Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

My trip into Center City today started ominously.

First, there was the persistent rain, which began with a small drizzle and led to a downfall. I had to put my notebook away and stop writing. This was frustrating, since I was trying to write a query letter to newspapers to pitch my column, Dream Machine: Meditations on Pop Culture.

But I figured it was a temporary setback, and I could start writing again once the bus came.

Three teenage girls arrived at the stop, chatting constantly. They all had umbrellas, and one of them wore huge gold earrings that spelled out her name within a heart. I tried to read it, but she kept shaking her head as she spoke. I think it read "Careena."

"When is the bus coming?" one of them asked me. I didn't know but I guessed about 10 to 12 minutes.

From the firehouse a block away, a siren began to shriek. Then another siren, a smaller one. Flashing lights drew up to the corner. A policeman. The fire engine pulled up behind him. The officer looked around hesitantly before stepping away from his car and walking up to me.

"Did you call 911 about shots being fired?" he asked.

"Shots fired? Here? No," I replied. "Shots were fired here???"

He turned to the teenage girls. "Did one of you use a cell phone, call it in as a prank?" he asked gently.

I vouched for them. "They got here after I did," I said.

He talked into his radio. "We'll just take a look around," he said. The three teenage girls went back to gossiping. They were talking about what he said to what she said and what she said when she heard that he said...

The police and the fire engine drifted away, and the teens didn't even notice. I figured if they were so nonchalant, I may as well be, too. The bus arrived with no further incident.

On the way into the city, the gray skies and rain were their own adventure. A muted one. The people on the train seemed less boisterous, more meditative.

On the way back home, I took a single seat so that I could write without bumping elbows with a seat mate. Across from me, a teenage boy of 16 or 17 sat down, next to an older gentleman. The teen looked halfway between a boy and an adult. Contrasted with his strong features and his smooth, chocolate brown skin, his long-lashed eyes seemed like the eyes of a child. With his short-cropped hair and nondescript clothes, he seemed to have already progressed beyond the teenage desire to follow the trends.

Carefully, he ate some rice cakes out of a plain paper bag, seeming to savor the texture.

At the next stop, the gentleman nodded and the teen boy let him out, a wordless, careful dance. He pulled out of his pocket a piece of paper, folded into quarters. It was a certificate, the kind you get for an accomplishment in school. Although most of it wasn't legible from where I sat, his name, Saleem Wilson, was carefully calligraphed in large letters in the center.

He studied it for so long I wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe he was waiting for the teenage girls behind him to take notice. They could see it through the clear glass, although they seemed to be giggling more than paying attention to him.

One of the girls got off, and the other made her move. She tapped him on the shoulder.

"Saleem. You're so stupid," she chided. "We were calling you."

"You were?" he asked, a smile spreading across his face.

"Yeah. We gonna call you 'Turtle.'"

She gave him a bright smile and got off at the next stop. He carefully folded the certificate, smiling. For that moment, it seemed, "Turtle" was more of an accomplishment than his school-earned certificate.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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