropping someone off for the bus. Some people have a hard time walking, you know, and they have someone who loves them enough to drive them to the local bus stop. Not to drive them to their place of employment downtown, or wherever they may be going, but enough to at least get them to where they may procure easy transit.

I stand there for a good thirty seconds, waiting for the familiar whine and gust of whatever it is that city buses shoot out into the air as they drive, all the while the light is still on my nose, brightening each exhale of smoke from my lips.

Then something changes.

The lights dim very briefly, then get brighter: the car must have started moving. Maybe the driver saw the bus? Maybe they're going to extend the love for their passenger and take them closer to the hell they must endure for eight future hours today?

Then somehow the car is beside me, it's sitting there next to me and I can't tell if all the doors are going to open and a team of mobsters are going to convince me to get in the trunk, or if the dark tinted window is going to roll down and some nun is going to, in full nun regalia and habit, ask me for directions, or if the car is just waiting for the bus and felt lonely and wanted to be closer to a human.

The reverse lights flash on and the car begins a slow parking maneuver. I continue smoking.

The car is almost dangerously close to me at this point, and I move away to the curb of the nasty parking lot.

Suddenly, and without warning, the car lurches ahead at an angle, then pops back into reverse and slides back into the area which I was just standing.

Aha! Clearly I was standing in this person's spot. I should have realized that the nasty black gunk stains and broken glass fragments spelled out b-i-t-c-h, and the spot was called.

Of course, I'm being facetious. There was no sign, no name scrawled anywhere. This parking lot contains enough spaces for probably six hundred cars, all told, and more could fit if you double parked them in emergency, you know, like a festival or swim meet or something.

I had been standing there, smoking, waiting for a bus I didn't want to ride at a time of day I did not want to be standing in a nasty gunky parking lot, smoking cigarettes purchased with money that a financial institution did not want me to have access to, and I had the nerve to be standing in someone's spot.

How dare I.