Johnny raced out of the boy’s locker room, still wet under his clothes and smelling of chlorine. He actually liked the smell because it made people ask about it. That way he could talk about his swimming, otherwise there was never much to talk about with anybody. It was something he was good at; besides, there wasn’t much else to boast about in his life. He was pretty much like everybody else. Big deal.
As he flew through the swinging doors, the other boys, with their doughy whiteness, screamed “I wanna hold your hand…” at the top of their lungs, while banging on the locker room doors. In this too he was unlike them: he hummed some bossa nova to himself instead, thinking that the Beatles were a bit bland. Outside, on the chilly wet sidewalk, he looked up the broad avenue and saw the #38 Geary Street bus coming out of the cold mist.
He jumped on at the stop, and headed straight for the back, where the seat over the motor was hot, humid hot, like a steam bath. At this hour the MUNS weren’t there; and when they are, they always take over the whole back section of the bus. But now he had the noisy back section to himself. Stepping on the shells and chips they left behind, he sat and looked around.
M-U-N-S was spelled out in various forms on both sides of the bus. They were a San Francisco gang. Well, not a gang really, more like a style. They wore a lot of black, with skin-tight pants, pointy shoes, shiny wet-looking jackets. Interestingly, they were an oddly diversified bunch: Asians, latinos, philipinos. He would never be asked to join; maybe you don’t need to join, you just look it.
The bus made its way downtown, and he got off at the Opera House, just past the City Hall. There, as he entered, he noticed his parents near the broad, marble steps. They were actually on time and waiting for him. His mother has never been on time for anything in her life. He could tell right away that they had been fighting again: they had that disequilibrated force field around them, that agitated everything in its orbit.
Nobody said much. They all went up and inside to their seats amid the muffled chatter of the audience settling in; of course, he got to sit between them. The lights dimmed; the audience quieted; the curtain rose slowly as the auditorium went dark; the weight of the situation came down on Johnny like an old friend, a loving black dog.
In the almost silent darkness, he was startled by the rustling of cellophane, that grew louder and louder, and, exasperatingly, wouldn’t stop. Johnny sank lower into his seat. Just then his father had finally found what he was looking for. The loud rustling of the cellophane stopped, and was followed by the dry, crisp crunching of the pork rinds, one of his father’s favorite snacks. Johnny could feel his head swimming; he couldn’t get out; he could feel the audience turning into a mob, coming for him.
In that instant, he knew; he had become a MUN forever, and forever apart: doomed to sit in the back of the bus, blond-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned, but dressed in tight black jeans and a shiny wet-looking jacket. A fool.
Back to Land’s End Stories: Contents Page
