Passenger(31)

As I stand there, the Green Line bus arrives. The doors hiss open and a few passengers stomp out. None of them make eye contact with me. Shoulders bump into my own like I’m not even there. Behind the steering wheel, I catch a glimpse of the dark-skinned, overweight bus driver. She, too, does not look at me. And a moment later, the bus is chugging back down the street.

Baltimore is a big city with many suburbs. It is even bigger in the dead of winter, when walking one block feels like walking three, and the wind funneling through the canyon of buildings is relentless. It is when you see the windows boarded up and watch the destitute families trudging from apartment building to apartment building, wrapped in flannel and heavy coats and hats and gloves. The homeless set fires in gravel pits and empty iron drums at night, the peppermint red glow of the giant Domino Sugar sign at their backs. These same derelicts sleep on grates huddled together like seals on a beachfront, desperate for warmth.

The bus route takes me down Baltimore Street, through the district known locally as The Block. Flanking both sides of the street are the seedy strip joints and nightclubs, the greasy fried chicken establishments and a drug store, all currently dormant in the waning daylight. Soon, with the approach of night, they will all come alive. The tendrils of hypnotic perfumes are already carried by the air, foreshadowing things to come. I press on through the cold, the wind biting my cheeks and bald scalp. On one corner, two grizzled black men in filthy overcoats check me out with reptilian eyes while clenching cans of Natty Boh. Farther along Baltimore Street and the strippers dart between buildings, still in sweatshirts and tights, their hair pulled up, their faces unpainted. I pause at the next intersection. I can smell a fire burning somewhere. Also, farther off, police sirens whir. Rubbing my hands together for warmth, I scan the intersection for a bus stop sign or another portico. I find neither. Farther ahead, marquees snap on. Salsa music plays from a passing Cadillac. More and more cars file down the street, sloshing through puddles and kicking waves of freezing water up over the curb. In the blink of an eye, the streets are alive with leopard-pattern leotards and neon pink miniskirts.

Up ahead, the coffin-shaped silhouette of a city bus shudders and coughs toward me. Black exhaust hangs around it like an aura. It slides into the intersection and banks a left.

I break into a sprint after it.

“Run, rabbit, run!” shouts one of the grizzled black men as soon as I take off.

It’s the Green Line—in fact, the final bus of the night. As I sprint across the intersection, nearly taking a spill on a patch of black ice, the bus sputters to a stop and the interior lights come on. A number of passengers unload and spread out along the curb like a stain. I am running now for all I’m worth. The bus is still idling alongside the curb as I approach. I burn across to the opposite end of the street, crashing through puddles and kicking through snow rifts. Panting and out of breath, I reach the open mouth of the bus and stand there with my hands on either side of the doorway.

Startled, the bus driver turns toward me. “Hey, now—”

“Sorry.” I push off the doorway. “I’m sorry.”

“You need something, buddy?”

“No. No. Sorry.”

Because I am losing my mind.

Because maybe I never had it.

What did I think I would find? Did I think I would find myself sitting on this very bus?

At this moment, nothing would surprise me.

There is a warm-looking coffee shop across the street. I enter and am instantly thankful for space heaters. The place is only mildly populated—there appears to be more staff than customers—and the few men who are collected around various tables and at the front counter are obviously just wasting time until the strip clubs open.

I pull up to the counter and start rubbing my hands together. My decline in health carries with it poor blood circulation, as I have noticed a pervading and consistent numbness throughout my body since the recent drop in temperature.

“C’getcha, hon?” drones a portly waitress with bleached blonde hair behind the counter.

“Just a coffee.”

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Surprise me.” Really, I just want something warm.

Behind me, two young strippers enter on a gale of stoned laughter. They drop into the nearest booth, both on the same side, and they cannot be older than nineteen. Their complexions are of an olive hue, their eyes both hazel, their hair auburn streaked with red highlights. They look like twins.

When my coffee arrives, I do not drink it. Instead, I wrap my hands around it and drink up the warmth. To my left is a metal napkin dispenser, dented and pitted with rust. I touch it—it is cold—and tip it gently on its side while I stare at it. My dented, pitted reflection stares back.

I am looking worse and worse each day. I am dying.

I wonder if anyone has ever died from amnesia. In one of the books I stole from the library there is a chapter about severe cases of amnesia where people’s bodies have actually forgotten how to breathe, how their hearts have forgotten how to beat. Their stomachs can’t digest and their blood forgets to clot. But from memory alone? Can someone die because they can’t remember their birthday or the name of their first girlfriend?

Therefore I am.

As the night wears on, the male patrons pick up and saunter out into the cold. Many of them trade in twenty-dollar bills for singles at the register before they go. I don’t look up from my coffee. In fact, I watch my reflection simmer in the surface of the black liquid.