Gentleman

I was walking down the Cloud Factory road in Oakland. It was about five o'clock and busy. I had a low-level kind of a bad day, the kind that isn't bad for any tangible reason, but you there is nothing special in the whole world to spark your interest. I walked down the road, trying not to get run over by the cars. I walked in the dirt and the trash, beside the pokeberries and general weeds. I love that road, because the Cloud Factory is literary and eye-catching and beautiful in its way. And I love that the railroad tracks are right there. Sometimes there are extra cars for coal and I go look at them and think about how I like trains. There's the romantic itch about trains that may not be based in any real world...

I walked by all of this and I felt a little better. Then a boy passed me on a bike. He was skinny and maybe vaguely punkish, but friendly in his dress. I actually can't picture him now, and this happened just a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, I glanced at him, and he looked at me and nodded firmly and politely. It was a sincere nod, but also a business-like, required nod, a gentlemanly nod at a lady as you both travel a muddy, dangerous industrial road. And I felt much better after that nod.