Virtual Gypsyz

Art by Clutch. Word by Jose Javier Rodriguez.

En los báncofa. The Bank. He’s talking to you. ¿’sta que hora cierran en los Bancofamérica…sabes? Pay attention: closing time. Voy pa’l que ’sta en la Güachingtong con la cientosiete. Bank of America. The one that’s on what street and what street. You couldn’t conjure up anything at all on One-oh-seventh, much less a bank. And anyway, where the bus was right then, you couldn’t say. No sé. That wasn’t a helpful answer. But you said something, so who cared. Your eyes and his met. Mi banco… creo que cierran a las cuatro y media. He was a man, like you, mid-twenties. He had a tight fade and slight goatee and he was looking you square in the eyes with his mouth closed and all places around his eyes taut, but not frowning. He was probably a quick mind. He was paying attention and practically reading you. It made you want to answer well. Pero los hay que cierran como a las cuatro. There, you said you don’t know but you rounded it out by guessing for him. Alright, bro, thanks. He had pale skin. You couldn’t place him. Born here or maybe came real young. You both switched to English once you saw one another. You’re riskin’ it. Your editorial comment about his decision to take this trip (possibly) in vain got no reaction, that you noticed.

You looked away from Late To The Bank Guy. But your head turned real slow the way people do when the conversation just stops, rather than clearly ends, and hangs in the air just a bit longer. He seemed like he would have noticed that it took you a couple of seconds to come up with a response. More likely, though, it seemed longer than it really was. Not that it mattered either way. But you were curious how he saw it. What he thought about it. What it would be like to be Late to the Bank Guy in that moment. You began to feel what it might be like to sit where he was, on that side of the bus. And you began to see the bus from his side and to see, sort of, what you would have looked like to him as he was looking at and talking to you. That’s all you could manage with your imagination. But to really see and hear the world as not you. Looking out on everything through the peephole of another’s front door. You could never know.

A god-awful squealing filled your ears and you were jerked forward. The one person standing, a man in the aisle at the front of the bus who was ducking his head and eyeing the door, was jerked frontward. Those sitting mostly hung forward a bit, about to drift back into place. The brakes. That must have been what woke you up from your nap on the window. At that moment you could hear the sound that had roused you. You were either just now remembering the sound of brakes or just now imagining it to go along with your newfound story about how you woke up. It was like being confused by a memory of something that might have had happened in real life, but might just as easily have happened in a convincing dream that morning. Sleeping on the damned bus. You’d been jolted awake to a sore head and drool. Having forgotten where you were, where you were going, that you were on a home visit. It took you a couple of seconds, at least, to look around and rediscover even who you were. More than just forgetting where you were, you were waking up into yourself. You could have woken up as anyone it seemed. But you came into yourself. Back into yourself. From nothing. Or from somewhere else.