As the Arbor Hill Express Comes and Goes, so does the feeling in my toes.

Name of Place Visited: Bus Stop
Street Address: in front of Rite Aid at 23 North Pearl St. in Downtown Albany
Date, Time of Day: 1/25/2008 4:25p.m. - 5:25 p.m.

Wanderlust at its best.
There’s no better way to kill a Friday without class than wandering aimlessly through Albany’s streets and watching people go about their business. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine, but at least it doesn’t really hurt anyone else. Most folks wouldn’t believe half the things you hear in passing on city streets. That’s how I ended up here. I followed the flow, and landed on a hard wooden bench in this glass-capped bus stop. I am sitting on the right hand side of the bench across from the Crowne Plaza Hotel where the Arbor Hill/Mt. Hope bus picks people up en route to Arbor Hill.
Behind me is a large Rite Aid and across from me is a Starbuck’s (they really are everywhere). I am also facing a bus stop for the same two lines, which seems to draw more people but fewer true characters than this chilly haven for commuters. However, the general feeling of this particular structure is a tad ghetto.
I didn’t really predict that coming into it, I just figured it would be similar to the average Western Avenue bus stop; lots of college kids, the occasional hobo smoking a cigarette outside, you know, the usual.
It sure isn’t like a bus stop back home in Gloversville where all you see is alcoholics, crackheads, and me—maybe all I am is just a rough mix of the two? Gloversville will do it to you.
As far as comfort is concerned, this is really not the place for it. This bench isn’t bad for the first ten minutes, but I’m starting to get kind of sore.

I also feel a bit out of place being the only person who is not:
a.) wearing boots b.) wearing black
c.) naturally black d.) fluent in Ebonics
e.) all of the above

Stalkers and Chicken Wings.

However, I’m much more comfortable here than I was an hour ago, even if just because I’m the only thing constant here besides the discarded Dunkin’ Donuts bag to my right. It reminds me of being in a place that is a cross between Saratoga and Schenectady—classy globe light fixtures mixed with ten word conversations mumbled between drags of cheap cigarettes.
People have surrounded me almost the entire time as they waited for various buses. This is an unlikely place to meet people, but apparently it happens, whether it’s just observation or conversation. Sometimes these meetings are jewels, just for some raw snippet of what those around me are really like. For example this dialogue between a woman whom I’ll call Clunker, based on the noise she made plopping down next to me, and a man who came in about five minutes later who I’ll call Colonel Sanders.
Sanders: You waiting for the bus?
Clunker: Yeah. What’s for dinner?
Sanders: If you come over I’ll cook ya some chicken wings. Ya want some wings?
Clunker: Yes!
Sanders: Fo’ real?
Clunker: Yes.
Sanders: I wanna watch some movies.
Clunker: DVD, right?
Sanders: Got it all. DVD, VHS, TV. Everything.
She smiled and then they boarded and left. “I’ll cook ya some chicken wings” is my new favorite pickup line.

Not once has anyone come up to talk to me, I guess I must look too busy scribbling away in this notebook. I’m probably the crazy guy that I’m used to searching the streets for. Sitting somewhere and jotting down thoughts on a legal pad like a TV detective on speed. Yep. That’d be me.
Or maybe it’s because a dude with a notebook looks a tad sketchy. I definitely feel like a creep as I listen to people on the pay phone. The first is a lady with a leopard print hat who mumbles into the phone and I can’t understand a single word of it. She gets up soon after and walks back over to the phone. Again, I can tell the conversation and is rushed and probably important. She’s speaking like she’s afraid all of us are watching her. Probably because we are.
The next guy is more understandable but draws far less attention. Maybe because he doesn’t pretend to hide anything from us. He says: “Are you kidding me? I’ll be there in like five minutes. I’ll give you 10-15 minutes. Half hour? We’re on Pearl. We can be there in 10-15 minutes.” Click.
He makes another call: “Yo! What up? Chop Chop! You just drove by us. Alright.” Click. He and his friend walk out.

There have been a lot of people in wheelchairs. One man in a wheelchair with about a week of stubble and long gray hair seemed to have a really hard time climbing up the small slope toward Rite Aid and I wish I could disobey the rules of the sit-down and help him. As if someone could hear my thoughts, a man holds the door open for him and then pushes him into the store. There are still nice people left in the world.

This blind man walking down the street is impressive. He is wearing a suit and tie, and walks with his cane almost as fast as I do with my eyes open. It makes me wonder: does he have great senses that allow him to quickly navigate this busy street, or has he just done it so many times before that he’s memorized the whole route? I suppose I’ll never really know.
Another guy came in as the bus stop filled up in anticipation of the Number Six and started offering small manila bags to people for $5, asking if they needed “any”. There were at least two buyers but I have no idea what he’s selling. I’m guessing drugs, but maybe he’s a traveling—small paper bag salesman.

The Sights and Sounds of Rush Hour (minus Jackie Chan)

It’s busy right now. Cars, buses, and taxis whiz by; carrying people home from work as rush hour begins. My ears are filled with the sounds of traffic and people walking. Casual businessmen’s conversations, powerful bus-driven vibrations, and the small talk of the people surrounding me in the bus stop. I can see many different colors from where I sit. The stoic brick of the office complex across from me, the white sides of buses, the red, white, and blue of the Rite Aid logo, and the omnipresent black of the down jackets around me. It’s much darker and colder now that the sun has gone down. When I first sat down, I was still in the shadow of downtown buildings, but at least there was a beautiful blue sky above me. Now I’m freezing and it’s getting tough to continue using my hand to write this. Looking around for something to keep my fingers busy, I pick up a discarded Dunkin’ Donuts cup. Too bad it’s cold. And empty, not that I’d drink anything I found on an Albany street. It’d just be nice to have a tangible trace of someone else’s experience between my frozen fingers. It makes me really want some coffee right now. I wonder if I’m breaking the rules if I do it just to warm my hands up.

A businessman walks by looking angry. Walking fast like he wants to avoid this stop and all of its occupants. It makes me feel kind of bad for sitting here. Maybe I’m bad for thinking that he sees us as lower individuals than him. Then again, it’s kind of cool I’m included in a group that he has an opinion about and I haven’t even had to say a word. Sometimes placement makes all the difference in the world.
Arbor Hill bus shows up. I’m all alone now.
WHY do I have the song from Reading Rainbow stuck in my head!? Levar! How could you do this to me?
23 minutes to go and I can’t feel my toes.
The sun is leaving me and the streetlights are all on. I feel like I’m in the beginning of an Arthur Miller play as 5 o’clock rolls around and businesspeople leave their imposing towers behind them.
For people all up and down the East Coast, it’s now the weekend!

Can’t feel my left big toe. That’s probably a bad sign. That’s the price you pay for doing things the creative non-fiction way.

This is a completely different road once the sun goes down. I love the neons, the reds and blues. Pizza joints, bagel shops and bars; this is where Albany comes alive. The smell of cigarettes, spit, garbage and exhaust with a slight hint of Mr. Boston vodka fill the air around me. This is what it feels like to be alive in the heart of banAlbany.
Somebody’s laughing but it sounds like tears to me.