Google maps says the bus should have been here at 1:26. It was 1:29 at that point. The bus may have been early, but I had been at the stop for five minutes. More likely, it was late. Seattle in the early fall wasn’t a bad place to wait. It wasn’t raining today, and I was fairly content, after my meal at a gyro shop down two blocks.
I was on my way north, and east a bit to Bothell. I was here by virtue of the reduced Sunday bus service. I had no real business in the Emerald City. Just passing through, as I so often was. Permanence was not something I felt too strongly about then.
Uncertainty was the sickness of the time. I could see my bus. The number 512 was bright above its windshield. I found a seat behind the joint where the double-long bus could bend. There was a space before there were more chairs. I found it a comfort for long legs.
“You know it’s a scam right?” a faceless voice says from behind me.
“The Jacobites, they were silenced, but they are still here,” the same voice says again.
I remember my mother’s show, Outlander. The character Jaime had been a Jacobite or at least fought on their side. Jaime’s fight for freedom was both romantic and heroic. Two vague words. Heroic, it might have been. Not romantic. There is no romance for corpses.
I lived with the privilege of not having to bloody myself for much of anything. Yet privilege can be ignored, and I had managed to bloody myself plenty. My freedoms had already been fought for. My ancestors, or someone’s, had already bled on fields so I would be free.
I figured I was fairly free. Free enough to look to the east, to see the Cascades rise pointed and dominating. Free enough to look to the west, to see the Olympics, being, as their name would suggest. I was free enough to choose to sit here. These had not been the first mountains I had been free enough to see.
Mountains here are painted
Impossibly steep on the horizon
Green towers
Green pillars
Unreal till you see them close
Painted over with white brush strokes
I think of paintings by Sensei’s Wife
I’m a child again counting in Japanese
Ich Punch, Ni punch, San punch…
Only it’s Chinese I’m speaking
And the mountains are real.
Paint strokes,
The strokes of God maybe
Or many gods, spirits dwelling
In everything, everyone
I love my rolling mountains
Of granite and ice
But these mountains
Of green and life
Of white clouds and grey
This is a place I will remember
I guess I was fairly free.
The man at the bus stop was free. I’m In Everett now. Waiting for one last bus. He walks by in all black, black face mask, black hatchets swinging at his waste. One of those, don’t make eye contact but don’t look away. He passed by without killing anyone, as that other guy did in Bellevue. I remembered him. He was walking up and down the bus line, opening and closing his switchblade.
He was not free. Fifty people had stared back at him dead faced. Asking, “Do you work forty hours a week? Punk? Get the fuck out of our faces. None of us are missing this bus.” He wasn’t free.
Howl howl
Ginsberg once cried
Longing but hopeful
Into the cold long night
And we listened
Some
Not enough,
But we listened.
Now too few howl
The silence has crept in
Moloch has won
The night that once,
Simply appeared long,
Shall never end.
Frost was wrong,
This world shall not end in fire
For ice is far worse,
Killing you slowly,
Ever,
For death, shouldn’t be what we fear
It should be this.
The man with the hatchets. He was free. They would put a bullet in him. Then he would be truly free.
The 105 was late. It most likely hadn’t been ten minutes early. Oh wait, a bus driver just came out of the bathroom and was turning on a bus. Wait… yup, it was the 105. I guess he was free to be late. Hatchetman was gone.
The bus hastily pulls toward the pickup lane. A woman, thankfully young, takes a quick hop onto the sidewalk. I wondered what would suck more, death by hatchets, or by bus. I had been just about killed by a car before. 150 CCs of blood on a Taiwanese street. I would take the bus. The car hadn’t hurt at all.
To those,
Dearly, too soon, departed
Those minds never to be
Voices never heard
I was almost you.
Too young and stupid
And for a moment luck ran out
Because luck isn’t real
It’s all timing.
Sometimes the timing is wrong
Sometimes the chance is, we die.
Immortality is a god’s game
And even gods, die.
I laid on that street, crushed
And bones fragile.
I had the courtesy to not die
Friends watching, crying
I did not die,
I am not one of those
Dearly, too soon, departed.
The 105 is smaller, but I still got my own seat. I take the one near the back door. No one reads, but there is a sign asking to please exit from the back. We are free in that way too, I guess. We pass Kids Country of Everett, bad memories. We pass Tully’s Coffee, I had met my roommates there.
Dante’s Café was still the best. Where in America can I order Bailey’s in my coffee at 8 am, and no one looks at me funny? No, we are not that free.
This bus ride is short, and it is my last bus. I’m in Bothell, but I’m not going home yet. Herbal Nation, and a green wavy inflatable balloon man petitioning for attention. They can never find my birthday on my Massachusetts’ driver’s license. I pick up two half-g pre-rolled Girl Scout Cookies. I also grabbed a legal soda. We do have this freedom.
I took a left, before the left, my condo was on. Another quick right and I was walking through the woods behind my condo. I found a place by the Brook to relax, and I cracked my soda.
There was a tent down the stream a bit, maybe a hundred feet before the main road. It had been there for a couple of months. I think they thought people hadn’t noticed. They were young, and always left their cars parked by the road. Perhaps they were free. They were mostly left to be. I wondered if others had actually noticed them, or maybe just me. The half g of Girl Scout Cookies was almost gone, and it would be minutes still before I felt the soda.
In this case, I was free, and I was not free. Yet, I did not have this in Taiwan, and I had not minded at all.
A dog barks, it’s Rocky. My roommates’ husky/Sheppard mix. My old family dog was named Rocky. My current dog was a husky. I still thought I would be bringing her out.
The day would not keep, as it was autumn in Washington. The rain did not move me yet. I wore a raincoat, as it was autumn in Washington. I lit the second half g. I was feeling good, but my only ambition for the day was to write D&D campaigns. I could feel a little better.
The roaches splashed in the Brook. I stood, my eyes closed. I recalled writing poetry in the rain, some years back. I had been in the woods of North Shore Massachusetts, less than a mile from the Atlantic.
I was free to remember. The words of the poem were breathed across unmoving lips.
This is to you, sweet song man
Enricher of the mind man
Instructor of the soul man
To you, the music man
You, who has been with us for ages
You, who taught us to peel back the layers of the soul
And to reveal ourselves to others
And others, to us
You, who sang for us, and played for us
The first stories
You, who gave us voice, always
To you, sweet song man
Keeper of the Soul man
Breaker of the Heart man
To you, the music man
You, who can save a life
You, who can give us strength
You, who can fortify a soul
Against all the horrors of the world
And the dark things, that can make life unbearable
To you, sweet song man
The not so silent, shadow of man
The Funky shaman man
To you, the music man
You, who plays for pain
You, who plays for love
You, who plays for loss
Sweet sound player
Angry noise maker
The soul of man strummer
To you, sweet song man
Sorrowful voodoo man
Soul crafting magic man
To you, the music man
I remember being wet. I remembered trying to shield the paper. I remember that poem’s reception, applause. My girlfriend then, disliked it.
I was alone. I was free to be alone. Free to remember.
Feeling the dark sand
The salt heavy sea, cleans me
A brutal baptism of force
Fight, dive, roll, and swim
Deeper into the sea spirits home
Thrashed by the waves that cover me
I know how this battle is fought
And the Pacific welcomes me
As I find peace amongst nature’s chaos
Humility, in a world out of my control
By Tyler Golec
Tyler Golec's Writings 
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