One of many, many annoying things about me is that I whistle a lot. When I’m bored I whistle. When I’m in a good mood I whistle. When I’m alone I whistle, and when I put my mouth to it, I can whistle damned loud.
Waiting at a bus stop, usually I whistle “Ilia’s Theme” from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. If you’ve seen the movie, or even if you haven’t, Ilia was the bald space alien. Jerry Goldsmith wrote her a great theme, and I’ve been whistling it for almost 50 years. Loud. The whistling’s not intended to annoy people, but if it does that’s OK.
At the house up the street, there’s a wiener dog that barks too much, yip yip yip yip yip. It’s a cute dog, and I ain’t mad at him. Yip yip yip yip yip, that’s what wiener dogs are supposed to do. But the dog doesn’t like it when I whistle, so by habit while waiting at the bus stop, I whistle loud as I can at the dog across the street. The dog yips and yips, and the fat guy whistles and whistles.
When my bus pulled over to let me on, soon as I stepped aboard the driver said, “Man, I could hear you whistling as I pulled up.”
No way. A bus is noise on wheels, and my whistling can’t drown out a bus’s engine and all its rattles and squeaks, so I asked, “What song was I whistling?”
“This ain’t musical bingo,” the driver ‘splained. “I said you whistled loud, not good.”
♦ ♦ ♦
That bus took me to a big, open-air depot called the Burien Transit Center. From the BTC, another bus took me to breakfast at a nearby cafe, and after breakfast a third bus brought me back to the BTC, where I sat on a bench waiting for my fourth and final bus, the ride that would take me home.
There are always bums at the Transit Center, and at least three security guards, sometimes more. I’m not sure guards are necessary, but if they are, three is two too many. I’ve never seen or heard of violence there. Arguments, oh yeah, plenty of times, but to my knowledge no stabbings or homicides. And when there is an argument, the security guards only watch. They’re not cops. They don’t get to arrest people or beat anyone up.
Usually they’re the same guards as the day before, and I’ve gotten to know a few of them. So there I was, sitting on a bench and pretending to read a book while actually I was watching a pretty woman, and then a guard I’d chatted with a week ago said to me, “Hey, someone puked there.”
That’s not quite as cordial as “Good morning,” but indeed, some recent yellow and green was on the concrete at my feet. It seemed to be dry, though, and once it’s dry I don’t notice it. Call me an optimist.
I shrugged and said, “It’s a bus station. There’s not a bench here that hasn’t been puked on a hundred times.”
“Probably,” he said, “but you’re sitting in some pretty fresh stuff, not even an hour old.”
It was a hot day — 82° — so the puke had evaporated to only the colors. Couldn’t smell it or anything. Still sitting, I gently shoe-tapped the yellow and green and got that tacky sound and stickiness, like walking on the carpet at a movie theater. OK, I don’t want to walk sticky, so I thanked the guard for letting me know, and stood and walked a few steps to a shady leaning spot, where I started whistling, and thinking.
It’s the essence of life in the city. Every public place has been coated with centuries of shit, piss, blood, and vomit, but the rain washes it away. Seattle is famous for rain.
♦ ♦ ♦
Not too much later, my #99 rolled up, empty, starting its route that would take me home. Seven people got on, and the driver looked vaguely familiar, but everywhere I go I go on the bus, so most drivers look vaguely familiar.
Settling into my favorite seat, two rows behind the sideways seats, I looked out the window. The driver closed the door. The bus rolled forward, and I guess I started whistling. Wasn’t even aware of it until the driver clicked the public address system on and announced, “No whistling on the bus.”
We made eye contact in his rear-view mirror, and I recognized him. It was the same driver from my first bus that morning, and I wondered, if I whistled again would it make him yip?
6/25/2025
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