Mouse Cloud Black Cow

Written July 17, 2008 11:26p.m.

Mouse Cloud Black Cow (Unedited)

You never really notice the clouds at night. They’re just something else to take for granted like street lights or the sound of crickets. Well actually clouds aren’t like those things because with the latter objects you notice them when they’re not there, but how often have you looked up at the night sky, when you weren’t taking it for granted or doing something cliché like admiring the constellations, and noticed the seemingly cloudless night sky? Well I noticed the clouds tonight, only briefly, but nevertheless they were noticed. I think it’s because they (at least the particular cloud I noticed) retained the fluffiness that usually characterizes them during the day but somehow seems to dissipate when the sun goes down. This cloud seemed unusually bright too. I don’t want to say it was white, grey would be more appropriate, with the ebony opaqueness of the sky mixing and mingling with the ivory of the cloud to form this pewterish color. It reminds of the color of a mouse, so that’s what I’ll call it. Me and my mouse cloud, the unfairly pleasant night breeze—not too much humidity—and Steely Dan’s “Black Cow”.

I’m sitting at Alfred’s house, alone in his plain room. White walls, flat carpet, a shoe here or there. Things I’m choosing to notice right now. The list of important black people, people he should know (or at least that I think he should know) still on his mini dry-erase whiteboard where I put them last week. Lena Horne, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and “People you should know” with the “should” in big fat obnoxious dry-erase letters, still not erased. He probably still doesn’t know who they are.

Today was pretty nondescript. Even the class discussion in Magazine Production was uncharacteristically bland. I actually found myself getting quite bothered. We were continuing a discussion we’d previously started on writing. What makes a good writer? What are the top five things, traits you have to have in order to be a good writer? We filled up sixty minutes tip toeing around the responses to the last two traits. The “I’ll tell you if you don’t get them by the time class is over” game, the “Can you just tell us the last two…tell us what you’re looking for” game. And how disappointed I was! “Active voice” and “Be specific”. How lame. I feel like we could’ve used our time a lot more wisely.

“There is exactly one word for everything you’re trying to say” Prof Bo said. This was the greatest thing I learned today. And how true indeed. I have become sincerely enamored with words. Words as they are, as individual units, pieces of a quilt, or mosaic, or any truly great and beautiful compilation. Are words and vocabulary the same? Prof. Bo, the editor, chooses to use the analogy as words (or vocabulary) being the ingredients to a meal. But aren’t the best dishes composed of the best ingredients? That’s for another time.

I have a history test in the morning, and I should probably be going over some notes or something right now. But I’ll blow the few facts I do know up, inflate them so, sprinkle them with some exciting words or vocabulary and the Professor will scarf it down. It may not be gourmet but it will be palatable. I’m sure it will be tastier than many of the other essays she will receive, and while I do not make a habit of being so mediocre, I’m really damn tired. Which reminds me, I didn’t buy a Blue Book.

There is a bus driver that I’m starting to hate. You see hate for a total stranger has to be cultivated, like a bacteria culture in a Petri dish, or mold. Hate requires a strong emotional attachment, and that is something I do not have for this bus driver with him being a total stranger and all. I feel more disgust or pity, definitely genuine disgust. He makes it his business to give people an extra hard time about showing him their passes. “Make sure I can see the picture or I can’t let you on the bus”-- I just want to kick him in his big stupid face when he does this. Surely he takes his job too seriously; I just know they don’t pay him extra to be an asshole. But then I think to myself (this is where the pity can creep in) he is just a bus driver. That is who he is and who he must remain. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes I’ll try to entertain thoughts of him being a dad or a good spades player or maybe a choir singer, but I must stop myself. Because once he is no longer just a bus driver the disgust, feigned hatred, will erode— the drama will be lost. You can’t hate a guy who sings in the choir on Sunday’s and keep his friends entertained by given ‘em a good run at spades during Sunday dinner, who buys his kids candy from the corner store with extra change, and just so happens to have a crap job in the eyes of our status-hungry society; but just a bus driver—how sickening. Even as I write this I see his dumb face, hear his irritated, irritating voice, see his sagging pants, and am disgusted.

He makes it his business to keep his bus uncomfortably cold. Today was a mostly cloudy day, not unbearably sunny or even hot by comparison to most days. There is no reason why he had to keep it so cold. And, like whenever I board his bus, I see myself already home. I ride with a goal in mind, escape from the frigid interiors of the bus. I envision myself passing by the chemistry building, going past the strip on University, passing the unnecessary welcome center and track. I see myself having already passed the law school, already having overcome the longest part of the journey, the trip down 34^th street, already stopping at the light on the SW 35^th and pulling the cable which says to the driver “Let me the hell off” (it doesn’t really say this it says “stop requested” but I’m saying it when I pull it, especially on his bus). This mental going ahead makes the journey more tolerable. But today it was interrupted. As we made the turn at SW 35^th the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and got off the bus. He then crossed the street (the gas station is on the other side of the street) and took a break. “What the f*** is this guy doing,” some guy asked me, “I have no idea,” I stated not trying to hide my irritation. As me and the guy, and some random chick with a double chin and hair bleached blonde (it reminded me of cotton candy) sat on that frigid bus I though about sarcastic remarks I could make upon his return “I wish you had told me we were taking a break, I could’ve went and picked up some donuts…”. He materialized about six minutes later with an orange pop of some sort in his hand; pants in their signature sag “Come on fat ass,” the guy in back of me said. When he got back on the bus and I noticed his stupid face, I couldn’t muster up the intestinal fortitude to say any of the things I’d thought about saying. His face looked so innocently dumb, so sincerely ignorant, and I decided to let it slide. I always threaten to report him to RTS, mentally that is. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.